trusting God

Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not rely on your own insight.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the LORD and turn away from evil.
It will be a healing for your flesh
and a refreshment for your body.

Proverbs 3:5-8; NRSVue

A mentor and good friend, my senior in more ways than one often tells me something like, “Trust God,” although the way he expresses it seems better than just that. The words you hope go deep down into your soul, your very being, and change you, a likely gradual change with many fits and starts, steps forward and a step or two back. It seems to us as humans that life is up to us. We either make it work or not, do the right thing or fail to do it. But the wisdom of Proverbs has a different take on this.

First, the necessity of a wholehearted, unreserved trust in God. Well, what are we going to get perfect in this life (or I wonder myself, in any life, for that matter)? We should never look for some kind of perfection in trying to “trust and obey.” It should be a commitment. Something like, “God, I really don’t get this well. It doesn’t jive with my experience. But I’m committed to it, entirely so, as much as I know how, only through your grace and help.” Something like that.

The next word is just as important, because when push comes to shove, we just naturally go to our default. We’re not to lean or rely on our own insight. It seems like some serious unlearning is likely in play here for most of us. I will grant exceptions, like in the case of my wife, who has the most wonderful, childlike (not childish) faith in God. For whatever reasons, although I think I’ve made significant progress, I still struggle in my faith. I like to understand just how things work and lacking that, I find it hard to trust. It seems to me that I have to accept that there’s something of mystery, mysticism, just not being able to grasp exactly all that is at play here, God’s ways, so that I have to trust both the process and outcome that is in God’s hands, and that, in spite of the inevitable mistakes I’ll make along the way.

Next is the word that we’re to, in my words, look to God in all of our circumstances, with the promise that God will make straight our paths. The NET footnote (verse 6) is helpful here. I think the NIV and NLT are also helpful here.

in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3:6; NIV

Seek his will in all you do,
and he will show you which path to take.

Proverbs 3:6; NLT

Acknowledging God means to depend on, trust in, and be obedient/submissive to. I like the idea in the NLT of seeking God’s will in all we do, but I admit, I’m a bit skeptical of the rendering suggesting that God will show us which path to take. Maybe that is the case in the sense that as we apply wisdom, we can make a good, reasonable decision at that moment in time, the process not free from trial and error, and never infallible. And as it says elsewhere in Proverbs (11:14; 15:22), not apart from the wise counsel of others. At the very least, God will honor our full commitment to trust and obey God, insofar as we understand that.

The final word here is to not be wise in our own eyes, but to fear God and turn away from evil, with the promise that as we do so, we will be refreshed in body and spirit. I do experience something of this, even if not as much as I should, due to my all too often weak faith. No matter what hangs over my head, or what lies ahead, I can find something of God’s rest.

As my brother, friend and mentor keeps reminding me, “Trust God.” Yes, it may seem trite, something many of us have heard in some form or another since our childhood days in Sunday School. But it can make a world of difference, the difference we definitely need.

what disciples and forms us?

“A disciple is not above the teacher nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

Matthew 10:24-25; NRSVue

A disciple is someone who closely follows someone else as their master or nowadays we might say, mentor. Though it somehow seems to me that today it’s often a grab-bag. Often some celebrity or star we think highly of, usually having something to do with traits or skills in them which we admire. Whatever we think highly of means that we both value it, and that we will be moved and formed by that. At best, we’ll pick someone in church community to emulate for good reasons while gathering good from a number of people in that fellowship.

As believers we’re supposed to be followers of Christ, baptized into an entirely new life. When you look at the gospel accounts along with the rest of the New Testament, we can see that this has never been an individualistic endeavor but is meant to be lived out together with others, as members of Christ’s body, as church. We don’t just learn more to get us through another week, but we are formed together in what it means to follow and become like the one whose name we profess as Christians.

It is never without weakness and problems which accompany our humanity. And it’s a destination for us all, a journey. More important than supposedly getting everything “right,” we’re to be changing more and more as individuals in community. If we’re looking for instant results, we’ll be disappointed. This occurs over time in the midst of the ups and downs of life, even our own failures as well as seeming successes.

What are we becoming? How are we changing? Good questions to ask.

learning the hard way

When a scoffer is punished, the simple become wiser;
when the wise are instructed, they increase in knowledge.

Proverbs 21:11; NRSVue

Simpletons only learn the hard way,
but the wise learn by listening.

