Seeing Clearly

July 20, 2013July 29, 2013 MichaelLeave a comment

I encountered a person who, after discovering my religious training and work in the church, found an opportunity to ask some long-standing questions of his. The main question dealt with Eve and the serpent in the Garden of Eden: What was the nature of Eve’s temptation? Was it intellectual or was it sexual with the serpent or Satan himself? Surely there was more reason to Eve’s “hanging out” at the tree for other than mere conversation. Eve was “giving something away.”

If you’re reeling right now from the flagrant implications, then just imagine me staring blankly into the face of my interlocutor trying not to spill over with amazement. This gentleman went on to explain some of his background. He was an avid reader of the scriptures as a young man and, at twenty-one, he formulated his idea that Eve’s temptation could only have been sexual, considering human relations and the “nature of a woman.”

Thirty-four years later while watching what he supposed to be the History Channel, this topic was featured and lent credence to his supposition, thus stamping it as truth in his mind. I was not previously familiar with this particular theory, but I did a small research on it to know what he was talking about. Evidently he didn’t listen long enough because the legend is that Satan actually impregnated Eve, but it is all irrelevant to the case at hand.

I don’t care to go into the drawn out conversations, arguments, and rebuttals we went through over our time together because it got so silly. At best I found it incredibly foolish to base one’s conviction on something trivial as an unfounded supposition and a TV episode confirmation. Then, as was part of my point to him, I couldn’t imagine being so staunchly sure about the remotest ancient history without some deference to the overwhelming mystery that clouds the very time and text. I’ve always admitted that the best theology begins with some measure of mystery. After all the theory and analysis and reasoning, sometimes we just don’t know.

My friend also didn’t seem to understand that there are interpretational rules to the scriptures. To be funny and supposing his foregone conclusion about Eve was true, I asked him why couldn’t it be any less true that Jesus hung around street people because he was attracted to their way of life and not the opposite. “Well they wanted to be like Jesus,” he replied sincerely. Can we be so sure if we are allowed to self-approve our interpretations of the Bible?

There was a second gentleman present who himself had questions about the opposite end of the Bible, namely, Revelation and the apocalyptic writings. He was more logical than the first and actually sided with me against him. Laughably, I was lucky enough to get one questioner who knew everything that happened at the dawn of human history and another who eagerly wanted to know what was at the end of it!

I explained to the first man over breakfast that, although I may have a degree and have done some teaching in the church, I am ever only a student of the scriptures, learning and relearning and working within the rules of interpretation, offering my faith where mystery obscures what more there is to learn. In fact, any good preaching will steer any true seeker to study and put down the imbalance and sensationalism that attends the Aha! I gotcha! type of reasoning.

I see the condition of these men’s hearts even better now when I look back on it. Both were conservative men with very strong Christian upbringings and sentiments. The first man told me that his mother expected him to be a preacher; the second man confessed that he was a backslider and didn’t go to church because of hypocrites but needed to make a change. Between the questions of the two men, I took away a significant point. Christian spirituality is not about the technicalities of the Bible and not about how this all started or will end. Instead, it’s about the living to be done in the middle, for it is possible that when the questions are all answered as best they can be, we will have still not lived for God. We will have still not loved and enjoyed him and fulfilled our call in creation to simply be his joy and he our pleasure. Devout spirituality is nothing short of wholeheartedly pursuing the disciplines that bring us to union with our Creator and make us the best persons we were made to be.

I will still address the issue of these questions. One day we will all have the chance to speak to God face-to-face, but it will not be a fact-finding opportunity then. Yet we now have the privilege to learn of him through the scriptures and within the context of a glorious journey and life of faith. (Yes, God is the point of our lives.) I refer to Augustine’s words often—“Faith is to believe in what you do not yet see; the reward for faith is to see what you have believed.” Perhaps one day we will have all the answers and know as God does and acquaint those that actually lived the stories we read. We often use the expression “seeing is believing,” but with God it is the opposite: believing is seeing.

Why I Am Not Saved

July 19, 2013July 29, 2013 MichaelLeave a comment

Flickr hedonism — CC BY-NC, inky, Flickr

When I lived at home, I had a phone conversation that annoyed me but also provoked and enlightened me. I was washing dishes when the phone rang. It was a former neighbor who wanted to speak with my mother about some job papers. I told him she was not in; she was at church. And with that, his rant began about why he had no need for church.

