From Beginning to End

Psalm 71 gives a lifelong perspective on faith.

“Upon You have I leaned from before my birth” (6a). “For You, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth” (5). “Do not cast me off in the time of old age” (9a). “O God, from my youth You have taught me, and I still proclaim Your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me” (17-18a).

That first quote in particular caught my attention— “from before my birth.” No matter how young you are when you come to faith in Christ, none of us can claim to have been Christians from birth. And yet, when you do meet God and grow in faith, you start to realize that He has been at work long before you knew it. As David wrote in Psalm 139, “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (16). And the Apostle Paul proclaimed to the Ephesian church, that God “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” (1:4). You might say that from God’s perspective, the saved have always been saved, even though they have not always known it. C.S. Lewis wrote in The Great Divorce:

“[B]oth good and evil, when they are full grown, become retrospective. Not only this valley but all this earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved. Not only the twilight in that town, but all their life on earth too, will then be seen by the damned to have been Hell. That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory... the Blessed will say, ‘We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven,’ and the Lost, ‘We were always in Hell.’ And both will speak truly” (ch. 9).

Whether or not you agree completely with Lewis’s eschatology, there is great comfort to be found in believing that God is sovereign over every day and every detail of your life. The God who created us and brought salvation to us will also sustain us to the end, and then He will also raise us to eternal life in the new creation. “From the depths of the earth You will bring me up again” (20). He will never forsake us, so we can trust Him to old age and gray hairs. With that assurance, “I will hope continually and will praise You yet more and more” (14). No matter how far along the path of life you may be, we can be witnesses to others of God’s faithfulness. “My mouth will tell of Your righteous acts, of Your deeds of salvation all the day... I will remind them of Your righteousness, Yours alone” (15-16).

May we endeavor to be faithful to that high calling.

“So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me until I proclaim Your might to another generation, Your power to all those to come” (18).

© 2024 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Look at Me

David Brooks writes in How to Know a Person,

“Apparently we live in a society in which people don’t get to tell their stories. We work and live around people for years without ever knowing their tales. How did it come to be this way? …We don’t start conversations because we’re bad at predicting how much we’ll enjoy them. We underestimate how much others want to talk; we underestimate how much we will learn; we underestimate how quickly other people will want to go deep and get personal. If you give people a little nudge, they will share their life stories with enthusiasm… people are eager, often desperate, to be seen, heard, and understood. And yet we have built a culture, and a set of manners, in which that doesn’t happen.”

We’ve all heard little children demanding, “Look at me! Look at me!” Somewhere along the way we stop may asking for attention, but we never stop needing it. And for many people, an obsession with the screens in front of us leads us to stop offering attention to others. Brooks writes,

“The question everybody is unconsciously asking themselves when they meet you: ‘Am I a person to you? Do you care about me? Am I a priority for you?’”

All too often, even in the church and Christian organizations, it feels like the answer is No. The isolation of the pandemic accelerated our loss of social skills, including non-verbal communication, but this isn’t exactly a new problem. More than once in Scripture God made Himself known to those who felt invisible, such as Joseph, Moses, and Hannah. God spoke to Hagar in the wilderness, leading her to proclaim, “You are a God of seeing… Truly here I have seen Him who looks after me” (Gen. 16:13). Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, and she told her neighbors, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did” (John 4:29). In the book of Acts, Peter and John saw a lame man and Peter said, “Look at us,” and then proceeded to heal the man. Truly seeing the man and his need resulted in a gift far greater than merely giving him alms.

The book of Proverbs has much to say about friendship and our words, such as:

• “A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends” (16:28).
• “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (17:17).
• “He who loves purity of heart, and whose speech is gracious, will have the king as his friend” (22:11).
• “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy” (27:6).
• “Oil and perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest council” (27:9).

Brooks notes that many people think they are better conversationalists than they really are. And many more feel inadequate in conversation. While we can learn from books and blogs, perhaps the best teacher is experience. If we are more intentional in engaging in conversations and asking questions, we can learn a lot from one another.

May we be those who seek to let others know that they are seen and heard, and that they are loved by God and by us.

“Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body” (Prov. 16:24).

Related resources:

Gavin Ortlund teaching on good listening

Russell Moore interviews David Brooks

Russell Moore and Andy Crouch on tech obsession

© 2024 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Small Things

I think sometimes we approach life as if we have to achieve something extraordinary in order to matter—both as a person and as a Christian. Degrees, positions, climbing the ladder become the goal. Even in the church we may feel immense pressure to perform—you aren’t praying enough, reading the Bible enough, sharing the gospel enough... And yet God loves little things.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field... The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened” (Matt. 13:31-33).

It’s okay to be small, and to do small things. It is God’s work through small, broken, weak people that shows His power and glory in the end (2 Cor. 12:10). In the ESV Women’s Study Bible, the commentary on Zech. 4:10 notes “God’s work may start in small ways, yet it will reach a glorious conclusion.” God’s eternal plan doesn’t depend on us being successful in achieving great ambitions. He only asks that we be faithful.

