Last week, I got the news again: one of my missionary uncles had passed away. One of the sad realities of getting older is that the people I care about are also getting older. Although death can come at any age, it seems to come more frequently to those around me lately.

As Christians, I think it can be difficult to maintain the right perspective on death. Sometimes we make too little of it with cavalier words of “comfort” about heaven to those suffering loss. Heaven is real, but so are the loss and the grief. I think the Bible acknowledges that. Look at Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus: he first meets with Martha, listens to her words of blame, and reassures her that Lazarus will rise again. After that, he goes on to Mary and listens to her blaming him, but then he is so moved to compassion by her grief and that of the others with her that we get that famous shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). Jesus knows what he’s about to do. He has already talked to Martha about resurrection, though she certainly didn’t think he meant it would happen that day. But the reality of their grief is such that observing it moves Christ to tears.

I think it is important for us to acknowledge the reality of grief and not expect those closest to a death to jump straight to the joy of heaven. They are still on earth, and the loss of the person on earth is real. On the other hand, the grief upon the death of a Christian is not without hope.

A few months ago, I attended a memorial service that was unusual for me in that it was one of very few I have attended for someone who was not a Christian. It was by far the saddest memorial service I can remember, and not because of the level of grief or my own personal loss. This particular death will have little impact on my daily life, and, for at least some of those present, the biggest struggle was with ambivalent feelings toward the deceased. Rather, it was sad because there was nowhere to look but in the past.

I found myself contrasting this experience with other funerals I have attended. In some, the grief was very great and very deep, such as when my cousin died very suddenly, leaving behind two children and her mother. Yet, in all of them, there was an element that was missing from the one this summer.

Paul tells the Thessalonians, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 ESV).

Even in deep grief, we know that there is a future; we can–and should–have hope. And it is this hope that should (and typically does) set a Christian funeral apart. While we acknowledge the loss and grieve the departed, we celebrate the hope that was in them and is in us.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11:25 ESV)

 

 

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I seldom find myself in agreement with Ellen DeGeneres, but her words in response to the apparent furor over the picture of her laughing with former President George W. Bush are words that many of us should take to heart, especially those of us who call ourselves Christians, as she suggested that we should be kind to everyone, not just those who think like us.

It becomes more and more clear that we live in a society with deep divisions and that social media interaction often fans the flames of hatred between various groups. I can easily see that on my own Facebook news feed. My friends range from teenagers to people in their 90s, from committed Christ-followers to nominal Christians to agnostics to atheists, with a variety of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and others added in, and from the far left to the far right on the political spectrum.  Relationships accumulate after 55 years, especially when you’ve lived in a lot of different places.

Because of that variety, I’ve witnessed a wide range of discussions on controversial topics, some polite, some—shall we say—less so. Some have been downright vitriolic. But the ones that break my heart are those in which rudeness and hatred are spewed in the name of Christianity. Those break my heart because I believe that they break the heart of God.

As Christians, we are supposed to be salt and light; we are supposed to share our faith. But sometimes we forget how we’re supposed to do it. Simon Peter was the brashest of the disciples, regularly speaking up when perhaps he shouldn’t have while Jesus was still on earth. He remained bold and outspoken after the ascension. These are his words about speaking up about our faith:

But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. (1 Peter 3:14-16 ESV)

The emphasis is mine, but this is not an isolated concept in the New Testament. Yes, Jesus did show anger and called people out, but those words and actions were directed at religious hypocrites. When he dealt with adulterers, dishonest tax-collectors, and all of the other sinners that the Pharisees criticized him for spending time with, he spoke truth with compassion and kindness.

We see the same thing in Paul’s sermon in Athens in Acts 17. Here he is, standing in a center of idolatry, but he doesn’t spend his words calling out the sin. Instead, he finds common ground and takes the opportunity to tell them about the true God, the creator of the universe. Yes, he calls the people to repentance and new life, but not by dwelling on their wrongdoing.

Here’s a reality: if you believe in the Bible and follow Christ in good conscience in this world, you will have trouble at some point. Peter, Paul, and James all echo the words of Jesus on this subject. Part of our calling is a calling to suffer for Christ’s sake.