He said that he was made to attend church when he was young and didn’t like it then for the same reason he didn’t currently go: hypocrites. He tired of people who were supposedly holy while secretly being the transgressors of everything they preached against. He felt that if being religious is how one wants to lead his or her life, fine; however, if a person desires to be free of religion, fine again.

He said he wanted to be able to dance and drink as he pleased. He even brought up homosexuality, that if he wanted to court other men—if that were his M.O.—then he should feel free to do so. It is every person’s right to be happy according to how he or she deems necessary. He was a good man, after all, and did no harm to his neighbor. In the end, he could serve God at home.

I stood there listening and not saying much of anything because I know when a person doesn’t care to hear the contrary, although I wasn’t afraid to challenge him. Honestly, with the way the conversation was going (me holding the phone to my ear with him spewing against everything holy), I affirmed his answers to help me get rid of him quicker! I also knew that if I tried to express my belief, an argument would have ensued; however, the scriptures warn against falling into this trap.

So he continued stating and restating his spiel. Maybe it wasn’t a moment to make a convert or to plant a seed, but it was a teaching moment from the Holy Spirit to me.

I have read those Christian worker aides on how to witness to others. Sometimes they’re found in the back of Bibles with faith-sharing messages to counter specific arguments. In seminary, I really benefited from an apologetics course I took. But all that I had ever learned took a backseat to this moment. What I gathered from this man was the real reason why he didn’t serve God. The hypocrite argument is the first one many will throw in the faces of devout people, but the hypocrite argument is a fallacy.

We all know how distasteful it is for a person to claim Jesus and all-things-holy only to turn the corner and get down with the Devil. But for a person to say he or she doesn’t serve God because of rotten apples doesn’t remove righteous responsibility from his or her shoulders. This man had missed the point: spiritual conversion. If you mean to serve God, then God you will serve.

Furthermore, when God gives you a command, his concern is not with a thousand other people and how they are living. His concern is with your obedience to him. You may be the one he desires to bring light to all those walking in error. It is simply illogical to say you don’t serve God because Persons A, B, and C aren’t living right

The real reason why this man didn’t serve God was because he refused to live his life God’s way, even with a God-fearing wife. Unfortunately, factored into his obstinance might have been many incorrect expectations and examples of what holy living entails, which would require good teaching to correct. But his defiance of God was not due to another person, as he had convinced himself. It was just what it was, a defiance of God. Sorrowfully, this man passed away about a month ago.

Our Confession

July 14, 2013July 29, 2013 Michael1 Comment

I believe God: To proclaim this requires trust in a sovereign God who has his purposes with our successes and our failures. Too often our belief is merely our focus on the resolution of problems we require God to solve, when God is attempting to place our focus on him as the priority while we are in our situations.

If in our trials we received all that we asked of God—every quick deliverance and comfort—we might be hard-pressed to differentiate faith in God and magical charm. Obviously, believers are not exempt from life’s tough times; things will not always go our way. But real faith focuses one on God’s character and his purpose and not mere solutions by him. It demands trust in a God who understands our cares better than we do and who possesses the power to use even our trepidation in his plan to make us better people for him.

So when we say that we have faith, we must do so searchingly to ascertain whether we’re truly relying on God or relying on an outcome. Will God come through for us? Indeed he will. Every time? Absolutely. But when how we may need him isn’t apparent or quickly resolved, we must also believe that his help to us is deeper and more extensive than we can presently see. God is providential, thus always at work in the lives of his people bringing about his purposes and for his own glory. Let us also not forget his affection: He is for us.

Our situations have never surprised God and do not hinder his plans. But he wants our confidence resting in his unfailing character regardless of the crisis. Otherwise, our problems become magnified and he is diminished.