A Quiet Mind to Suffer With, by John Andrew Bryant, about his lifelong struggle with mental illness and unwanted thoughts. He notes:

“Holiness was ordinary things set aside for God by trust in Him, a holy life was an ordinary life with ordinary things that have been offered to Christ... And this ordinary life I have, and you have, can be offered to Christ and become sacred in that way. Not extraordinary but sacred.”

Like Bryant, I’ve had this underlying assumption that if I could just learn the right answers, think the right thoughts, and rationalize my way to being “fixed,” then I could really be useful to God and achieve whatever great acts He has in store for me. Some part of me feels as though I’m just biding my time, waiting for “real” life to start. In one sense that is true, because we are all awaiting that day when all of creation is made perfect and full of joy. But that doesn’t negate the value of the little things we do day in and day out, offered to God and therefore sacred. I’ve reached middle age and haven’t done anything extraordinary with my life by human standards. But I hope I’ve been faithful in small things more often than not.

We may be inclined to judge ourselves and others by what we can see, by some arbitrary standard of visible faith. We don’t know what battles each person is facing within, and we often can’t even understand our own lives very well. Bryant uses the language of intention—is our heart’s desire to love and serve God in whatever ways we can? If so, it doesn’t matter whether our accomplishments are large or small. The prayers of the bedridden are just as necessary as the evangelism of the missionary. The meals served by the housewife are as valuable as the banquet hosted by the soup kitchen. Bandaging a child’s knee is as important as brain surgery. Little things done with love and a desire to serve God are still successes in His eyes.

“Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matt. 25:21).

© 2024 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Say What?

I know some people who, if you ask how they are, will answer “I’m blessed and highly favored!” I believe the thought behind this is probably two-fold—to remind themselves and others that God is bigger than our circumstances, and to create opportunities to tell others about their faith. Those are fine goals. However (no offense intended to those who use that phrase), I get frustrated when I hear it, which probably says more about me than about them. My first thought is usually either “I guess they don’t want to have an honest conversation,” or “I guess I’m the only one who is struggling to make it through another day.”

When asked “How are you,” most people use the default “I’m fine” or something similar. For those who have a closer relationship, perhaps the door opens to share the challenges of life and ask for prayer. In small groups, vulnerability tends to beget vulnerability. Someone has to be the first to let down their guard. While that can be difficult for those of us who struggle with depression and other mental illness, it’s even harder to be honest if we think everyone else is feeling “blessed and highly favored” and we aren’t. And in a culture that values authenticity, it’s easy to feel like you’re being shut out of relationships with those who use scripted responses to common questions.

Most of us probably know that it is God’s blessing that brings us salvation, grace, mercy, and love. Yet knowing that fact doesn’t remove the weight of living with broken bodies and minds. We know these are “light momentary afflictions” (2 Cor. 4:17) when compared with the glory of eternal life. But they don’t feel very light during the decades of this life.

Lament is a valid and valuable part of the biblical canon, particularly in the psalms. David, the “man after God’s own heart,” wrote “O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest” (Ps. 22:2), and “Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted” (Ps. 25:16). Even Jesus holds blessing and suffering in tension in the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3-12). The poor in spirit are blessed, though they don’t see the outcome until the kingdom of heaven. Those who mourn are blessed with comfort, but they still mourn. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, but persecution often endures for years. Blessing doesn’t negate suffering.

One might argue that for the Christian blessedness is a fact and not a feeling. However, that’s not how culture uses the term. So we end up having to analyze how this person I’m talking to understands the concept and what they mean in this particular conversation. For me, that’s too much work when I’m already overwhelmed with looking for conversational openings and balancing the weight of depression. My somewhat neurodivergent brain would much prefer that people say what they mean and mean what they say, so I’m not left wondering how I ought to respond. Church culture is hard enough to navigate without throwing around vague and confusing concepts without explanation.

“The heart of the wise makes his speech judicious… Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body” (Prov. 16:23-24).

Related Resources:

https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/learning-to-lament-a-guide-to-praying-in-our-hardest-moments/

https://christinemchappell.com/blog/the-soul-care-podcast/

© 2024 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Redefined

In Star Trek: Picard, the comment is made, “A point comes in a man’s life when he looks to the past to define himself. Not just his future” (3:1). That started me thinking about the many things that define us. Most of us probably start with our family of origin, current family, and career. While those things are important, they are not ultimate. Christians can look at the past, present, and future to reveal who we are.

Our past started before the beginning of time.

• “[God] chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him” (Eph. 1:4).
• “For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom. 8:29).
• “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Ps. 139:16).

Our stories started long before we were even conceived or imagined by our parents. Our origins point to the Creator of the universe, who chose us to belong to Him.

In the present, our roles are defined by the One we call Lord and has gifted us to serve Him.

• “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord” (Rom. 12:11).
• “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Pet. 4:10).
• “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Cor. 12:27).

Our calling is to follow God’s commission to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20a).

For the future, we look ahead to the day when Christ returns and makes everything new and perfect, when He will judge all peoples.

• “Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God... According to His promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:11-13).
• “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak” (Matt. 12:36).
• “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes the judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him” (Heb. 9:27-28).