Proverbs 21:11; MSG

Some little children think they have to touch the hot stove no matter what their mommy or daddy tells them. And it’s all too easy at least for many of us to get carried away through rationalizations and other thoughts so that we can go headlong into what is nothing less than wrong and just plain out bad for us and others. Is God’s grace present when we do that? Of course. But there are inevitable consequences.

As the proverb points out above, wisdom is evident when one pays attention to instruction and learns from that. To learn by experience is not bad, we can say that’s good as well. But to fail to pay attention to instruction is not good. Yes, when we err, if repentance and change demonstrated over time occurs, that’s good. But much better to pay attention to wisdom in the first place and become confirmed in that instead of having to learn the hard way.

why a social gospel is important

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Luke 4:16-21; NRSVue

The social gospel broadly speaking is concerned about the influence and change of the good news of God in Christ on the ground where people live (for a good summary of it, see this). I have often heard people, specifically Evangelicals say that whatever change comes in society is because people are saved, regenerated by the Spirit, changed, and then can make a difference in their own world beginning with their families. By the way, that’s not only good, but important in itself. If it’s mentioned in terms of a church, and in our individualistic culture and mindset, that seems to have been rare in my experience, it almost always gets back to individuals helping other individuals through the saving gospel. One of the other emphases, however, that I’ve noticed is something like what is sadly, I say, found in bumper stickers of cars, something like: “(Christians are) not perfect, just forgiven.” That seems to put all the emphasis on forgiveness of sins, as if that’s all the gospel of Christ is about. It’s like if you have your ticket to heaven, you’re all set. Akin to Dallas Willard’s good point about “barcode religion (Christianity).” The difference in one’s life in terms of character and good works is brushed to the side, perhaps completely dismissed.

If we’re not concerned about life on the ground in terms of poverty, the wide gap between the rich and the poor, systems that hold racial minorities and here in the United States particularly black people in a disproportionately difficult place for generations, the plight of refugees and foreigners, the lack of equal distributable healthcare for all, living wages, affordable housing, acceptance of all humans and the marginalization of none, human flourishing in general for all (one must not forget the climate crisis), then our gospel falls short of the gospel we find in the Bible.

To really get this, to understand it, one needs to read the Bible from cover to cover. Yes, forgiveness of sins is important, and so is justice and mercy for this present life. This is not about, for example American politics. This is a gospel that because of the needs found, would want its adherents as a whole, not individually of course, to seek to address them all. I didn’t address war and conflict above, because I think that if the problems I listed were seriously being addressed in a sustained way, that would help alleviate much of that. But seeking to help resolve human conflicts would also certainly be in the mix.

All of this is in a Jesus-like way within the good reign of God. It would not be a political party in the United States or represented in the United Nations. It brings with it the very touch of heaven, something the world can’t give. But it is worldly in its influence and outworking.

Yes, the social gospel is a vitally important aspect of the gospel, not just indirectly, but directly. In Christ we are a light for the world in every way imaginable.

imagining the change

Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it, so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it, so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that the scripture speaks to no purpose? Does the spirit that God caused to dwell in us desire envy? But God gives all the more grace; therefore it says,

“God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble.”

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

James 4:1-10; NRSVue

Yesterday I was thinking about something like the need for ongoing conversion, how change needs to continue in our lives and how through God’s saving grace it’s still up to us. Today I want to try to imagine just a bit what that might look like. We see things as westerners steeped under the influence of the Enlightenment in starkly individualistic terms. And while we most definitely need to look at ourselves, that needed consideration is not in a vacuum. It’s always and forever within community. Whether you’re talking about your family, work, neighborhood, church, whatever. How we live can never be totally isolated but is directly and indirectly in relationship with others.

James in the above passage first makes the point that we have to understand and get totally serious about dealing with our shortcomings and faults. Instead of excusing them, or taking them as par for the course, we regard them as serious and take full responsibility. The sin James is referring to is within community. And when you think about it, even our supposedly private sins affect our relationships in one way or another. And many sins are in community. It is the mark of both a mature person and church to be sensitive about this, and to go out of their way to avoid such with the accent on mutual love.

Let your imagination run wild on the good change God can bring about. In that process, perhaps the Spirit will give a glimpse into something of such. And if nothing else, at least we can long for something better, maybe beyond our imagination, but not God’s.

convert me

…rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.

