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.

avoiding burnout (in for the long haul)

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:1-2; NRSVue

I’m a morning person and ordinarily get tired by evening, frayed at the edges, ready to turn in. They say in my own way of expressing it, that the brain wears down by the end of the day, and with proper rest is rejuvenated at the start of a new day. That lines up with my own experience, how I feel, though I enjoy evenings when I feel quite well. Ironically, I can wake up after the night’s sleep after that, and not feel well. Exceptions to the rule.

There’s no doubt that the wear and tear of a day and of a lifetime can make a difference we don’t want. And we read about burnout in all kinds of vocations. The demands, difficulties, disappointments, discouragement and more pile up and we can feel pressed down under it all.

There’s no greater or we can say more challenging call than that of following Jesus. If we think it’s just an individual call to us, then that makes it not only all the more challenging, but next to impossible. There might be exceptions dues to extreme situations, but we were never meant to live this life alone. With the good, that has been one of the not good, even great curses of the Enlightenment modernistic heritage we have inherited as westerners and Americans, the overemphasis on individualistic autonomy and freedom. No, we’re not meant to pull up our bootstraps and make it on our own. We need others, we need each other along the way, a community. And this is no less true “in Christ” in which we live as Christ’s body in the world, each part having their function and calling, but not independent of the whole.

The writer to the Hebrews expresses our life together in terms of a marathon race. It’s not a sprint, although there may be those instances when we need to run hard. But it’s more like a well-paced, wise, thoughtful run in which we take the long view. We’re in this life of faith for the long haul, so we have to “run” accordingly. That means we’re going to have to look to Jesus, eyes fixed on him, get rid of what weighs us down and the sin which is never far from us, and keep on keeping on. Day after day, hour after hour, even minute after minute.

We want to do those things which are helpful to us in this. I listen a lot to classical music, which is just something I’m used to after doing so for many years. My wife and I go on daily walks (when the weather permits). We enjoy nature and special places (not enough, the latter). I enjoy coffee in the morning. And just to be in Scripture in all simplicity, for some time now returning again and again to the book of James. And in most simple prayer.

My own goal is to get better at this. I think I am doing better than in the past, though most of that is in the awareness that yes, I need to slow down, do this in community in Jesus, and keep on doing the very basics required to run this marathon well. Still learning and grateful to be doing so. With a good wife fully committed to this, also.

worldliness: accepting the world’s value system

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

Worldliness has been a common theme in many churches and denominations. Often it’s had to do with dress, especially with the idea of women dressing modestly, not what the idea meant in Biblical times: avoiding dressing extravagantly to flaunt one’s riches, but in recent times rather covering themselves up well. In my lifetime movie going, dancing, drinking alcohol and similar things were cast into the mold of what was taught to be worldly. I remember there was once a book entitled The Worldly Evangelicals, which, if I’m not mistaken as I remember what was written about it would have been mostly related to this kind of understanding of worldliness, emphasizing practices often considered sinful in churches, though I haven’t read the book myself.

In James we see that “friendship with the world” which is said to be “enmity with God” has to do with people’s value system. The people James is writing to were not getting along. At the heart of that seems to be covetousness. Yes, it was no different in that day than it is today. It may take on different forms, but the heart of the matter is the same.

The harm of this to churches is probably not as evident now, since we live in a society and culture which accentuates individual liberty. Community is downplayed, optional, virtually nonexistent. Back then there was more of a sense of community, of communal interdependence. There was likely something of a class or wealth comparison going on. The community was in danger of fracturing over envy and disparity. And the rich and the poor along with everyone else were evidently caught up in the worldly mindset of valuing material wealth and status and comparing themselves with each other. James called them, and calls us to something better, something good, possible in God’s grace to all who humble themselves, acknowledging their wrong.

James tells them that their pursuit is empty and sinful. That this is why they don’t pray, and what prayers they might pray remain unanswered. What’s needed is a rejection of the world’s value system, and an adoption of a totally new way of looking at life. James calls for out and out repentance, for them to pull out the stops in doing that. That God in God’s grace is willing to meet them there and help them to reject the friendship of the world in the world’s ways. And to begin to live into something much better. All of this meant to be lived out not just as individuals, but in community.

