Unexplainable

I’ve encountered a similar thought in four different forms in the past couple weeks. The first was a quote from Henry Blackaby in Experiencing God, “Often sharing what God is doing in your life may help someone else encounter God in a meaningful way.” The second was from the sermon on Romans 15:18, “For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me,” and the question posed was “If we could put on our website only what God has done in and through us as a church or individuals, what would be on there?”

The third variation last night was from the video series Unexplainable by Don Cousins. He starts the series by asking, “What is happening in your life right now that is unexplainable except by the work of God?” And the fourth came today from a story in the book Enjoying God by Lloyd Ogilvie. He writes of a man who said, “I was one of those Christians who took great pride in my baptism by the Spirit. I loved to talk about the assurances and excitement I felt when the Spirit filled me. But I was living in the past…”

The question that arose in my mind from these four encounters was, “Am I (are we) just talking about what God has done in the past, or about what He is doing right now?” If we’re just rehearsing the past, why is that? Are we not aware of what God is doing now, or is He not doing anything we consider noteworthy? Are we hindering what He wants to do by not giving Him control? The series by Cousins shares a story of a man that I think most of us can identify with—he wanted to be in control of his life and be prepared for anything that might come. He had a good job, a healthy savings account, three kids, a house, and all the things that we strive for. But it was a ho-hum existence because he didn’t take any risks, and so there wasn’t any sign that God was doing something unexplainable in or through him.

Assuming that these four encounters aren’t just a coincidence, I thought I’d share a little about what God is doing in my life right now. I’d have to say I’ve been in the “safe but routine” boat for quite awhile, until God decided to rock the boat a bit. I don’t like uncertainty, surprises, or anything unusual. Having grown up moving from state to state every few years, I learned that the “safe” thing to do was to avoid relationships and just entertain myself. You can’t get hurt if you don’t let anyone get close, right? (Well, not exactly, because we always have some degree of relationships even if they are superficial. But that’s another story.) There are some other contributing factors that I won’t go into. After settling down here almost 16 years ago I’ve hardly even traveled except to visit family and a few necessary trips for work. No need to deal with airports, traffic, hotels, and all those uncertain situations, which are even more uncertain for a single woman traveling alone.

Then add on top of that a long history of depression and anxiety, and the “comfortable” boat gets pretty uncomfortable. Though I’ve been on medications of many varieties over the years, it became increasingly obvious that just treating the symptoms does not fix the real problem—isolation. I’ve written this a few times in my blog, mainly because I have to keep being reminded of the truth: God created us to live in community, not in isolation. From the beginning of creation we learn “It is not good for man to be alone.” This isn’t just talking about marriage, but about people in all of life. And when we deny God’s plan and try to be self-sufficient, it’s only a matter of time until darkness and depression come crashing down despite all our efforts to medicate it away. (That’s part of the reason for the rising epidemic of drug abuse and alcoholism.)

So things came to an apex (or perhaps nadir would be the better analogy) last fall. When the medical world continued to fail me I turned to counseling with my pastor. Though I’ve been in counseling before, the benefits were fairly short term. And as I’ve told a couple people, there’s a difference between a “professional” with all the degrees and expertise, and a discipler who walks alongside you with the love and grace of God (remember 1 Corinthians 13). And there’s a difference between someone who only knows what you tell them and someone who sees you in a variety of contexts. In case you haven’t found out yet, we have a pastor who is being gifted and used by God, and one who really means it when he says he loves us! (We love you too, Matt!)

To wrap this up, through godly counsel and encouragement, things are changing in my life. God has connected me with some good folks in our House 2 House Bible study; God has gotten me back in Sunday school; and God has involved me in some other events I would previously have avoided. God has also drawn me into closer relationship with Him through turning off the TV, reading some inspirational books, and listening to some good sermons and Bible studies. None of those are things I would naturally pursue on my own. And perhaps most amazing to me is that God gave me the faith to trust Him enough that I could stop taking some of my medications. I’m totally off the ones that I’d been prescribed last fall, and I’m down to ¼ of the prescribed dose of a medication I’ve been on since 1999. I would be off it completely except for the fact that I like to be able to sleep. Maybe someday I’ll be “drug free.” While I don’t recommend going against a doctor’s advice, it has worked out pretty well in this case. It hasn’t entirely been easy, but it is still worth it.

That’s the “unexplainable” that God has been up to in my life. How about you?

