One Thing

It’s curious how times of testing impact individuals differently. Although I’m not thrilled to be working at home for three weeks or more, I feel like I’ll be able to handle it okay. (Of course, this is just the first day, so that may change before it’s over.) Thinking back a couple decades or more, I recall that my habit whenever I was home alone was to have the TV on in the background all the time for company. It didn’t really matter to me what I was seeing or hearing, and I didn’t care how that input was changing the way I thought about things. It took me a long time to realize the negative impact it had on my spiritual life, and even longer to be convicted enough to pray for change. If I’d been stuck at home for a few weeks back then, I shudder to think what I would have done with my time. As God has graciously enabled me to change and to mature as a Christian, my thoughts, desires, and temptations are not what they once were. That’s not to say that I never seek distractions from trials or make sinful choices, but I’m much more likely to seek God instead.

In this time of stress and anxiety, I’m sure that many people are tempted to “self-medicate” with the old patterns of sin they once enjoyed. I keep returning to Ephesians 4:

“Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds… They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (17-24 ESV).

As this enforced isolation has come during the season of Lent, it’s a good time for all of us to dive deeper into Scripture and prayer and to truly seek God. My prayer for my fellow church members is that this would be a time of purification rather than returning to sin, that God would guard us from temptation, and that He would help us find ways to uphold one another in prayer and with encouraging words. None of us are strong enough to overcome sin by our own power. We can’t sanctify ourselves. We need God’s help.

In the words of Rich Mullins’ song “My One Thing”:

Save me from those things that might distract me
Please take them away and purify my heart
I don’t want to lose the eternal for the things that are passing
‘Cause what will I have when the world is gone
If it isn’t for the love that goes on and on…

May we each find ourselves drawing closer to God during this time. And though we are physically distant from one another, may we be reminded frequently that we are still one body under one Lord.

“One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple. For He will hide me in His shelter in the day of trouble; He will conceal me under the cover of His tent; He will lift me high upon a rock” (Psalm 27:4-5).

© 2020 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

God Stoops Down

As I’m nearing the end of Ed Welch’s book Running Scared, I came across this comment about 1 Peter 5:6-7:

“Our natural tendency is to go it alone, or, if the load is too heavy, to call a friend to help. But Peter paints a different picture. In an act that could never have been conceived by a human being, the King comes and beseeches us to lay our burden on him… Peter is doing his best to persuade us to be a new people who call out to the Lord. Let Peter persuade you. He begins by exhorting us to know that our God is the Creator God. He holds history in his hand. He delivers with a mighty hand, the grandest display being the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ… In keeping with his character, he continues to serve; he invites us to cast our burdens on him as we would cast burdens on an ox… In one of the amazing paradoxes of the kingdom, when God takes our burdens and takes the position of a servant, he reveals our inability and his sufficiency” (266).

Throughout Scripture God pursues relationship with people. He made covenant after covenant (Noah, Abraham, Moses, David), not requiring people to serve Him, but telling them what He wanted to do for them. God delivered the people from Egypt before He gave them the law. His grace preceded His standards. The people were to obey because they had been delivered from slavery, not in order to be delivered. He sent Jesus as the mediator of the New Covenant so that we who are sinful and insufficient might become part of His eternal family. And He continues to pursue us when we are wandering sheep. We can’t make ourselves worthy of His attention or mercy.

In no other religion does a supreme being stoop down in love in order to bring people up. What god is there that doesn’t first demand obeisance and obedience before consenting to fulfill a request? What other god says you can “cast all your cares on Him because He cares for you”?

I’ve slowly been reading Mark Twain’s Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World. He spent a fair amount of time describing the religious practices in India and all the things people go through to try to appease the many gods. It’s humorous but also sad that people can expend so much time, effort, and money to curry favor with gods that are no gods. The One true God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4 ESV). And He makes it possible for us to come to Him, not because of our obedience but because His grace and the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

He not only saves us, but invites us to come to Him with all our cares and concerns. It’s really dumbfounding if you think about it. We can quickly start to take it for granted if we’ve been around church for very long. The God who created the universe and sustains it by His power desires a relationship with us. His ears are attentive to our prayers. He knows our very thoughts, because He is not a disinterested omnipotent being, but a loving Heavenly Father.

As we enter this season of Lent and approach our Easter celebrations, may we not forget the wonder of what we have because of Jesus Christ. May the truth astound us and bring us to new heights of gratitude and thanksgiving.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.