But be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.

James 1:21-22; NRSVue

Yes, we love the Lord and we want to do God’s will. But what if we’re a jerk? What if we for whatever reasons, which seem entirely legitimate to us at the time, can fly off the handle easily due to our anxiety? Well, I speak from the depth of my own personal experience. Panic and fear not only affect us, but those around us. And sometimes in very direct, even offensive ways. Or what might you put into the blanks here? What helps you recognize your need for change? In the words of the title: conversion?

Conversion here simply means change, but not just superficial change, but through and through, to the heart and out from that into the practice. Yes, that’s what I’m getting at. I think that often people come to the place over time where they decide that change simply isn’t possible. They and I can say we here, because I can concur, have tried again and again, or have maybe done better for a period of time, then lapse into it again. What we’re talking about here is not some sinless perfection, because we won’t arrive to that in this life. But what conversion means in this life is a solid change in which we’re not the person we used to be.

Some see it as strictly an act of God. Somehow God overwhelms or by the Spirit simply changes the person’s heart and mind and life. End of the explanation. Others might see it as at least primarily a personal project that is up to the person, yes with God’s help, but still up to that person. I think the way James expresses it in the passage quoted above helps us see more clearly what is going on here.

Yes, we’re involved for sure. And yet only God can make that change real. But if we’re not at the place where we care about it, if we excuse it, or think that somehow, we simply can’t change for the better, then we’ll likely be stuck. In a sense it’s up to us for the conversion to take place. But without God, the change talked about here can’t happen.

Repentance and faith are required, and a determination and commitment to follow through and enter into what only God can bring about. Yes, we can’t on our own, but we’re told to go forward and do what in the end God helps us do. And conversion is both instantaneous and a process. We change overnight, and we’re changing over time. With assurance from God’s Word as here in James that God is the one who saves our souls by helping us into the needed change.

into a new place

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle.

Genesis 32:22-32; NRSVue

Sometimes it can seem like the bottom has dropped out from us and that there’s no place to go but down. And when we’ve imagined we’ve hit rock bottom, God seems to be no where except in our wondering, wandering thoughts. We’re lost in a web of trouble from which we can’t escape. I’ve been in something like that more than once.

And Jacob found himself there in his ongoing saga and struggle with his brother Esau, which had started with these twins from birth. Jacob knows that at one point Esau had had enough of Jacob’s treacherousness and trickery. And now they were going to meet after a long absence. Jacob thought his life was on the line. He was up against it, with seemingly nowhere to turn, except to go back home where Esau was along with God’s promise of the land. So in a rather desperate situation even though rich, he returns. In typical Jacob-like fashion, Jacob pulls out all the stops, doing all he can, just as he had always done to insure a good outcome. But thankfully for Jacob, this time that felt like not enough to him.

So Jacob encounters a man, turns out to be an angel, turns out somehow to be God God’s self, and wrestles with this man all night. And refuses to let go until this man blesses him. In the encounter, the angel puts Jacob’s hip out of joint. But Jacob prevails in that due to his tireless striving and insistence that he be blessed, the man blesses him. And changes his name from Jacob to Israel, “the one who strives with God” (NRSVue footnote).

From this encounter with God, Jacob is changed. As we see from the rest of the story of Jacob, it’s not like he’s now perfect. Not at all. But there’s a change, at least we can say that assuredly from this text. Perhaps we could say that Jacob changes from one who is essentially a striver with God and humans, to one who is a worshiper of God and a blesser of others (see Genesis 47:7, 31; Hebrews 11:21).

God wants to bring us into a new place as well. Might it be as difficult, or something of the same kind of difficulty Jacob went through? Surely of course. Otherwise, why is it in Scripture? Yes, I believe God wants to do the same for each of us, especially for those of us in special need of being broken and left with a blessed limp.

imagining yourself 5, 10, 20 years from now (and remembering 20 years ago)

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:18

Sometimes it can be downright discouraging when we’re facing the same or a similar trial with the same poor response, perhaps tied up in knots and set on a panic or being completely ill at ease, even while praying. Not handling this or that all that well. Having a poor attitude, or even if trying, finding ourselves at a loss and essentially lost, as if left on our own and not feeling well. We should get a trusted friend to pray for us, get needed counsel, whatnot, and continue to pray ourselves. As it is, just as a friend was telling me this morning, you don’t see any change in yourself from day to day, just the same unfortunately. But when we look back on the years, maybe even a year, but especially five, ten, twenty years in the past, we can see some significant changes.