Enduring

I’ve been listening to a Bible study series called “Rebuilding Your Broken World” by Chip Ingram based on James 1. I don’t know about anyone else, but verses 2-4 aren’t exactly the encouraging word I want to hear most of the time: “Count in all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness [perseverance]. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” It would be nice if we were instead promised, “This trial is only temporary, and pretty soon you’ll be past it and things will look brighter.” Unfortunately, Scripture doesn’t promise us short, easily endured trials. But we do have the assurance that our faith will be strengthened if we learn to rely on God in the midst of the trials.

James 1:5 is a verse I tend to overlook most of the time. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him.” Ingram points out four basic steps here: 1) Admit that you’re stuck, 2) Confess that you can’t do it on your own, 3) Ask God for His supernatural wisdom, and 4) Commit to do what He tells you to do. As James explains in verses 6-8, it doesn’t do you any good to ask for God’s wisdom if you have little or no intention of accepting it. You have to align your purpose with God’s, and follow Him single-mindedly.

Ingram points out that one of the reasons we tend not to ask God for wisdom is that we are afraid what He might tell us and that He might condemn us for bad choices we’ve made and lecture us on everything we’ve done wrong. But this verse says He gives “without reproach.” It’s the difference between a child who comes crying and confessing that he broke the cookie jar and the child who arrogantly denies having been anywhere near it. “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5).

The other issue with pride is that we never get to the point of admitting we can’t do it on our own. And even if we do realize we need help, we tend to turn to anyone and anything else before turning to God. Sure, there is a lot of good, and even godly, wisdom out there that may be helpful, but it’s easy to start relying on that without giving much thought to the Source of all wisdom. As James writes a few verses later, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights…” (v. 17). I suspect that a lot of our trials come from our prideful self-sufficiency. God doesn’t generally use vessels that refuse to submit to His purposes, so brokenness is in order.

Some of the questions Ingram asks are ones that I’ve had to ask myself. Does my faith look beyond my present circumstances to that which is permanent and imperishable? Is my focus on my problems or on God’s promises and hope for the future? And is my motivation to find relief or to love God and others no matter what? He states, “Painful and difficult trials provide opportunity for us to express our love to Jesus.” Even if we are not necessarily suffering for Christ (i.e. persecution), we have a choice to either suffer with Him or without Him. If we choose to go through it with Him, we can be vessels of faith, hope and love in a fallen world. Even if we don’t find relief from our trials in this lifetime, our lives will be enriched by our relationship with God and with the people He puts in our path.

“Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him” (v. 12). May that be the encouragement we need when the trials come!

I Delight in You

I’ve been thinking lately about Zephaniah 3:17: “The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with his love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” Have you ever thought about God delighting in you? That’s hard for me to comprehend. Yeah, I know God loves me, but so what? You mean He actually delights in me?! I can’t imagine why. But for whatever reason, God doesn’t just love me, He likes me. And He doesn’t just like me, He delights in me.

J.I. Packer writes in Knowing God, “There is, certainly, great cause for humility in the thought that he sees all the twisted things about me that my fellow humans do not see (and am I glad!), and that he sees more corruption in me than that which I see in myself (which, in all conscience, is enough). There is, however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that, for some unfathomable reason, he wants me as his friend, and desires to be my friend, and has given his Son to die for me in order to realize this purpose.”

I think that we tend to forget that salvation comes to us because of God’s love and delight. He didn’t just take pity on us poor defenseless creatures, like we might pity the kitten that shows up on our doorstep. God is love, and love can’t be self-contained. His love overflows to the people He created in His image. Larry Crabb writes in Connecting, “Nothing is more fundamental to appreciating the essence of Christian living than to ponder the implications of a central but often neglected truth: We have all been created by an Eternal Community of three fully connected persons. When we’re told that we bear God’s image, we immediately know two things: 1. We were designed to connect with others... 2. Connecting with others depends on using our capacity to relate for the enjoyment and enhancement of someone other than ourselves."

I really enjoyed reading Connecting. It struck a chord in me that reminded me that we not only need to experience God’s delight in us, but we need relationships with people who delight in us as well. The church should be a place where that happens regularly, and yet it often doesn’t. Far too many people come to church once a week (or more), but fail to have any kind of meaningful relationships that reach outside the walls of that building. I desire to have at least a few relationships with people who know me and who delight in me for who I am, not for what I do. That kind of intimacy is possible because of the life of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit in us. Paul wrote, “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you” (1 Thess. 3:12). I haven’t seen that kind of abundant love in many churches, and perhaps just small pockets in many other churches.