Deadly Admonitions

July 13, 2013July 29, 2013 Michael2 Comments

I stood in line in an office store behind three people in lively conversation. It was obvious from their speech that they were Christians and, upon listening closer, one of the two men there was a new Christian. I heard the woman convincingly tell this gentleman, “That’s the Lord’s way of keeping you saved.” What that meant I didn’t have a clue, but I was now interested to know. It became apparent that this man was trying to quit smoking. Then, the other man there, evidently a veteran Christian, advised his friend, amidst much that he said, “Well I always tell folk to smoke, drink, cuss…till you stop. You’ll get tired of it.”

The scenario was not unlike another a friend of mine related to me. He had a friend earlier in his life that was a philanderer. This young man had sought spiritual help during a church service when at some point an old church mother said to the gentleman, “Oh, you’re just being a man, baby.” May God have mercy upon these men and all like them just beginning the Christian life and even greater mercy upon the sincere ones who counsel them with error!

Let me offer some scriptural context for what I am about to say. It would be proper to claim that the holiness of God and his righteous standards are in judgment against all ungodliness. And to the extent that we side with righteousness, we judge indeed (1 Cor. 2:15). As Christians, however, we do not judge other people in a way that presumes our own innocence of sin or immunity from their sort of sin. This is Christ’s injunction in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 7:1-6).

The good that I find in these two accounts is persons who have clearly perceived an antagonizing trait working negatively in their lives and, to some degree, impeding their full fellowship with God. Their humility makes them ready to receive the grace of God for strength to overcome their struggle. But the great misfortune for souls like these is to become enjoined to well-meaning Christians and their counsel that is not only unscriptural, but is also simply not thought out.

What could these two young men possibly hear in the advice that was given to them? Perhaps, “Continue to have all the uncommitted sex you want. You’re a man and men are highly sexed creatures. You’re only doing what is natural to you and for your body. God doesn’t condemn you yet, baby.” And perhaps, “Smoking is a vice you must rid yourself of. But you’re a new Christian, so it’s understandable that it might not be so easy at first. Don’t worry too much about it. When the time comes you’ll get tired of it, and it’ll stop.”

I consider this advice godless and (unintentionally) deceptive. It is godless because it does not rely on the spiritual grace God provides to overcome sin and so effectually undermines the work of Christ. “You’re only doing what’s natural to you”—yet if it’s natural I should continue with it, but why am I conflicted and in turmoil about it? “When the time comes…”—you mean I can’t expect God’s active help in quitting this habit, but it will rid itself sometime in my future? What if that’s ten years down the road? The men would be justified responding this way.

Moreover, the advice is deceptive because the New Testament scriptures constantly explain the flesh, the lower, carnal nature and strong coercion in humans in constant battle against the Spirit of God, something the advisors surely understood. The reason why these men were calling on God is because they had become enslaved to their deeds; after a while people grow to hate the addictions that enslave them.

Now consider the ones who frolic in sin and enjoy it and haven’t yet discovered sin to be a hard taskmaster. How would they respond to this advice? “Cool! I can be a Christian and continue to score with every girl I want. God wouldn’t give me my sexual nature just to condemn me for it. It’s a wild buck right now, so I’m going to enjoy the ride while I can.” He will say, “Whew! I really didn’t want to give up my cigs. Quitting would be hell itself. Really, what does it hurt?” (And this indubitably raises the question about whether smoking is a sin or not, but this is not the topic. It is a sin for this man because his conscience tells him so, 1 Cor. 8:4-13.)

The advice given to this kind would send them back into a possibly worse form of their wrongdoing. And how do we defend these admonitions when the conduct becomes strong vice, broadly defined as inordinate sex, substance abuse, or no respect for life?

I need not go on. These two men were on a path to freedom (and hopefully still are) until meeting up with damnably bad advice. What God requires of us in our struggles is that we are always swimming against the current of sin, as tough as it may be. Where sin may be at work in our lives, he requires our utmost efforts to rid ourselves of it as we rely on his strong, supporting grace.

God, You’re Killing Me!

July 12, 2013June 30, 2015 Michael6 Comments

“Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” (Ph. 2:12-13)

I hated running in gym. It was needless sweating and getting oneself worked up, just to return to class sticky and ready for a nap instead of a test. I enjoyed running at home, of course, while playing outdoors and in the neighborhood with my brother and friends. That was different. Still, moving fast on legs was never my cup of tea.

