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.

those who are genuinely wise, and those who are not (or the wisdom of heaven in contrast to the wisdom of hell)

Who is wise and knowledgeable among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be arrogant and lie about the truth. This is not wisdom that comes down from above but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

James 3:13-18; NRSVue

The heading of James 3:1-12 in the NRSVue is “Taming the Tongue,” certainly a worthy endeavor, one most all of us can identify with. That’s followed up in finishing the chapter* with “Two Kinds of Wisdom” (3:13-18). The entire book of James could be thought of as something like a book on wisdom as community in the world in Jesus. The tongue, what we say and what others say, discernment about such is an important part of that and seems especially in need of being taken more seriously today.

But what follows in that chapter about the tongue is what I want to briefly look at now. The wisdom from above versus the wisdom that does not. There’s a world of difference between the two. James is talking about any setting, so we can imagine this in any public sphere (or private, for that matter) as well as in a church setting.

The wisdom from heaven as we might describe it now is marked by civility, a listening ear, sensitivity, humility, willingness to be corrected and learn, willingness to ask questions and not think one has all the answers. It is a grace-filled endeavor. Those on this side would rarely and overall never be perfect (see the beginning of James 3). At the same time though, I think one can come to the place when speaking that does not move from that course, and if ever doing so is quick to apologize or make it right, the exception proving the rule.

On the other hand the wisdom not from heaven is marked by incivility, a critical spirit, insensitivity as in not caring what others think, at least underlying pride which is just as damning as boastfulness. Always knowing better and being in control, unwillingness to be asked questions that might seem to challenge the authority they think they have, always thinking that they have or alone can get the right answer. Of course, how this “wisdom” of a worldly sort plays out will be as different as each of those who practice it, but the general marks are the same.

Few things seem more important today than what the book of James is getting at in James 3. This is a word not just for the other, maybe for those who stand out as examples of unheavenly wisdom. It is also most definitely a word to us all.

*Chapter divisions are not a part of the original text but seem to me to have some value.

the wise learn from their mistakes

Do not lie in wait like an outlaw against the home of the righteous;
do no violence to the place where the righteous live;
for though they fall seven times, they will rise again,
but the wicked are overthrown by calamity.

Proverbs 24:15-16; NRSVue

If you live, you will make mistakes. Depending on different predispositions, people will be prone to different weaknesses, and none of us immune to any error. Some might be tempted to anger, lighting into others, others- you name it. My number one problem has been anxiety and the fretting which goes with it, which has led to all kinds of mistakes. I think without a doubt a commitment to study and work Proverbs into my life would have helped immensely. When one does that, they have to take all the words seriously, if not entirely literally given the different context of time and place in which the Bible was written.

The text here in Proverbs is directly speaking about the wise being victimized but getting up again and again. But I think it can be applied in general as well to mistakes made. The wicked might want to bring them down, but they’re put on notice here that the righteous are resilient.

Wisdom will help us want to learn from our mistakes and help others, especially our loved ones and those younger than us to learn from us so that they don’t make the same mistakes in their lives. Of course, those who are not pursuing wisdom will pay no attention and even when they do hear it, it’s likely to make little to no difference in their lives.

But haven’t most of us been lax when it comes to wisdom somewhere along the road? Hopefully not in the worst kinds of ways, though that can happen to any of us. But we’ve failed too, in the words of the proverb above, fallen even seven times. But we get up and keep on going. The rising again from such falls spoken of in the text surely includes a careful consideration of what happened and how such a fall can be avoided in the future. And Proverbs is a marque book to help us in that way along with the rest of Scripture as we endeavor to do so together as followers of Christ.

letting go of regrets

I sought the LORD, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.

Psalm 34:4; NRSVue

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have laid hold of it, but one thing I have laid hold of: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us, then, who are mature think this way, and if you think differently about anything, this, too, God will reveal to you. Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.