“remember Lot’s wife”

 When they had brought them outside, [the angels] said, “Flee for your life; do not look back….“

Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven, and he overthrew those cities and all the plain and all the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

Genesis 19:17a, 24-26; NRSVue

Wisdom rescued a righteous man when the ungodly were perishing;
he escaped the fire that descended on the Five Cities.
Evidence of their wickedness still remains:
a continually smoking wasteland,
plants bearing fruit that does not ripen,
and a pillar of salt standing as a monument to an unbelieving soul.

Wisdom 10:6-7; NRSVue

“Remember Lot’s wife. Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it.“

Luke 17:32-33; NRSVue

One of the marks of the Genesis story of God raining down fire and brimstone in judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah because of an ongoing rampant, destructive violation of love for neighbor is the turning back of Lot’s wife. The story of Abraham and his nephew Lot begins actually in Genesis 12:4 (also 11:31), right at the beginning of Abraham leaving for Canaan, Lot with him. They separate, Lot soon getting into trouble from which he’s rescued by Abraham (Genesis 13-14). And then Lot and his family settle down in Sodom into what must seemed to have been a stable life, but amidst what probably amounted to troubling unneighborly wickedness (2 Peter 2:6-8).

Jesus referred to this when speaking about God’s coming reign. Unlike Lot’s wife, who violated God’s command by looking back, Jesus’s disciples were to press on in the way of Jesus, the way of the cross. Or in the context, with a heart and eye only on God’s coming reign in Jesus. All else is subordinated, even consumed under that. We’re to remember Lot’s wife.

What might tempt us to look back like Lot’s wife did? To understand that, we have to turn to the teaching of Jesus which ends up being in line with the prophets before him. This ends up being a matter of discipleship, of what it means to be true followers of Jesus. In the words of Jesus in this immediate context: Seeking to make our life secure. That seems rather harsh. It only seems natural that people in any place or situation would want security to survive and hopefully thrive. Just what is Jesus getting at?

I think to begin to have a complete understanding of this, we have to see what follows. First we have to consider Jesus’s life and teaching. It’s about living even sacrificially with the love of neighbor as top priority as the expression of love for God. Jesus is then crucified, dies and is resurrected. Jesus appears to his disciples in his resurrection body for forty days before he ascends into heaven, into another sphere. The Holy Spirit is poured out, and the church as the body of Christ in the world by the Spirit comes into being. After that, all of life is lived within that community, individual believers and followers in and as part of the community of the faithful.

We live our baptized, committed life in Christ within the community of Christ, yes as individuals out and about in the world, but as part of Christ’s body. This is all but lost in our individualistic western and especially American culture. Individual liberty is emphasized to the point that community is mostly all but lost, or at least quite secondary to that. But in Scripture, not so. Thus, there’s a tendency for believers to be on their own, more or less fending for themselves, yes in a personal relationship with Jesus, the church largely existing to help believers in that. Hopefully, but not necessarily some relationships come out of such church existence (church life too strong, unfortunately). The Spirit will be at work in spite of this to help churches be what by the Spirit they are. But the worldly way of existence and thinking ever presses against that. Not unlike what Lot’s own world did.

We’re not to look back. Instead, we’re to be looking ahead, another direction altogether. I don’t think we’ll do this as well as we need to, nor are we actually meant to just as individuals. We need to be in this together with other believers and committed followers of Christ. That doesn’t for a minute lessen our individual responsibility, but we are one body, together in this in Christ.

May God help us all to begin to understand, especially in discernment together what that means for us now.

living in a world short of perfection

Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher; all is vanity.

Besides being wise, the Teacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs. The Teacher sought to find pleasing words, and he wrote words of truth plainly.

The sayings of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings that are given by one shepherd. Of anything beyond these, my child, beware. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments, for that is the whole duty of everyone. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Ecclesiastes 12:8-14; NRSVue

I love Ecclesiastes. I don’t pretend to know what the best interpretation of it is. There’s a standard, traditional one, but when you turn to the scholars and their commentaries on the book, there’s fascinating disagreement and differences. Perhaps that’s part of the charm of the book: one gets the gist of it but is left with a lot of questions. Faith I think thrives best with questions, not with answers, thinking we have the answer to everything, or indeed the final answer to anything. Yes, faith is grounded in God, in God’s promise in Christ, in God’s Word, so there’s absolutely no flagging from that. But a book like Ecclesiastes along with much else in the sacred text often raises more questions than giving answers.

