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.

don’t let up (no matter what)

My child, if you accept my words
and treasure up my commandments within you,
making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding,
if you indeed cry out for insight
and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it like silver
and search for it as for hidden treasures—
then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.
For the LORD gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
he is a shield to those who walk blamelessly,
guarding the paths of justice
and preserving the way of his faithful ones.
Then you will understand righteousness and justice
and equity, every good path,
for wisdom will come into your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
prudence will watch over you,
and understanding will guard you.
It will save you from the way of evil,
from those who speak perversely,
who forsake the paths of uprightness
to walk in the ways of darkness,
who rejoice in doing evil
and delight in the perverseness of evil,
those whose paths are crooked
and who are devious in their ways.

Proverbs 2:1-15; NRSVue

In contrast, God is why you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

1 Corinthians 1:30-31; NRSVue

I grew up a pretty big Cincinnati Reds fan back in the days of the Big Red Machine with Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, my own favorite- Tony Perez, and company. It was a fun time for those fans. No one who remembers that time can ever forget the all-out effort of “Charlie Hustle,” Pete Rose, who used to run to first base after walks (ball four), I think was the one who brought back sliding headfirst into bases with all out abandon and gave himself completely to the game on the field. One time after we watched Don Gullett beat the Braves 2-1, we stayed afterwards and watched Pete Rose take 45 minutes of batting practice. I don’t think anyone believes that as talented as Rose was, that he was the greatest talent. He still holds the record for the most hits of any player in a Major League career: 4,256.

From that natural analogy, I think of Paul and others who followed Jesus in total abandon. And for whatever else the characters of Scripture got wrong, insofar as they were right in heart and soul, it was about following hard after God, after God’s ways, after God’s will, and with others, no matter what. That is the heart we have to have in it, the rest of us following, because if we don’t, we’ll never make it, or it will hardly meet the threshold of faith. Faith is not simply mouthing or going along halfheartedly with something, then going full steam ahead in what one is really interested in. God helps us in our weak faith, and we all struggle at times with that. But the intent for us is to be fully in it: followers, learners, those impassioned to know and imitate Jesus, not just ourselves, but with others of like faith.

God’s abundant pardon

Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake their way
and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:6-9; NRSVue

Whenever we read or hear Scripture, we should be in prayer and ready to receive the word, whatever God might be saying through it. We need to be open every single time we read or hear Scripture read. To think that somehow we’re exempt or it doesn’t apply to us is thoughtless at best and dangerous at worst. Yes a passage might not seem to have direct application to us, after all, as in the passage above, in Christ we’re not of the wicked. But to recall that for us along the way in our lives that passage has indeed been applicable is important, too. And God might just have something to teach us, even if it’s only a fresh awareness of what we thought we already knew.

In the passage above from Isaiah, we read of God’s abundant pardon. That God wants to forgive and restore. Yes, we’re thankful that this is true for ourselves, and is possible for all others, for everyone, yes “the wicked…and the unrighteous.” If only they forsake their way and thoughts. Seeking and calling upon God, returning to God. For God’s mercy and not just pardon, but abundant pardon.

We limit God and everything else. But we’ll find that there’s no limit to God’s mercy and pardon. God is for everyone in the human race. If only each of us will forsake our own thoughts and ways, and be open to God’s thoughts and ways. Indeed vastly higher and beyond our own. But taking us in, including each and everyone of us in the way of love ultimately found in Jesus.

God meets us exactly where we’re at for the help we need

I lift up my eyes to the hills—
from where will my help come?
My help comes from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.

Psalm 121:1-2

“God helps those who help themselves.” Not really. God helps those who look to God for help. It’s not like God doesn’t help people who don’t call on God’s name. Yes, God does. But God honors those who do call out to God and seek to trust and be committed to God, seeking God and God’s will, wanting to live in God’s way.

But we have to settle into the mode that neither circumstances nor life itself depend on us for the needed answer. Instead we need to look to God for God’s help in giving us wisdom and direction and peace. No matter what the situation, even hard places, God will help. Yes, in the darkness, in the worst of times as well as in the best of times. We need only to look up in prayer, expectation and wonder.

being open to God and God’s ways and working

When they heard these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen. But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him, and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he died. And Saul approved of their killing him.