Philippians 3:7-16; NRSVue

There are few things which can plague us more than regret, especially when we face or understand the possible consequences or dangers due to our decision or perhaps indecision in the past. When it comes to sin, we should be regretful of the actual sin itself against others and against God and the inevitable harm such sin brings more than the consequences. If we’re sorry only because of the consequences, that’s not true Biblical repentance, it’s not genuine penitence.

Obvious sin and wrongdoing is certainly included, but my focus on this post is more on weaknesses, we could say due to sin in lacking trust in God or whatnot, but human weaknesses by which we made decisions that put us unnecessarily at risk maybe even to help someone else. That is precisely what happened to me some years back. I won’t go into the details of it, though if I ever wrote a memoir, I might do so. Or even for that matter, not understanding things we do now, and wanting to take back this or that decision, sometimes major decisions. Life is full of this, as we more and more come to understand firsthand in this life.

The psalmist above cried out to God, and God relieved the psalmist of their fears. We might think that’s too simple, but prayer matters because God is God. We can test that axiom and we’ll find it so. I’ve been helped again and again and again that way.

And Paul, after recounting how he excelled in something which actually was mistaken, his religious endeavor for what turns out to be actual loss rather than true gain, came to see that nothing else matters in comparison with the pursuit of Christ and Christ himself, knowing him and living in close fellowship with him and in him. No matter what else, nothing compares with that.

But instead of regretting his past, Paul was determined to press on, to pursue the upward calling of God in Christ. And Paul made it clear that this should be the goal of all Christ-followers, of the community of Jesus. That actually leaves no room for regret of the past. As Paul says, forgetting what is behind and pressing toward what is before.

For me this all takes discipline. I consider avoiding regret as a part of spiritual warfare. From a human point of view such regret and stewing does no good at all. But as humans it can be hard to let some things go. We certainly should learn from past mistakes and do better. But fretting over that not only does no good, but actually is harmful to that one and no help to anyone else.

Prayer and focus on Christ and God’s goal and reign in him can help us let go of inevitable past regrets we surely all have. Pray, forget what’s behind and press on ahead.

the only position on mistakes: we all make them

…all of us make many mistakes.

James 3:2; NRSVue

This is with reference to teachers and their words. And I might venture to say that a majority, perhaps even vast majority of mistakes we make is with our tongue, what we say, or possibly even fail to say. Of course we make mistakes,  period. We need to own up to that, make all of that right when need be by apology, etc. Right now we’re talking about mistakes even while well intentioned. We need to own that.

The older I get, the less I care about what I think myself. I want to gather from community at large, especially community in Jesus steeped in Scripture and in life. I have the propensity to want to teach and speak, and with that comes plenty of problems just as James says just prior to the passage above, along with all the wisdom of James 3. That said, some of us are called to speak up. But we should always do so with gentle humility, ready to take back the inevitable mistakes we will make.

This is not meant to excuse mistakes. We should seek to curb them, and improve, most definitely. But we are finite and in process. What I see and think if I’m alive five years from now will hopefully be better than today. And I think in my case it will be in simply not speaking at all or certainly less, being more quiet and with a commitment to really listen and hear (James 1). And then what words I may have to offer should hopefully be better.

Above all, just as James points out at the end of James 3, it is our lives that will speak for good or for ill. How we live will make the words we speak either meaningful or meaningless. And part of that is to humbly acknowledge our mistakes which will be many.

doing the best imperfect we can

Let your work be manifest to your servants
and your glorious power to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us
and prosper for us the work of our hands—
O prosper the work of our hands!

Psalm 90:16-17

I’d like to know one single thing that humans ever did perfectly. That probably depends on what you mean by perfect, and what measure is put forward to determine that. For example, humankind has flown into space, even landed on the moon. The technology to engineer and perform such feats had to take a measure of perfection. Maybe there’s some margin of error in the mix, but if it’s outside of the parameters set, disaster could be the result, or hopefully instead a scrubbed launch or whatever.

When it comes to ethics, we humans usually if not always have something of mixed motives. Maybe not all the impurities are actually sinful, like for example we may feel clumsy among others, and fear being looked down on, or something to that effect. I think we can have the right heart in doing something, out of love, and I’m a bit suspicious that any sin, latent or otherwise has to be in the mix with that.