When the trouble comes, when people ridicule us for our beliefs, it is tempting to get defensive and respond with hurtful words. But that’s not of the Spirit, ever. And, really, these attacks cannot hurt us in any meaningful way. We are sojourners. This is not our home. Those attacking us cannot take away anything that truly matters unless we let them.

It is not our job to force people to agree with our beliefs or to convict people of their sin. It is our job to love all people, to hold fast to Christ and biblical truth, and to respond always in truth and compassion.

Sometimes (too rarely) on Facebook, I see Christians responding gently with truth and sometimes (even more rarely) see people begin to engage with the substance of scripture. I never see this kind of engagement when a Christian speaks rudely or with hatred.

These social media interactions remind me of the two kinds of campus evangelists I have observed over the years. The first kind comes and stands somewhere and shouts at the students about their sin, usually focusing on presumed sexual sin, calling them out for the clothing, and generally castigating everyone in the crowd at length. That type gathers large crowds of hecklers, but I’ve never seen a real conversation some out of those interactions, and I’ve never met anyone who was won to Christ by such tactics. The second kind waits for opportunities to talk with students, engaging them individually or in very small groups. This type has quiet conversations, sometimes quite lengthy ones. They never gather a crowd. They’re often completely unnoticed by many. But I have met people who found Christ as a result of such conversations.

Of course, it’s much easier to be the first kind of evangelist on social media, because the people we are talking to seem less real. Even when they are people we know, we may not have seen them for years, and they’re certainly not standing right in front of us. But the person behind the other keyboard is real: they are someone God created and loves deeply. 

Which kind of evangelist do we really want to be?

 

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There’s a Casting Crowns song playing on the radio these days with a line that always bothers me a bit. The song is “Only Jesus,” and the message of the song is good. It talks about focusing on helping people see and remember Jesus rather than focusing on our own fame and fortune. However, the chorus begins with “And I, I don’t want to leave a legacy.” That line I’m not quite sure I agree with.

You see, while followers of Christ should not be focused on their own fame or aggrandizement, I think we are generally meant to leave a legacy. A legacy not motivated by our own vanity, but motivated by and naturally flowing out of our relationship with God.

I was reminded of this in my recent reading of Nehemiah. Chapter 3 lists the people who rebuilt the wall around Jerusalem, naming the person in charge of each section.  As I slogged through the chapter full of unfamiliar names, I once again found myself wondering why on earth God had the biblical writers include both this list in particular and the various lists we find scattered throughout the Bible. After all, I don’t think I’m unusual in kind of dreading getting to one of those chapters in my Bible reading plan.

I’m not going to claim to have a full explanation, but I think the point of the list in Nehemiah 3 is that this wall was the legacy of the people who worked on it. This list of people associated with the wall building, this explanation of their legacy, provides us with some valuable reminders.

First, it reminds us that God calls us to be involved in what he’s doing. God could have built that wall without the people, but he doesn’t usually work that way. He wants us to be a part of the plan. 

Second, while he sometimes takes us far from home to serve him, he wants us to get involved in his work where we are. The people working on the wall were mostly working on the section that was closest to what they cared about: their home or their work or both. 

Third, this list, along with all of the others, demonstrates that God cares enough about people to want them listed by name. He encourages us to see what the people did. 

We talk about looking to Jesus alone, and he is our only model, but I think God understands that we are human. We don’t always do well without flesh and blood examples, even though all of them but Jesus are imperfect. Thus, we have Paul encouraging the recipients of his letters to look at his example (and through it to Christ). We have the faith chapter of Hebrews 11, where the author takes us through the Old Testament story, pointing out examples of humans who lived out their faith in God.

Over the summer, two different older Christ-followers that I knew fairly well at different times of my life died. I was not able to attend either memorial service, but I saw all of the posts that came across Facebook, and I watched portions of one of the services that was posted online. In both cases, the defining characteristic of all that I read and saw was the legacy of faith that these people left to their family and friends.

Of course, Casting Crowns isn’t the only group that has weighed in on this subject of legacies, and I think I have to stand with a couple of others: Nicole Nordeman’s “Legacy” and Jon Mohr’s “Find Us Faithful.” I want to live a life of faith that leaves a legacy that allows others to see Jesus through me. Those are older songs (one quite a bit older), but worth checking out if you’re not familiar with them.