What prompts me to write this is just the puzzlement of living in a condition in which there is not only serious though mostly relatively rare dangers like gun shootings and the like, but nagging concerns, like lead in the house, especially thinking about children with reference to that, lead even in some otherwise healthy foods because of the soil, asbestos in various materials and places, etc., etc. Things like that. And I tend to be a perfectionist, wanting to take care of any and every problem so that there’s no potential hurt to anyone. I’m glad that other folks can see it all better in context which in part is why community is so important, and in my thinking and practice the community in Jesus, the fellowship of the saints, the church. And I’m thankful for sites online like Wikipedia, etc., which can help us to sort through such things.

But back to Ecclesiastes. It may seem strange for me to cite that book when thinking about this. I really don’t have a proof text from there directly applicable to it, though “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity” may come close. Ecclesiastes seems to me in part to be a book about how life in itself, by itself, even with all its enjoyment and fulfillment will still leave us short and in the end unsatisfied. As the book concludes, we’re to fear God and keep God’s commandments. And the beauty and wonder of that is God is love and we can trust God to help us make good, responsible decisions along the way, all the while realizing that final perfection is not present in this old, broken world, even as that’s true of ourselves while we strive for perfection especially together in love in our following of Christ. But the arrival of such is part of our hope and longing, in the new world to come. In the meantime, we carry on especially together with this awareness in the love and with the help of God.

take hold of everything available to you

His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust and may become participants of the divine nature. For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with excellence, and excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For anyone who lacks these things is blind, suffering from eye disease, forgetful of the cleansing of past sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble. For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you.

2 Peter 1:3-11; NRSVue

There are few things more frustrating to me than a passive religion and faith. That being said, I was faithfully instructed just recently from no less than Walter Brueggemann in my reading that there is a form of what I might call passiveness risking cheap grace necessary in waiting on God (The Prophetic Imagination). This is not a self-help endeavor, something we can work up and do ourselves. God is in it or it’s nothing at all in terms of what it’s laid out to be in Scripture. So yes, there’s that vitally important aspect of waiting through faith and prayer. But there’s also the equally important aspect we see in this passage from 2 Peter. God has given us all we need in Christ, yes. But we must take hold of it, period.

Notice what we’re to “support [our] faith with.” Excellence, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. We can say this is both in individual as well as communal terms. In the world in which this letter was written, community was a part of life and frankly a priority that it isn’t in our current day. They were together in a kind of mutual dependence which became a mutual grounding. Nowadays for those who profess faith in Christ, this is at best hit and mostly miss. People find a “good” church to get a good sermon, maybe some other good things on the side (like the worship music they like, and of course coffee, me included in the latter) and then go home. Maybe the church will press for small groups. And if it’s a small enough church, there might be some visiting afterwards. But by and large we just don’t have that same ethos or experience today. It’s much more like living in an individual existence, at the most tied together in families, but individualism so dominant that it’s mostly about everyone doing their own thing.

I say all that with the danger of losing sight of the wonderful list of what we’re to support our faith with, because we’re understandably coming to a place for many in which church is becoming more and more just a nice option. And ironically, where churches that are in danger of no longer being true churches (Revelation 2-3) are given to a community united in something other than what Peter was talking about here.

We can’t do this only by ourselves. Not. For example, how do we support our faith with mutual affection, or for that matter, love by ourselves? And given that, we can see the other things on the list: excellence, knowledge, self-control, endurance and godliness at least as much in communal as in individual terms.

We have to take hold of all that God gives us in Christ. That’s the only way we’re going to make it. And not only make it as in surviving, but actually coming to thrive and in the end gain the grand entrance Peter refers to above.

God neither wants nor needs any superstars

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

1 Corinthians 12:27

I’m not sure what it is, maybe an American thing, partly a western idea from the heritage of the emphasis on the individual, but it seems like there’s a premium put on “great” leaders whether they be in government, the church, or elsewhere. Everyone wants to hear the powerful or effective speaker/preacher. Or they want the (usually) man who can get it done in Washington or elsewhere. Superstars.