Regardless of how we parse that, I am encouraged by the thought to just keep doing the best imperfect that I can, and together with others to do the best imperfect we can. Yes, we’re going to make mistakes, and we’ll find out down the road a way that we could have done something better. But I don’t think we humans are called to make sure we do everything perfectly. What does that mean, anyhow? How can we really know? And most importantly, is there anything that is perfect in this existence in some sort of final, permanent sense? I don’t think so.

So we happily press on, just trying to use the best judgment and make the best decisions possible with the limited resources and time we have here. But believing in all of that, that God is able to take our inevitably imperfect thoughts and acts done in love into the perfection of God’s working, both for the present and for the time to come.

full of faith

I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul makes its boast in the LORD;
let the humble hear and be glad.
O magnify the LORD with me,
and let us exalt his name together.

I sought the LORD, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
Look to him, and be radiant,
so your faces shall never be ashamed.
This poor soul cried and was heard by the LORD
and was saved from every trouble.
The angel of the LORD encamps
around those who fear him and delivers them.
O taste and see that the LORD is good;
happy are those who take refuge in him.
O fear the LORD, you his holy ones,
for those who fear him have no want.
The young lions suffer want and hunger,
but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

Psalm 34:1-10

The superscription for this psalm is “Of David, when he feigned madness before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away.” Such titles may have been added later, although much of scripture including psalms certainly is not without being edited or whatever in how they were put together. That in no way diminishes their value for us today, this psalm no exception, indeed a classic. And if that title carries any weight at all even if just something of an interpretation added, it suggests to us that no matter what we’re going through and our imperfections, indeed mistakes in doing so, God can help us so that we can be full of faith.

Life ebbs and flows. There are those times when I have to say with the father of old, “I believe, help me overcome my unbelief.” And then times when it seems easy to believe, though frankly that seems to be in the minority for me. But one thing I’m rather convinced of: God wishes and wants us to be people who are full of faith.

Such faith is never dependent on circumstances, though the good times can help it. Through the normal humdrum of life, the more difficult, and even the quite challenging and rather threatening days, God wants to help us to this kind of faith. A faith which is not free from struggle and doubt, but reaches out, grasps and holds on to God, to the promise of God in scripture and in its fullness in Christ.

getting a gain from a loss

…all of us make many mistakes.

James 3:2a

Like a dog that returns to its vomit
    is a fool who reverts to his folly.

Proverbs 26:11

If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.

James 1:5

How often do we get hit with something which can come from our own mistake, or even if not, we let get to us and bring us under so to speak? Instead we would do well to develop a mentality to not only learn from a mistake or whatever has happened, but to grow from it, so that afterwards we’re at a place where we weren’t before.

This can be considered a part of spiritual warfare, and just as a part of life as well. We would rather not have to learn from mistakes or trials, but we’ll inevitably make mistakes and face trials. The important thing is to make progress in our walk with God and in this world, and not to act and react the same way over and over again years on end.

We certainly will need to ask God for wisdom to go with the wisdom we’ve already received from God. Asking for counsel and for others to pray for us is all good and not only good, but surely underrated.

This involves a process which will take some patience, perseverance, even endurance, and time. We just want to rush through things, get a good answer, and go on merrily through life. But the bumps and bruises, fits and starts, and whatnot, all that we have to face in this world is simply a given. We need to learn to settle down in what really is.

I for one am determined to learn and do better, be better. That will include something which it seems to me a lot of Christians buck up against and not only resist, but don’t believe in. It’s often thought that because of grace, we should not struggle or work, that there’s no value in that, that instead we need simply to rest in God and in God’s promises. Yes, we must always trust in God, but part of that is to simply do whatever it is we have to do and refuse to do what we should not. That will be up to us, our willpower no less. We won’t grow more towards growing up, otherwise. All of this in and through Jesus.

about making mistakes

For all of us make many mistakes.