That day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria. Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison.

Now those who were scattered went from place to place proclaiming the word.

Acts 7:54-8:4

Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one.

Acts 9:1-7

Oftentimes, or so it seems to me that alleged miracles and miracle workings are largely looked at as panaceas for whatever ills afflict humankind. And in a sense in the biblical witness, that’s part of the story, of what’s involved in God’s works. But to more fully understand God’s works, we need to focus on God and God’s ways.

[The LORD] made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of Israel.

Psalm 103:7

We have to keep our eyes on the ball so to speak. Not the “miracles” themselves, and they’re certainly not an end in themselves either, even though there’s a sense in which many of them occur solely out of God’s goodness and love. And in the end really everything comes from God’s goodness and love. We have to be committed to God, to Christ, to the way of Christ, and keep moving. Knowing that God will be active in all of that. In ways we may not comprehend or may not understand at the time. God is out to do what only God can do but includes us in that. Helping us and helping others even through us. In and through Jesus.

 

returning again and again to the source

Your word is a lamp for my feet,
a light on my path.
I have taken an oath and confirmed it,
that I will follow your righteous laws.
I have suffered much;
preserve my life, Lord, according to your word.
Accept, Lord, the willing praise of my mouth,
and teach me your laws.
Though I constantly take my life in my hands,
I will not forget your law.
The wicked have set a snare for me,
but I have not strayed from your precepts.
Your statutes are my heritage forever;
they are the joy of my heart.
My heart is set on keeping your decrees
to the very end.

Psalm 119:105-112

My default practice is to turn again and again to the pages of Scripture. Since I believe Scripture is God’s word written, I keep returning to it again and again throughout the day, to gain whatever it is that God wants to give me. It’s not like I do this very well. There are all kinds of variations in it. I might go real slow for a while, then pick up speed and keep moving through, whether anything seems to be getting through to me or not, then slow down again. As I stay at it, sooner usually than later it seems like God might somehow be getting through to me. I’ll begin to pick up a better perspective than I have.

God’s word is our lamp for life, but we’re also to be intent in being shaped and transformed, our lives directed by it. Oftentimes to be honest, I really feel at a loss, maybe hurt over this or that, or tired of whatever, at a loss. So I just keep going back to Scripture, and I find help, but help in God’s way, not my own. Going through Scripture slowly gives one the opportunity to pause and reflect and pray. Or simply realize how we don’t get it. That has value too. An important part of what Scripture is intended to do: help us turn to God, hopefully seek him, and find his will. Indeed turning to God’s word can be our way of turning to God. And find our lives more and more shaped by that. In and through Jesus.

directions for life

ב Beth

How can a young person stay on the path of purity?
By living according to your word.
I seek you with all my heart;
do not let me stray from your commands.
I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
Praise be to you, LORD;
teach me your decrees.
With my lips I recount
all the laws that come from your mouth.
I rejoice in following your statutes
as one rejoices in great riches.
I meditate on your precepts
and consider your ways.
I delight in your decrees;
I will not neglect your word.

Psalm 119:9-16

There is nothing more important we can do than turn to God’s word in Scripture, and be attentive to what God is saying to us. We need to slow down, stop, and then keep going. In doing this we’ll find our way into God’s way. But it’s not a once-for-all move. It’s ongoing, day after day after day, even hour after hour. In and through Jesus.

the upside to being down

Job is a book that is hard to figure out, unless one reads it superficially. You might just pass over it, shrug your shoulders, and go on, which I think to some extent I did for years. But that changed when we had an in depth group Bible study at a church some years back. I had a different view and understanding of it after that.

I take it as a wisdom story, which whether just a story told, or something which actually happened (and I don’t think the rest of the Bible, including Jesus’s words determine that) rings true in ways that mirror the complexity, indeed consternation of life. There are no two ways about it: Life often makes little or no sense to us so that in the end, we have to trust all into the Creator’s hands, while realizing that we aren’t capable of tracing God’s paths or fully understanding his ways.

I love the book of Job, because there’s a unique wisdom to be drawn from it, not readily apparent or received by us, which actually requires the work of a lifetime. Of course the other wisdom books have their unique contributions they bring as well: Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, and we can include Song of Songs, and even the Psalms.