If the local assembly of the Body of Christ were fully united and working together in the abundant love of Christ, I’m sure there would be no problem attracting new believers and new members. As I’ve shared with a couple people, true community has a healing power that is largely untapped as we settle for superficial imitations most of the time. Certain people have an ability to touch lives more deeply because they willingly invest themselves in the people around them. My own experience has made this clearer to me lately, and I would love to see that multiplied in other lives.

One of the illustrations in Connecting keeps coming back to me. Brennan Manning would regularly meet with an older man, and each time they got spotted each other at their meeting place, the man would jump up and down with delight saying, “There’s Brennan!” Later, Brennan gave the same kind of reception to Larry Crabb, and it filled him with joy. Are there those people who delight in us and jump up and down (either literally or figuratively) when they see us? Some parents are welcomed home each day by the delight of their young children. But are there others who know us intimately and love us anyway? Have we ever taken the risk of letting someone get that close to begin with?

I’m beginning to experience the truth of 1 John 4:18, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear…” Even imperfect love can begin to break down the walls of fear, and love seems to expand to overflow whatever space it’s given. At little love goes a long way. I keep thinking of Lilo & Stitch. Experiment 626, who was created to destroy everything he sees, is adopted, named Stitch, loved in spite of his aggressive nature, and he begins to transform and reform. And by the end of the movie he realizes he has a family that loves him and he doesn’t want to leave. While it’s a cute kids’ story, I wonder whether we aren’t all longing for that kind of love: a love that fights for us even when we aren’t worth fighting for, and a family that sticks together even when some members are broken, wounded, and weak.

So I’ll leave you with two thoughts today: 1) God delights in you and me, no matter how unfathomable that may seem, and 2) because of the transforming power of God’s love we can love and delight in one another.

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” -Psalm 37:4

If I Were There

If I were there that Sunday,

Would I have noticed His entry?
Would I have laid down my cloak
And cheered the coming King?
Or would I have stood back
Wondering what all the fuss was about?

 

If I were there in the Upper Room,
Would I have let Him wash my feet?
Would I have proclaimed my undying devotion?
Would I have asked, “Is it I?”
Or would I have slipped out to betray Him?

If I were there in the courtyard,
Would I have denied my Lord?
Would I have hidden in the shadows?
Or would I have cheered the accusers
And spat in His face?
Would I have asked for Barabbas instead?

If I were there on the hillside,
Would I have mocked Him?
Would I have wept with His mother?
Would the darkness have startled me
Into realizing this was an innocent man?
Would I have helped prepare His body
And laid Him in my tomb?

If I were there that morning,
Would I have gone to the tomb?
Would I have seen the angels?
Would I have run to share the news?
Would I have believed the report of others?
Or would I still be doubting?

Lord, without seeing, I believe
Without hearing, I trust Your Word
By faith I accept Your love,
And wait in hope for Your return!

Broken Wells

I’m always reading at least two books at the same time. Several times recently I’ve read a chapter in one book, switched to another book and read a chapter that echoes the other book. This week that happened with The God of All Comfort by Hannah Whitall Smith and Inside Out by Larry Crabb. Both authors referred to Jeremiah 2:13, “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” In this passage the people of God have walked away from the true source of water and life, and have tried their own methods of finding satisfaction and fulfillment.

The focus in Crabb’s book is that we are inclined to work from the outside in—we work to make our external circumstances more comfortable, then we build relationships, and we hope to find satisfaction now and for the future. What we should be doing is building our relationship with God, then building godly relationships with others, and we’ll find joy regardless of our circumstances. A big part of the problem, as Crabb explains it, is that we demand that people fulfill needs that only God can fill, and we demand that God fulfill our needs in a way that won’t happen in this lifetime. So we live with constant disappointment that we aren’t getting what we think we need. While Crabb’s theory is pretty accurate, it’s also discouraging to be told, “Get over yourself and live with the disappointment.” (Interestingly, his later book Connecting takes a whole new direction with the joy of living in community with one another. I’ll probably include some of that in a later blog.)

I think it can be valuable to consider how we might be walking past God’s wellspring of life and digging our own wells. It may be outright sin, which we either indulge in or try to control through behavior modification. It may be pain, depression and anxiety, which we may medicate, seek counseling, or try to muddle through. It may be relationships, work, church, or any number of things. We want to feel good and enjoy life, but sometimes things just don’t work out that way. So what do we do when things go wrong? Do we try everything in our power to “fix” it, or do we trust that God is in control and He knows what He’s doing? Not that we shouldn’t seek help, but sometimes we need to let God work things out in His own way. For myself, I’ve discovered that years of seeing doctors and trying innumerable medications have been less beneficial than finding faith, hope, and love in community.