While God does give special gifts to Peter, Paul and Mary’s, etc., we have to remember that each of the originals, while in a formative time and situation were still part, albeit a prominently seen part, of the whole. Fastforward to our time, and we can think of leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., who certainly are wonderfully gifted. Women more often than not have been the leaders, such as Maya Angelou and many others. So it’s not like God doesn’t pick some to do work that is seen and noted.

But none of that would work apart from the body large. We are in this together, and dependent on each other. In Christ it is as his body of which he is the head, an ongoing healthy interdependence going on between each part of the body: the hands needing the feet, the feet needing the eyes, the eyes needing the mouth, and on and on. The entire body actually dependent on each part.

The impulse in us is so strong to think that we have to do it, a bunch of outstanding, rugged individuals. Maybe a kind of John Wayne mentality. “We can and will take care of it.” Instead in Christ we’re told to settle into our place and do well there doing what we’re called to do, along with others doing what they’re called to do, all together in love.

God neither needs nor wants superstars, but humble servants, always ready to serve with the help that Christ gives them. All of us together in this. In and through Jesus.

prayers matter and often make the needed difference

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of the affliction we experienced in Asia; for we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He who rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us; on him we have set our hope that he will rescue us again, as you also join in helping us by your prayers, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.

2 Corinthians 1:8-11

I think we often underrate just how important prayer is. Both the prayers prayed for us as well as the prayers we pray for others. And I’m not just talking about prayers that feel inspired, which I think or at least I can say in my own experience seem relatively rare. I’m referring mainly to the prayers that we continue to pray, regularly for others, as well as during times of special need. Usually I feel little or no inspiration at all, and am simply plodding along, lifting the person up to God, and going on to the next person and persons.

I do know by experience the difference prayer can make when others are praying for me. I’ll send out an SOS asking for prayer, and often immediately feel and sense, as well as eventually see results.

Paul did this, and it was in the context of his apostolic service with those who served with him. The prayers of the church made a needed difference. Paul himself was dependent on the prayers of the believers, of the faithful. Certainly true of us as well.

That’s the way God has made it. God makes us interdependent, in a certain sense depending on each other. While our full dependence is on God, expressed in prayer for ourselves and for others. In and through Jesus.

how do we grow? trials

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

James 1:2-4

I recently heard a pastor say essentially that we don’t grow except through trials. I don’t know if that’s an overstatement. They have been in the ministry a good number of years and are older than many of us themselves, and I know they have far more wisdom through that pastoral experience and in their lives than I do. It seems to me we might mount an argument from passages like 2 Peter 1 to say that growth can occur apart from trials. But it does seem true to a significant extent as we consider our own lives and the lives of others. It’s so easy to drift, which results in actually diminishing in our spiritual life. We probably don’t just remain the same. We are probably growing or losing ground. Well, that’s some speculation.

But we’re clearly told here at the beginning of this letter how we’re to approach trials of any kind. That we’re to consider such as nothing but joy. That is not easy to swallow, but that is to be our mindset and attitude. It is sadly easier to wallow in fear, despair and grief. Instead we’re to approach each in an active faith, as well as passive in the correct sense, that of receiving from God. And we’re to look at life that way, all the problems and troubles we face, and again, whatever kind they might be. No exceptions.

I find this so helpful myself. There are many reasons left to ourselves to be down in the mouth and simply wanting to escape. But God wants us to meet all of life head on, but in full dependence on the Lord, along with interdependence on each other. But finding our way so that we can stand on our own, but only because of God, along with the help of others along the way. What God has for each one of us. In and through Jesus.

it takes a community

I myself feel confident about you, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.

Romans 15:14

While this is pulling a passage out of context, nevertheless the main point Paul made from this verse is true: We in Christ are in this together, and we all need each other. And each and everyone of us has our part to play. It’s a matter of learning to discern together what the Spirit of Christ is saying to us, and what the Spirit is doing. This is not a lone ranger faith, but one in which we are dependent on God and interdependent on each other.

Other places make it clear that God gives leaders to help the body grow and who are responsible for oversight (Ephesians 4; Hebrews 13). But though they have their special role, they too are blessed by the give and take in the body of Christ, in community.

This needs to be emphasized in a culture in which the individual largely takes priority over community. That is a flaw. Each of us are valued as individuals in community. Yes, God values each of us individually, but we find our true life, even ourselves in community, along with others. We fit together as one, learning to settle into our God-given place, giving and receiving. In and through Jesus.