In college I recall asking my buddy Dan, a track team member, why he enjoyed running…what purpose did it serve. He explained that it was all about competing against one’s own resolve. In the face of what could be every physical discomfort, you must will yourself to keep running until you’ve crossed the finish line. I’ve never forgotten his response, but my opinion about the discipline didn’t budge.

That is, until April of ’98.

Many people challenge me when I recount this story, but it is entirely true. It was less than a month to the end of my freshman year. This particular day I wasn’t feeling well, but I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I wasn’t coughing, sneezing, aching—nothing. I simply had no explanation for why I felt so bad. So, my roommate away, I decided that I would leave the dorm and go to the gym…so that if I fell ill or died someone would be around to aid me. I really thought I was ‘goin’ up yonder!’

Deciding on what exercise to begin, I looked over at the treadmills. I still don’t why, especially for a person who loathed running. I had never been on one, so I decided to give it a try. It couldn’t hurt since I was already in the throes of death. But when I got off that treadmill, I had run six miles! I had left the funk that was on me somewhere in the dust and still felt like running another mile or two.

It was a revolution for me. That summer I logged 25 to 30 miles each week, and I was 20 pounds lighter at the start of the next semester. Moreover, I had found a new exercise and health habit. But I’d be misleading you by implying it was all a breeze. Dan was spot-on in his assessment. Let me explain what I learned that summer.

Pressing On

What is amazing to me—and any athlete will know this—is how attune one becomes to his or her body while performing and how conditions and preconditions weigh upon that performance. I learned, by trial and error, that everything mattered to my body’s performance of the day’s 3-5-mile jog. For instance, the previous day’s dinner impacted the morning’s run: meat felt bad but spaghetti felt great. Proper sleep was a must; but then I had to be obedient to the alarm clock and get up. The right clothing was important for comfort sake because it’s no fun being agitated when fighting your body to press on. There were obstacles, like inclement weather, closed-off facilities, and schedule changes, which had to be managed.

I had to learn how to breathe correctly—and breathe what sometimes felt like liquid air in the humid Midwest. I loved the treadmill and indoor track. But the outdoor track was psychologically dreadful to me, especially when rounding the stadium and realizing how far I had left to run. Also, outdoors there were hills, wide curves, uneven track, and constant wind resistance. At times I had horrible shin splints. And when that “wall” came, there was no other definition of the Devil and the minions of Hell! It came every time and could sometimes send my mind spinning out of control for want of ending the anguish I experienced. But if I kept running it would go away. And the longer I kept at running, the longer it took to reach the wall; and it was also easier to get through it.

Soon, I lived to run and I watched my body morph. My aerobic capacity expanded. My metabolism revved to life. I traded body fat for leanness and gained strength. My body became agile and my mind sharpened. And I cannot forget a particular day I was nearly bouncing off the walls with energy and had to get out of my room and do something physical. What physicians and nutritionist tell us about exercise and healthy eating is very true.

But I also learned that there was no way for me to enjoy my new results without also having to cope with the extreme exertion and resistance that helped to create them. It’s no different for the person who wants large muscles or championship rings or thriving businesses. Hardship can always be expected, no matter the endeavor, yet hardship tempers us and the process eventually gets easier.

The Will and Desire

The apostle Paul instructed the Philippians to do everything they possibly could to prove the work of salvation in their lives and the maturity of their faith (Ph. 2:12). This is the will of God for each of us: to honor him with our lives and produce good works, beside anything more he may desire of us. So many people struggle with knowing the will of God for their lives, but Paul settles the matter. The will of God is whatever is good and pleasing to God. We should be doing that.

I have no problem with those who believe God has given them a special task or calling. But many people get sidetracked by this when they haven’t heard God speak anything special to them. Just please God. We should follow the good in our hearts and do what is before us. This is the will of God, and Paul suggests that we prove our faith with it.

But why we act this way is the truly glorious part. The Amplified Version has a marvelous rendering of verse 13: “[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.” Behind all we can do to bring honor to God through our lives, by discerning his will and doing it, is God himself fueling the fire with his energy to produce those good works. He gives us both the work and the desire for it.