Whitall Smith says this, “The church of Christ abounds with people who are ‘discouraged because of the way.’ Either inwardly or outwardly, and oftentimes both, things look all wrong, and there seems no hope of escape. Their souls faint within them, and their religious lives are full of discomfort and misery. There is nothing that so paralyzes effort as discouragement, and nothing that more continually and successfully invites defeat. The secret of failure or success in any matter lies far more in the soul’s interior attitude than in any other cause or causes.”

Both Crabb and Whitall Smith make the point that an attitude of grumbling or complaining comes from blaming God for the things He has allowed to come into our lives. We think that we deserve better treatment from God, or else we believe that He is not in control, so we feel justified in griping when things don’t go our way. Instead, we are to believe His sovereignty, trust His goodness, and give thanks. If nothing else, we can be thankful that He is with us in all circumstances and He loves us more than we can imagine. We’re like children who eat meal after meal without comment so long as it is something we like. But when a distasteful food comes along everybody in the house hears our complaint. That’s usually when we get reminded of the starving children in Africa. Even ungodly parents are aware that a little dose of perspective is needed occasionally, yet we forget that in our dealings with God.

I have to confess that as I’ve read Hannah Whitall Smith’s writings in The God of All Comfort and The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, sometimes I’ve been frustrated with her blanket statements—just believe, don’t doubt, have faith, give thanks, don’t complain, pray! Those are much easier said than done when we face difficulties in life. But I think it probably does get easier with practice. At times my prayers have been, “Lord, I believe—help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24); or “Increase my faith!” (Luke 17:5). I’m certain that God honors those prayers.

For today I’ll remind myself with Psalm 100 that God is the good, loving Creator and Shepherd who is worthy of thanks and praise:

1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
2 Serve the Lord with gladness!
Come into His presence with singing!
3 Know that the Lord, He is God!
It is He who made us, and we are His;
we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.
4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving,
and His courts with praise!
Give thanks to Him; bless His name!
5 For the Lord is good;
His steadfast love endures forever,
and His faithfulness to all generations.

Faithful Hope

I recently read The Healing Path by Dan Allender. He invites us to look at our lives through the lenses of faith, hope and love. The difficulty we all face is that humans are imperfect. Faith in people will eventually result in betrayal by someone. It may be in some small way such as gossip, or something much larger like adultery or abuse. Repeated experiences of betrayal can cause us to lose hope and to feel powerless. When the vulnerability of love brings wounds, we can become ambivalent about the desire to love again. Unfortunately, that is all part of living in a fallen world in relationship with fallen people.

Our experiences with people can color our understanding of God. He is the only perfect being, and is the perfect source of faith, hope and love. But life can lead us to doubt His goodness and power, wonder whether He truly loves us, and question whether there is any hope for the future to be any different. Hannah Whitall Smith writes in The God of All Comfort, “In this matter of comfort it is exactly as it is in every other experience in the religious life. God says, ‘Believe, and then you can feel.’ We say, ‘Feel, and then we can believe.’ ...If we want to be comforted, we must make up our minds to believe every single solitary word of comfort God has ever spoken.” It may seem like a trite Sunday-school answer—just believe because the Bible tells me so. But if we have no foundation in Scripture, we have nowhere we can safely place our trust, and so faith, hope and love are foolish indeed. If God is not trustworthy, then no one is, and we dare not let anyone close enough to hurt us. Smith continues, “A trustworthy person commands trust; not in the sense of ordering people to trust him, but by irresistibly winning their trust by his trustworthiness.”

Allender puts it this way, “Life without faith becomes anemic and predictable, never sufficiently stirring to compel us to risk for the future.” If we choose to risk being wounded again, we will often be surprised by love and joy in relationship with God and others. But if we choose to live the “safe” life of self-protection, we lose out on the blessings, and we’ll still end up getting hurt anyway.