If our future is to dwell with God, that should impact the decisions we make here and now.

In short, by looking at the past, present, and future I define myself as a child of God, a servant of God, and an heir of His eternal kingdom. Since that is true, I choose to live in obedience to Him, by His grace and to the best of my ability, as I look forward to that final day when we meet face to face.

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation… training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:11-12).

© 2024 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Inside Out

In his address “The Inner Ring,” C.S. Lewis noted, “I believe that in all men’s lives at certain periods, and in many men’s lives at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside.” We probably all remember the cliques in high school and other settings, and the practically universal desire to be seen as part of a special group with some status or power. As adults, we don’t necessarily call them cliques, but they still exist—political parties, classes, industries, and even churches and denominations. Whoever “we” are, there’s often a sense of “us vs. them.”

Dane Ortlund in Surprised by Jesus describes the book of Luke as “The surprise of outsiders as insiders.” He lists many of the outsiders who were invited into relationship with Jesus. Shepherds in Bethlehem, tax collectors, children, prostitutes, Gentiles, and sinners are “in,” while the religious elite and socially respected are “out” when it comes to the kingdom of God. How?

“Jesus went ‘outside the camp’ (Heb. 13:11-13)... Jesus became unclean... for us. He went outside the camp so that you and I, who are unclean outsiders, can immediately gain access inside — inside the only inner ring that matters: favor with God.”

As I’ve dabbled in psychology over the years, I’ve noted the many ways in which we feel “othered” by people. We have different thought processes, interests, abilities, habits, relational and cultural traits. We’ve created labels for every type of variation. Whether intentional or not, whether good or bad, each label describes who is in and who is out.

We often lose sight of the fact that God has invited everyone to belong to His inner ring. In Christ “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). Paul wasn’t saying that we should throw away all those designations, but that all are of equal value in God’s eyes. As the KJV puts it, “He hath made us accepted in the beloved” (Eph. 1:6).

At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus said He was sent “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:19). We receive God’s favor and blessing, not because we belong to some select group that lives up to His perfect standard, but simply because God chose us and we accepted His invitation into the Inner Ring. We did nothing to deserve being adopted into His family, and no one else can deserve it either. The invitation goes out to all who recognize that they don’t fit in or measure up.

May we be quick to give thanks for God’s unilateral grace and unconditional love, and may we extend that same love and grace to others who are on the outside looking in.

“But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift” (Eph. 4:7).

 

© 2024 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Not My Own

The New City Catechism Devotional begins with this statement:

“What is our only hope in life and death? That we are not our own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to God and to our Savior Jesus Christ...

“Timothy Keller [comments]- It means, first of all, we are not to determine for ourselves what is right or wrong. We give up the right to determine that, and we rely wholly on God’s Word… we stop putting ourselves first, and we always put first what pleases God and what loves our neighbor… A woman once said to me, ‘If I knew I was saved because of what I did, if I contributed to my salvation, then God couldn’t ask anything of me because I’d made a contribution. But if I’m saved by grace, sheer grace, then there’s nothing he cannot ask of me.’”

That flies in the face of our culture of self-determination and expressive individualism—“I feel, therefore I am.” There are now two books titled Don’t Follow Your Heart (I’ve read the one by Jon Bloom), which both remind us that “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). If we follow our hearts, we are following a blind guide. The world, the flesh, and the devil have no power to save us or to fulfill our deepest needs. Only through faith in Christ can we become who God intended us to be from before time began.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the many experiences that have factored in to make me who I am today. Growing up in a Christian home, going to church weekly, and choosing a Christian college certainly played a large part in shaping my faith and my morality. Those were good things, but not everyone ends up in the same place after similar experiences. There were also plenty of negative experiences that shaped me, and I can truthfully say that it is only by God’s grace that I am alive today and that I am endeavoring to live in accordance with Scripture. I know the sinful desires of my heart that would otherwise be seen in my life if I hadn’t surrendered them to God’s will. There are many Scriptures that speak to this surrender of self-will. Here are just a few:

“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19-20).

“As it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live in Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:20-22).

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).

It boils down to this: if God created me, then He has the right to tell me how I am to live. And if He redeemed me by His grace, He also enables me to live in a way that glorifies Him, though I often fail to heed His will when I rely on my own strength and limited understanding. 

There are times when I wonder if it is all worth it, until I remember what eternity holds. Like Asaph in Psalm 73 when he began to envy the prosperity of the wicked and thought, “All in vain have I kept my heart clean” then he remembered, “Truly You set them in slippery places; You make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors!” (13, 18-19). And as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians, “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (4:17-18).

There are sacrifices that we make in this life that seem quite painful at the time (hence they are called sacrifices!). We may feel like we are giving up our only chance to be happy and content. But in reality, we are only losing a brief earthly pleasure for an eternity of perfect peace and joy in the new heavens and new earth. I am not my own, but I belong to One who loves me far more than I love myself, and His plan for the entirety of my life is far better than anything I could ask or imagine.

“Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You” (Psalm 73:25).

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Check out the song “I Am Not My Own” by Skye Peterson and Keith and Kristyn Getty.

© 2024 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.