I have wondered if I could meet and talk to the Ted of twenty years ago, just how much affinity I might have with that person now. And whether that person back then would listen well to the Ted of twenty years hence. Or whether for that matter, if I could meet the Ted of twenty years from now if I live that long, whether I would have the wisdom to hang in there and find affinity with and learn from that Ted.

All of this gives me hope not just for myself, but for others as well. May God give us a vision of how we might be in the midst of troubles, of the same difficulties, compared to how we are now. Completely different. And perhaps from examples of others we’ve seen. I think God can do that, and I think God does. God is concerned about many things, but one of the most important of quite a few other important things surely, is just who or what we’re becoming, the people and persons we are, were created to be, in essence, our real selves in community and in Christ. So much is secondary in comparison.

God wants to change us into a different person. But that won’t happen overnight. It is incremental and will take time. However the total change will be so great that it will hardly be recognizable. But God can put that desire in us, allowing us to recognize enough along the way to encourage us and help us keep on keeping on. Along with others in Christ by the Spirit.

revolutions/revolutionary change comes over time

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy,
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.…

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.

Psalm 51:1-2, 10

I’m not advocating for war of any kind and in fact am against that. To think through all of that as a committed Christ follower who because of that is committed to the way of nonviolence and peacemaking when considering the world at large is not easy. Surely apart from Christ followers, if there has to be violence of any kind, it ought to be only a last resort, and then as minimal as possible, and with the goal not of retributive, but restorative justice.

One can see in the foments of history that revolutions (American Revolutionary War) and revolutionary change doesn’t occur overnight. Although because of the fallout of all the harm done often measures have been put in place out of necessity, such as universal healthcare in Europe after the ravages of World War II, a needed sudden revolutionary change. But one more thing on violence: The only real needed revolution in any such scenario is that of ending it just as Christ did at the cross, God forgiving all the violence against Christ so that all violence would come to an end. Otherwise there will be cycles of violence (“Violence breeds violence.”), one group sore and seeking revenge years or even generations later because of the violence suffered at the hands of another group. When will the world at large quit justifying war and bloodshed? Surely the insanity of using weapons of mass destruction ought to awaken the world to the need of settling differences in a nonviolent way, the truly needed revolution. But alas! A mixed record.

But away from that overextended analogy, in our own lives, maybe say within our communities of faith during certain times, we may well become aware of the need for change, a revolution in becoming someone or something totally different than what we are. That is not going to occur overnight, though it actually will happen if we take the necessary steps and keep going through God’s grace and help.

But to get there we need to not sweep under the rug in some way by rationalizations or whatever, what wrong or deficiency has come to light. We need to cringe, confess it to God either ourselves if it’s personal, or together if it’s a sin or shortcoming within our community. The first turn around may seem small and inconsequential, but if we continue on the change over time, it will indeed become revolutionary.

In a penitent (“penance” so to speak), committed way, we continue on, come what may, through trials, temptations, set backs, yes even when we slip and fall in the same way as individuals or as community. We get up, brush ourselves off, acknowledge our wrong, and continue on the new path. Never seeing ourselves as anything less than sinners only in the sense that we are in the process of recovery from that. But committed to the new in what amounts to no less than the new creation in community and within ourselves, in formation in and through Jesus.

“Lament and mourn and weep.”

Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection.

James 4:9

The lamentation James calls for here is about getting one’s own house in order. The words are addressed to Christians in community, as well as individually. James’s words aren’t just addressed to individuals, but to all. The entire community is involved and so it is the community together which must respond.

Leadership within the community should help by setting the example themselves. One has to read or hear as they did originally to better understand what James was getting at. The immediate context helps us see what James was immediately addressing:

Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it, so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it, so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that the scripture speaks to no purpose? Does the spirit that God caused to dwell in us desire envy? But God gives all the more grace; therefore it says,

“God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble.”

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

James 4:1-10

The beauty of the Lord will not come from the joviality and mirth of the world. But only through a heart set on change, and on understanding the emptiness and even danger of all apart from that. As well as beginning to realize the true life of love in works of faith. In and through Jesus.