Just as it was with me learning to enjoy running, so it is with us running this spiritual race. A good desire burns on the inside of us. I desired to be healthier and fitter; God desires the same for us spiritually. But we must run and keep running despite fierce resistance that comes from every direction. Satan constantly devises ways to trip us up and attacks us. Worldly influence presses against us like a fierce headwind. And our own flesh and sin issues beat on our minds to end the needless agony and quit.

But God says to us, “Don’t stop for anything!” The longer we run, the easier running becomes. My friend, resistance will always be present in the race, but you will change in the process. God put the very desire to run the race inside of you; and there is promise in obedience to the task, both now and later.

God wants us to know that the race gets easier and is very rewarding. Since he gives us the desire to do his will, no resistance can frustrate that desire unless we stop running and give up its control. Don’t allow the Evil One, the world, or your own flesh to thwart the fire of desire God has placed inside of you. God knows—Satan knows!—that the will of God for you will be done if you stay the course.

Two Cautions

There are two important things to note here. First, don’t allow the voice of Satan in others or in your own mind to belittle or dissuade you of your interests or good deeds. People don’t always see how God is working in our lives for his glory. In fact, we may not understand it; and it may be years before anything special becomes of talents we nurtured. But the reason we put so much effort in them is because God ordained them in our lives and his Spirit motivates us to sharpen the skill.

Second, it is important to consider the possibility of not doing the will of God. There were times out on the track that I did stop, times when I gave in to the physical overload and mental screaming. Sometimes we live as though God will simply make everything work out well. But that is not true where he gives us a responsibility to labor. We can fail at the will of God. Paul asked the Galatians, “You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?” (5:7). Failing would be a disappointment when God has given us every advantage. God wishes for us to see that his empowerment is everything we need to achieve his will.

There may be some hard places in your life right now, but consider them part of a process that is making you well-conditioned in God’s purpose. Resistance is a constant and it won’t change, but you will and you are changing. Things don’t break your spirit the way they used to. You’re stronger in the Word. You’ve witnessed God answer prayer. Now you’re gaining your second wind and your steps are firmer. It takes a while to break a sweat now.

Keep running because God is in the process. He’s not destroying you; he’s blessing you. The finish line is somewhere in the distance, but the reward comes long before in the journey and its instruction.

“Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.” (Gal. 6:9)

More on this topic: God of the Process and New Strength is Coming!

Untied Laces: Fighting Guilt

July 6, 2013August 2, 2014 Michael1 Comment

“Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions’…and you forgave the guilt of my sin.” (Psa. 32:5)

CC NC-ND John 'K' Flickr — CC NC-ND John ‘K’ Flickr

Guilt is one of Satan’s engineered marvels to keep people away from God. All of us are sometimes tempted with not accepting God’s grace due to some bad habit or unmentionable sin that distances us from him. Yet imagine the satisfaction Satan gets when the offense is one with which we struggle. Like a fly in a spider’s web, we gradually tire from the strain to be free and, guilt-ridden, our adversary watches with delight.

Repeated sin is a burden to the soul. All of us know the hardship of falling to temptation, lamenting in guilt, and praying that we’ll never do it again, only to realize that the issue is a real scab in the heart that we simply cannot let heal. It is spiritually crushing to realize that sin controls a part of one’s life; and how to remedy it is sometimes equally troublesome to determine. That despair is real and it often becomes malignant.

Don’t Love Me as I Am

Hear these words carefully: True penitence before God is acceptable, but self-deprecation plays into the hands of Satan and entangles us further in his weave. Very often we make ourselves both the offender and the enforcer of God’s commands. It is the human tendency for self-flagellation, to hatefully criticize ourselves. Surprisingly, it arises from an insidiously proud heart that exploits the very character of God.

We berate and loathe ourselves. We scale the heights of fury and plunge the depths of remorse. Ultimately, we shake our fists at God and ask, “How can you love me like this, in all my wretchedness?” I’ve done it. We prefer his judgment instead of his mercy, which interrupts our scorning. And in our pitiful despair we try, with one last stab, for control. But when our emotions finally settle, we sense that the God who is ever drawn to us yet beckons.

Forever Loved by God

What we cannot accept in our guilty minds is a spiritual reality regardless of our embargoes. It is this: Sin can never push us outside of God’s grace. We are the ones who eliminate God’s mercy as the sufficient remedy for our weaknesses. Yet the Father wants us to see that we cannot lose his love. What matters is not how gross our sin but how great the love that heals and restores—if we would only go for help.