James 3:2a

I ran into something online about a Christian leader who acknowledged making a mistake and I remembered how I am subject to the same given all the issues and details few if any of us are aware of fully. It’s good to be aware and sensitive and to apologize and adjust ourselves when need be. And to develop more of a listening ear and less of a desire to speak with the imagination that what we say might be a game changer or even make a difference.

That said, we might as well face it. Whatever we do in this life will inevitably be imperfect and we will make our share of mistakes along the way. This is especially true of those of us who have a propensity to teach and to say a lot. Or to write or be out there in public in some way related to any of that. Yes, we need to be careful and try to be aware, learn and do better.

But we must not let any of this stop us from sharing whatever gift we have. We’ll just try to do better with it. But nothing we do in this life will be perfect. And some will insist we’re mistaken while others will not see it that way. We’ll have to make judgments and seek to listen well and take seriously the reality that there are some who believe we are mistaken on a given matter which itself should give us pause. After all, we are to seek to do what is right in the eyes of everyone (Romans 12).

We shouldn’t just do whatever, thinking in the end that God will be our judge. God is and will be our judge for sure. And part of that judgment will be just how seriously we consider the thoughts of others and not run roughshod over them when we disagree. And also realize that our disagreement can be mistaken. While at the same time being willing to be mistaken and corrected along the way since that is inevitable.

be yourself (with all its foibles and flaws)

Go, eat your bread with enjoyment and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has long ago approved what you do. Let your garments always be white; do not let oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life that are given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.

Ecclesiastes 9:7-10

Ecclesiastes is in some ways the most fascinating book to me in the Bible, though others are as interesting in their place, and when considered together. This book reminds me of the great Danish philosopher, Soren Kirkegaard, and the book Kirkegaard: A Single Life, by Stephen Backhouse is a great read. I am sorry to see it so high on Amazon. Get it from a library. It was one of the few life-changing books I’ve read, though every good book should help us in life.

As I recall (thankfully, I have my own copy) the book points out how Kirkegaard sought to live a radical life of following Christ within what he considered an entirely dead Christendom of which he wanted no part. He stood out for that reason, but also because of all of his challenging, compelling writings along with his peculiar manner of life which certainly ran across the grain of the culture of his place and time. Called “the father of existentialism” but at the heart of what he was it seems to me: a follower of Christ. But I’ll certainly have to leave it to many others to help us, though the book mentioned above is said to be the best introduction to him hands down, with a summary of all of his works in the back.

Kirkegaard like all the rest of us made mistakes, his share of them. But life was to be lived, not debated about or philosophized or even theologized. To Kirkegaard, what it means to follow Christ is the point of existence, and the only way that is understood is by endeavoring to live it out, to be authentic in the sense of being oneself, to move forward in reality, in real life.

For me I think along with being in Scripture and prayer, I seek to understand in the midst of living. And there’s no escape from life. There are so many aspects of it. Ecclesiastes is all about that, life under the sun, and all the experiences one passes through here. How on the one hand vanity accompanies everything, I would think especially if it’s considered an end to itself. But on the other hand how we must go on and be fully present in it all, not only present, but a full participant as well. As the book in the end reminds us from the one who was sharing Qoheleth’s (“the Teacher’s”) thoughts, doing it all in the fear of God seeking to obey all of God’s commandments, aware of the judgment to come.

We will make mistakes along the way, no doubt. But God will help us as we realize that we learn from Christ only as we seek to follow Christ in all of life, in everything. And in the midst of a world in which so much is vanity, a chasing after the wind, in which most all of the best endeavors fall short of the goal, and even those which succeed at least in some sense don’t last.

I take heart in this. I have my foibles and flaws (just ask my wife). But I want to go on just as I am, but also with others who are attempting to do the same just as they are. We’re in this together for better and for worse.

And we have wonderful enigmatic books like Ecclesiastes to go back to again and again, along with the rest of Scripture, as we keep trying to make sense of what’s in front of us, and how we’re to carry on. Being each one of us our own unique God-given selves.

In and through Jesus.