In the final chapter of Nehemiah, he lists a bunch of accomplishments: his legacy. The final words of the book read: “Remember me, O my God, for good” (Nehemiah 13:31b ESV)

May we choose to live such lives.

 

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I recently started using a CPAP because of severe sleep apnea. The first moments I tried on the mask were not positive. It felt like I couldn’t breathe out at all. Since I have asthma, that’s a familiar and scary feeling, so I had an anxiety attack right there in the poor respiratory therapist’s office. The good news is that we got through it, and I am using the CPAP successfully and sleeping much better than I was before.

Anxiety attacks are not a common phenomenon for me, but general anxiety is something I deal with, as many do. After all, there’s a lot in this life for me to worry about: sons, husband, daughters-in-law, grandson, friends going through various trials, getting my research program going again, going back to the classroom full-time after too many years out of it, leaving the department in someone else’s hands. I could go on at length.

I do want to be clear that I’m not only talking about baseless concerns. There are real current problems or significant transitions going on in every case I mentioned above. But God tells us not to worry, even in cases of real concern. The point of Matthew 6:25-33 isn’t that we don’t need food and clothing. God knows that our lives here on earth do require such things. However, Jesus tells us not to worry about them.

It’s easy to beat up on ourselves about worry. The reasons we’re told to avoid it are clear. It doesn’t accomplish anything. Time spent worrying about my family members changes nothing about their situation. There are things I can do to get my research on track and prepare for my courses this spring, but worrying is not one of them. In addition, worry indicates a lack of faith. If God is in charge, we don’t need to worry. We need to trust that he’s got it.

However, I have always found that kicking myself about my worrying doesn’t help a whole lot with it. It mostly makes me anxious about my worrying. The Bible gives us some help on this one. The first source comes at the end of that passage in Matthew, where Jesus tells us to seek God first. Matthew 6:33 often gets pulled out of context, and it is good advice in general, but the words come as the final part of the message on worry Jesus gives us here. If we are focused on seeking God rather than everything else, we will worry less.

There’s another passage that speaks to me on this subject with great reassurance: “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7 ESV). In this passage, Paul gives us a great formula for avoiding worry: 1) We ask God about everything with urgency and thankfulness and 2) God gives us peace.

One of my challenges is that I feel that I need to get rid of these feelings of anxiety. But that’s not really my job. My job is to seek God first and to let him know about everything. Paul makes that point, and Peter tells us to cast all of our anxieties (or cares) on Jesus (1 Peter 5:9). If we do that (often many, many times), Paul tells us that God’s peace will protect our hearts and minds. We’re not going to change our feelings by berating ourselves for them, but God can and will ease our anxiety if we entrust him with all of our cares. 

Even those about worrying.

 

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I am writing this on my 55th birthday, one that feels like a somewhat significant milestone. Some places consider me a senior citizen. I could now officially retire from my university position and own the title “Professor Emerita,” though that is unlikely to occur any time soon.

This milestone has me thinking a bit about what I have learned from the years I have spent on this earth. After all, the gray under my hair coloring is supposed to come with some wisdom.

What Matters

Of course, I have accumulated a fair bit of knowledge as you might expect for someone with my education and over twenty years of experience as a university professor. I value that knowledge and constantly work to add to it, but one thing I have learned is that it is not actually worthwhile as an end in itself.

There was a time when knowledge itself was one of the things I valued most. As my husband supported me through my graduate degrees, I think he was beginning to be afraid that I would spend my life as a professional student, and I once believed that would be the most enjoyable way to live if we could only afford it. I have since learned that knowledge is only truly valuable if it has a point. For me, the important point has become using the knowledge to help students learn the skills and concepts they need to succeed in their field. The knowledge matters only as I can use it to impact people’s lives for good. And my greatest professional joy is not the new knowledge I create through my research, but the alumni whose lives I have impacted.

Being Me

For many, many years, I lived with tremendous insecurity. I did not handle the teasing I faced as a child well. That and certain events in my childhood helped to build very low self-esteem. I spent much of my adolescence in pretty deep depression, and only concern for my family and a reluctance to suffer pain kept me from attempting suicide.