Romans 15:8-13 reminds us that God is true and trustworthy based on everything we read in Scripture. The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Noah, David, Isaiah, John, and Paul is the same God we have with us today. And in Him we can have hope—hope for salvation and sanctification, hope for authentic love, hope for fellowship and relationship with one another, and hope for His return. “Hope makes us victors who succeed because we live for nothing more or less than His coming. Hope is not in a change of circumstances, but in the confidence that our character will change as we live for His coming. Hope compels us to live for the future by pouring ourselves out as offerings to God in our relationships with other” (Allender). In Christ our faith, hope and love are secure, and in that security we can risk extending love to others even when logic tells us otherwise.

Through faith in God we can find hope, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, and all the other Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). I came to the realization (again) that if we as believers have been grafted into the Vine, then the Spirit will cause that fruit to grow without us striving and fretting over it. We can’t create the fruit on our own. It is as we depend on the Vine for nourishment that the fruit will bud and flourish. We may not even be conscious of its development as we don’t “feel” like anything is happening. But we can trust that God is at work in us, changing us to be more conformed to His image, using us for His purposes, and growing His fruit in our lives.

“And now abide faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Enlightenment

I’ve been doing a lot of reading in recent weeks about our identity in Christ and the lies we tend to believe instead. As I was thinking about it, I realized that subtle lies can slip into our thinking over time without being noticed right away. In my own case, I started learning about who I am in Christ when I was in college. It was a relief to know that I was loved and accepted by God and it didn’t depend on my performance or lack thereof. But I have to say that I’m not sure I ever really believed all that to be true. Yes, it sounds good, but surely God expects me to be working toward perfection anyway? I’ve always been a perfectionist, and even if God doesn’t expect that from me, I expect it from myself. So are my standards higher than God’s? There’s a scary thought.

I discovered that another lie had snuck in as well. My beliefs slowly migrated—I am complete in Christ, therefore my approval doesn’t come from other people, therefore I don’t need other people. It started out true but ended upside down. That shift wasn’t intentional by any means, though it was driven by a lot of other factors I can’t go into. It’s funny how pride can manifest both as self-promotion and self-protection depending on the circumstances.

One book that I should probably reread every few years is The Search for Significance, by Robert McGee. He begins by saying: “[If] we are honest with ourselves, from time to time, we find the light being turned on in our world, and we are amazed (and sometimes embarrassed) at what we see. It isn’t that we don’t know that certain things are not right. We just don’t realize how destructive these things are until the light comes on… It is difficult—if not impossible—to turn on the light of objectivity by ourselves. We need guidance from the Holy Spirit and usually the honesty, love, and encouragement of at least one other person who is willing to help us…” (2-3).

The past few months have turned on the light in my life, and I am convinced that God allows us to go through difficult seasons in order to help us realize we can’t keep walking in the dark. It’s been humbling to suddenly see the darkness for what it is, but even more humbling to look back over the past couple decades and see how quickly the light got turned out after prior “enlightenments.” It doesn’t take long to get distracted by sin, the world’s definition of life, and busyness (even ministry).
In thinking about the sermon on Hebrews 12:1-2, I’m thankful that our “cloud of witnesses” doesn’t just include those who have gone before us, but also those who are walking alongside us even now. It’s easier (at least for me) to overlook the lives of the men and women in the Bible than to try to ignore the people I see daily or weekly who want to know “How are you really doing?” It is encouraging to know that others have dealt with or are currently dealing with the same struggles and are finding victory in Christ. As McGee writes, “God’s love, expressed through His people and woven into our lives by His Spirit and His Word, can, over a period of time, bring healing even to our deepest wounds and instill within us an appropriate sense of self-worth” (7).

So when it comes to the question of what we need to lay aside in order to run the race, several things come to mind for me as well as for most of the people I know: pride (including self-sufficiency, self-preservation, self-promotion), control, perfectionism, seeking approval, apathy, avoidance, anger, blaming myself or others, false guilt… The list of destructive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors could go on and on. We’ve all got them, whether we’ve let the light shine on them or not.

Two books I’ve read recently (McGee and also Redemption by Mike Wilkerson) have made the point that sin is trying to fulfill real needs in wrong ways. These are things we need to lay aside, but part of that process will require figuring out what the real needs are (love, acceptance, forgiveness, etc.) and understanding how God meets those needs in legitimate ways. Without that, any effort to lay aside the sin is just going to leave us empty and searching for something to fill that spot. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any quick fix for our learned beliefs and behaviors. It took a long time to internalize the lies, and now may take just as long to internalize the truth. I’ll let you know when I’ve arrived, because the race is still in progress! As many have reminded us—if you’re running the race and you fall or get off course, you don’t go back to the starting line. You just get up, turn back toward the finish line, and keep running.