God wants to teach us to tie the laces that keep us falling. This means that in times of repeated sin, we trip and stumble our way to God rather than away from him. He is who we need. Our resolution must be that if a sin should be one that we cannot shake, we must drag it to the place where the mercy to help can make us free.

Rogue Conviction

June 28, 2013July 29, 2014 Michael1 Comment

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” ~Pascal

One Saturday morning I listened to the public radio quiz show “Whad’Ya Know?” while driving with my family to a nearby town. The whimsical show is hosted by Michael Feldman and features a trivia game with both audience and caller participants. One of the questions in the game this particular morning was “Who turns up the electric shock dial the highest—readers of the Bible or Time Magazine?” Since I am both of these, I knew the answer immediately: the Bible thumpers.

I knew it because I have watched myself evolve from a staunchly conservative individual with high objectives of character and moral living—my Bible leanings—to a slightly more liberal thinker who, still with his strong convictions, can now be conversant with various ideas and those who may accept no religion. So why is it that the people with the most conviction or who are the most unexposed often the most unmerciful and resistant to change? I offer a suggestion.

Perhaps a belief is to be possessed or espoused, not vice versa, lest believers (in anything) risk being driven by their beliefs and so become fanatics. People who sacrifice themselves to their convictions often become instruments of those ideas to beat others into subjection. By turning their beliefs into abject rules their own lifestyle is bound by adherence and that causes people to be legalistic toward others. It is difficult to acquaint those who are diametric and cheerless for need to always convert.

We all know someone who leans a little too far left or right. For instance, some people love money and are only motivated to gain as much as they can get; others cannot enjoy their money for the need to save it all. If you’re not running after money or hoarding every penny you can find, then you probably deserve the poverty coming your way. I watched a news story once of a woman so careful about her home energy expenditures that she turned off the heat each night in the deep of winter. Such is the case of conviction become obsession and compulsion.

When Barack Obama became President, I spoke with a black gentleman who was glad to see a black family in the White House. Yet he was so opposed to the new leader’s politic that he couldn’t relish what the moment represents in American history. It underscores a point to me: any notion, whether of faith or sport or politics or propriety or family—anything is subject to extremes, and this is the negation of true enjoyment.

More on this topic: Acting Against Your Better Judgment

The Root of Faith

June 24, 2013May 20, 2014 Michael1 Comment

“The testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:3-4)

Jesus describes the behavior of seed that falls upon rocky soil in a segment of his parable of the sower (Matt. 13). The plantlet that sprouted grew but quickly succumbed to the sun’s heat for lack of roots. Jesus uses the illustration to explain a spiritual temperament that, although quickly and emotionally responsive, collapses in times of trial because faith was not rooted deeply enough in the heart to cause one to persevere. The entire parable is a masterful description of faith in the heart, but the seed on rocky soil provides a sobering lesson: People of faith are not immune to trouble, persecution, and tests, but quality faith makes a difference in how they handle circumstance and how God rewards those who endure.

The Nature of Faith

Faith is the gift of God to us. It comes from above to give sight—light to the spiritually dead that calls them to life and causes them to ponder godly things; sight to believing hearts to see new things about God and themselves. The orientation is always God-to-man: God is always reaching down to us, for we can never reach toward him unless he makes the first move. Our moving toward God is always a response. Faith is God’s channel for getting his supply—whatever it may be—to us, never our means of summoning him. Faith is indeed our assurance of things hoped for and conviction of things unseen (Heb. 11:1), but only those things God indicates are possessions granted by him (cf. 2 Pet. 1:3).

This is an important lesson to learn early in our walk with God because there will be tough days for the Christian. Those who come to Christ rightly approach with great joy and relief because the heart, fully awakened, is reunited with its Maker. But it is also the beginning of a process of acquainting God and his rich plan for our lives. That process, however, is often painful and unavoidably so. First, life never ceases to be what it is, and believers have to deal with its cares just as every other person does. Then, we don’t always see how carnal and sinful our faculties are and that, without refinement, we will oppose God’s plan and purpose for us. So God chooses to prune our hearts that we might bear abundant fruit, and this requires cutting.