Over the years some counseling, some dear Christian friends, the love of my family, and a lot of time in the Bible have helped me learn what a lie I lived in. I have come to understand that God actually wants me to be myself. That he created me the way he wanted me to be. Yes, I am to die to self, to deny my fallen nature, to grow closer to Christ and learn to have his desires. However, the result of that process is not a cookie-cutter, bland non-entity, but rather the best version of the unique person created by the God who loves me more than my parents or my husband or my children ever could.

So I have learned to be myself. I have learned not to waste time worrying about what others around me think. My focus has to be on where I am in relation to my Father and doing what God has called me to do, not where others may think I fall short.

Letting God Do It

Perhaps the most important thing I have learned in the last few years is that the Christian walk is not something I do for God, but something God must do in me.

I think it is very easy for Christians to fall into the trap of focusing on good deeds. After all, it is certainly a common trap for humanity as a whole. Even those of us who emphasize that faith is a matter of grace, a free gift of God, too often worry about works and not having visible sin in our lives.

Now, I’m not advocating for sin, visible or otherwise, and good works should certainly be part of every believer’s life, but I think we approach things backwards. We worry about others seeing our sin, but we are called to confess our sins and pray for each other and let God forgive our sins and clean us up and heal us (1 John 1:9; James 5:16). We are to walk in the good works which God prepared beforehand (Ephesians 2:10), not just do what we think we should for God. 

God has been bringing to my attention more and more verses that point out that the sanctification process is never something that I am to do on my own, never something that I am to feel guilt over. Instead, God will provide the fruit; God will shape the desires; God will do the work: my job is to spend time with him, to immerse myself in the word and in prayer, and to obey. That’s it. Remarkably freeing.

Are you approaching any milestones? What has God been teaching you?

 

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My husband and I recently met with our financial advisor to go over our retirement situation. Neither of us will have a pension, so we will be primarily dependent on what we have put away in his 401K, my similar account, and elsewhere. At the same time, both of our sons’ families are undergoing transition times that are impacting their incomes. As a result, I’ve been thinking about money.

Many believe the Bible says that money is the root of all evil, but it actually doesn’t. Rather, 1 Timothy 6:10 says, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs” (ESV). As usual, God is concerned with our hearts and minds rather than our circumstances.

God is certainly concerned about how we get our money. A perusal of Proverbs turns up warnings about oppressing the poor and several statements about how much better it is to be poor than to be a liar or “crooked.” When Jesus drove the money-changers and pigeon sellers out of the temple in Matthew 21, it wasn’t only because they were conducting business in the temple. He says they have made it a “den of robbers.” God really doesn’t like it when people who claim to be his are cheating the poor.

We are told to do more than simply avoid oppressing the poor. In Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, in addition to the warnings about treating the poor fairly, we see calls to be generous to the poor.

It’s easy to take all of this and take from it a legalistic view of money and how to act with it, but that’s not what we see in the New Testament. Instead, we are called to treat money well because our hearts are right. We know that God loves a cheerful giver, and so we try to force ourselves to give cheerfully, but that’s not the point of the passage:

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 6:8-9 ESV)

Instead, we are able to give cheerfully because of the grace of God and our trust in him. I recently came across a verse I had somehow missed for many years. It happened to be in a collection of verses I picked to memorize. It’s another place where we hear about the love of money: “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” (Hebrews 13:5 ESV)

God isn’t asking us to browbeat ourselves into handling money correctly. Instead, he seeks to assure us that we can handle it correctly and be content because he will be with us and care for us. That’s the point in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus talks about seeking God first and laying up treasures in heaven. God’s in charge and he actually cares about us. What happens here on earth may or may not look the way we think it should, but if we trust him, it’s all going to come out right in the end. And if we believe that, really believe it, we can save ourselves a world of anxiety and suffering.

 

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Last week I was reminded again that my focus is not always on the things that really matter.This seems to be a common problem for Christ-followers (and for humans in general). Those of us who claim to follow Christ ought to be able to get our priorities right. After all God has laid them out for us very clearly:

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40 ESV)

But far too often we don’t. We miss the mark on both of these, but lately I’ve been most reminded of my failures in the second area. Yet loving people, actually just loving fellow Christians, is supposed to make our Christianity obvious to the world. Jesus made this very clear in his last extended conversation with his disciples before the cross: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35 ESV) A little later that same evening he prays in front of them: “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” (John 17:22-23 ESV)

This shouldn’t be news to any of us, and most of us at least pay lip service to loving other Christians, especially the ones in our own denomination or local church body. But how many of us love them the way Christ is talking about? Can that old song “We Are One in the Spirit” actually be applied to us? To me?