Job was as down as a human can get, with the exception of our Lord in his partaking of the cup of suffering. I think those of us who are older can appreciate the aspect of the story that really when all is said and done, it can’t be happily ever after this side of heaven. Impossible. And that’s after Job’s suffering when a new family was given which really could not replace the family he had lost, but was still just as great a blessing as the first family.

Job certainly had a new appreciation of God, and of himself as well. It was a new humility in view of God’s revelation of his greatness in creation, so vast and quite beyond humans, so that Job realizes he is required to simply trust, both in God’s greatness, and as we see from the end of the story, in God’s goodness as well. And surely it speaks to the limits of this life, and the hope of the life to come.

Job probably reminds me of a favorite biblical book of mine, Ecclesiastes, since it is not an easy book to pin down, indeed its meaning to some extent can allude us. And that means that if we’re wise, we keep coming back for more.

One basic I think I understand now from Job is that there’s an upside to being down and out, to being at a complete loss. That is when we can find what we otherwise never would: a trust and hope in God which goes well beyond anything we can understand and comprehend in this life, and perhaps even in the next. We simply know in the end that all will be well. And that we’re to work at understanding what we can, and leave the rest to God. A part of what faith in God involves in an existence in which all of our questions might only expose our lack of understanding. The answer in which we by faith now begin to live, in and through Jesus.

God understands

We say in Christian theology that God knows all things, the end from the beginning, in every minute detail with the big picture in mind. Precisely what that means might deviate some. Like I might ask, “Can God know what isn’t already in existence?” Surely yes, in that he can create and control all of that, but maybe no if he chooses not to control it at every turn, I am thinking of human volition. All of existence is out of God’s doing. And God can force us to choose or do whatever, if God so chooses, but it seems on the surface at least, that there’s a real give and take in life between the individual, as well as people, and God. Maybe some of this we do best to chalk up to mystery, and leave alone. But it does seem that God invites us to grapple with all he has revealed, while the hidden things remain with him, indeed surely outside of our limitation to grasp.

We can be at a place in which we’re challenged to know what to do. In small ways that happens a lot, and is usually fixable. In larger ways, sometimes that can be quite difficult, beyond our ability to navigate well, if at all. It is good during such times to be in prayer and in the word, looking to God to give us the understanding we need, and proceed from there. That is usually incremental, and one step at a time. God can be trusted to be present through all of it, but it seems to me like God leaves plenty of room for variation on our part, including even failure. God has the big picture in mind, but also wants to be present interactively with us through the small things, as well. That is lived largely in context of our day to day existence as individuals, but is best worked out in community with others in Jesus. Not to say that God might not use the broader human community as well, and another friend who does not yet know him.

I look to God for his wisdom, believing certain things are beyond me, really many things. Essentially what concerns God in us, I believe, is a character transformation rooted in God’s grace and kingdom in Jesus by the Holy Spirit. It’s not like other things are unimportant, all within the old creation is included in the new creation in Jesus. Salvation extends to every part, but perhaps its outworking is strange to us. And the fact of the matter is that we may not be necessarily included, if we don’t look to the source which is found in Jesus. There might be some major bumps on the road, and brokenness on the way to that salvation.

God understands. And can be fully trusted. In and through Jesus.

the one Lord

You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.

Acts 10

Last night I watched the debacle, which was supposed to be a presidential debate. One of my Facebook friends posted, “He is not here. He is risen.” To which I later posted, “The Lord is risen indeed!”

When we look at the mess that is our world, certainly including our own country, we can only long for the return of the one who defeated all the rulers and authorities by his death on the cross, made evident by his resurrection from the dead, and ascension into the dimension of heaven at the right hand of God in the place of supreme authority.

There is one ruler today, and he rules in and through the church, but in the way of the cross, through his death and resurrection. It is a rule certainly at odds with the world, and with world rule, which has its place now in this evil age, while certainly out of place in so many ways. And destined to bow someday under his direct authority at his return. Even while now God works out his purposes in and through him, primarily through the church, but also in his sovereign wisdom over the nations, in the latter case in ways that are well beyond us, but in the former case, through the good news of that saving rule, in and through Jesus.

And so that is where I have my hopes. Not that I’m not interested in what is happening on the world’s stage. But my hopes are not there. But only in the one Lord, Jesus.