Faith Determines Our Response

God never acts punitively toward us. Whenever he cuts, or allows pain in our lives, he does so as a surgeon to give us better life, not as a robber to take life away. And if we understand this well, then our attitude should be to willingly lay ourselves before the surgeon to do his work, an attitude produced only by spiritual discipline.

The apostle Paul interjects a small aphorism in his treatise in 2 Corinthians 5. He says, “We live by faith, not by sight” (v. 7). Rephrased: On this journey we proceed by the assurance and conviction of God himself and the promises given to us by him, living relationally toward them as if they were plainly evident and not according to the course of this world and our current situations. This is the root missing from the sapling in the rocky soil. What we know about God, by means of faith, and what he has promised us makes all the difference in how we respond when trouble arises and how a carnal Christian or non-believer responds.

Furthermore, how do we respond when we possess the promises of God in our hearts, but our circumstances find us moving further away from them? And when it seems that we will never fulfill God’s plan for our lives, let alone see it? What do we do when everything in our lives is being tested, but we are certain God spoke in our hearts? What do we do when we disqualify ourselves from the grace of God because of our own inadequacy or sin and yet find ourselves grimaced toward him for yet choosing us to his high and holy calling? You see, life happens to us all. Thankfully, believers have the assurance that in all they face God is at work perfecting their faith (Rom. 8:28).

Confidently Enduring Trial

Still, it is never easy. It is not always easy being the believer when what seems to be most certain is the chaos happening all around. It may be tough to stand and hold your ground when others give you the right to concede to options your faith and the Spirit within are telling you to avoid. But the person who wholly trusts God will allow faith to dictate how he endures trial. The heart that trusts him, though it bends, won’t snap when the winds of trouble come because it deems God’s promises surer than circumstances. James keenly observes that perseverance is born of faith (1:4).

Further, appearances can deceive. The scriptures show us a God who is sometimes ready to reveal his promise at moments when circumstances seem to shut out hopes for anything good. Thus, our confidence must remain and mature in God until his answer arrives. He wants to teach us that we are not to be victims of circumstances but champions with the promises of God. And let us also be certain that the Lord will himself test us. It is not always Satan or the trials of life that may buffet us. A test from the Lord is real and often experienced in his silence. God’s silence serves to try us with the promises he has already spoken in our hearts. Do they abide within? Are we clinging and relying on them?

When God’s time is fulfilled, he will bless the faithful, one more thing faith teaches the heart. He will come and save, and he will reward. He will reward us with answers, glimpses at how trial has perfected us, his presence and anointing, and anything more he has promised. Our knowledge of him will be deeper; his word will be more meaningful. And the result will not be due to our roots having deepened in God, but rather because we permitted faith to implant itself within us.

Ragamuffin Saint

June 21, 2013May 19, 2014 MichaelLeave a comment

Blessed are the Linuses of the world, for they shall indeed see the Great Pumpkin!

What is the world without Linus? He is the spiritual one swept away in his belief and set high upon his conviction. Never dogmatic, he is often discovered to be the most grounded of all—if walking on air can be so considered! Life takes all kinds, but it needs Linus because he sees it in perspicuous detail, for he looks with eyes of faith.

What a parable is that episode, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! The world really is a dark pumpkin patch without the scantest clue that it is being stalked. But along comes Saint Linus, hailed in rolls of laughter and guffaw, to snatch up the apathy and announce that belief matters. “Oh, if you could only see as I do!” he tells them. “The Great Pumpkin seeks to reveal himself, but you must be a sincere patch.”

In the cartoon Linus’s Great Pumpkin never comes, and this is always enough to justify the partygoers. In life there is sure to be a Lucy for every Linus to remind him how blockheaded he is for being superstitious; to remind the trusting how much their irrationality costs them: the trick-or-treating, the festivity, the candy, the spectacle of it all.

Still, Linus van Pelt cannot be unconvinced. His heart is pure and his sight has not failed him. When the fun ends, the masks come off, and the sweetness becomes a bad aftertaste, it will be to Linus whom everyone will turn, waiting in the patch, and the Great Pumpkin will come.