I’m grateful to say that I’ve been in situations where I have truly experienced that kind of love, especially in smaller groups. I always think of one particular Sunday School class that was way too large to work well in human terms (30+people), but was an extremely close-knit group of people dedicated to the Lord, growing in faith, and loving each other. I’ve seldom grown so much or felt so supported as the years with that group.

Of course, God’s intention for us is that we have this kind of experience all of the time as we associate with fellow Christians. And we often don’t. 

I’ve been coming to some realizations of late about my own shortcomings in this area. Maybe they will resonate with some of you:

I have come to realize that I need to work on finding a better way to love the poor in the community of Christ than giving a twenty dollar bill to the benevolence fund every fifth Sunday. 

I do not understand why God included the color orange in his palette. It looks terrible on me in every shade, and I just don’t like to look at it. It is also the the logo color at my church and the color of the t-shirt worn by all of the greeters and ushers and other volunteers with similar roles. I have had to get over that and specifically over the resentment toward the people who picked out the color scheme. That’s a silly cause for disunity, but how often have churches been hurt by a fight over the color of the carpet or the seats? 

There are a few members of my church with whom I really just don’t seem to have anything in common, and sometimes I just don’t like them much. But I’m coming to recognize that I need to love them anyway. After all, I do have at least one thing in common with any person who loves God, and our differences may be just the source of an ability to support one another. This is a lesson I learned a long time ago when working in Vacation Bible School. 

I was the leader for the 6th grade class. I had a fellow teacher for the class with whom I had very little in common. I was working on my PhD in computer science, and I was focused on the intellectual, the academic, and the scientific. She was a stay-at-home mom with much less formal education. I respected the choice to stay home with one’s children, but I just struggled to connect with her. Yet here we were working together. Now, I love to teach, and doing the Bible study was great, but we were also expected to do crafts. Given that we were doing sixth grade, I could get around that a little bit. We typically had an option where the kids were creating a newspaper or a video, and I could supervise that. However, we also needed to provide some actual crafts, where they made things. Creative, physical things. This was not my forte. My fellow teacher, the one I struggled to work with at first because of our lack of compatibility, was great with crafts. Very capable, super creative, everything I am not when it comes to making physical and/or artistic things. 

This is the point Paul is making in 1 Corinthians 12 as he talks about the value of different gifts and the need of all members of the body of Christ.

I think there are many things that we allow to take over the priority that God and people are supposed to have: colors, music styles, music volume, personal interests, money. God has made it clear that these things must take a back seat to loving him and loving people. I’m going to try to do better this week. How about you?

 

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Last month I was in Oregon, visiting family in Umatilla, which is a small city in eastern Oregon. To get there we flew into Portland and drove along the Columbia. That’s a pleasant drive, but one that takes you through a fairly dramatic shift in scenery as you move from the lush Willamette Valley area into the high desert of eastern Oregon.

As the scenery turned brown and the vegetation became scrub brush and tumbleweed to the south, I noticed clumps of trees right next to the river. It brought to mind both Psalm 1 and the passage below.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
    whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
    that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
    for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
    for it does not cease to bear fruit.
                                      Jeremiah 17:7-8 (ESV)

I’ve been thinking about this passage lately, and I’ve come to recognize it as a picture of the Christian life as it is meant to be lived.

There are a number of sayings floating about our culture that tell us about living and dealing with problems in the Christian life, such as: “God helps those who help themselves” or “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” The problem with such sayings is that they’re not Biblical and just not true. 

Even worse, they put a tremendous burden on people. Is it fair to say to my friend who just lost her husband of 32 years to cancer that she can handle it? Is that the message for the next friend whose 20-something year-old sister was just diagnosed with cancer or the one dealing with her own serious illness along with children with autism?

The good news is that Jesus didn’t say that to any of us. He said, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” John 16:33b (ESV). Not “you will overcome,” but “I have overcome.”

In 2 Corinthians 12:8-9 (ESV) Paul reports, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

And this, I think, is why God uses the analogy of the tree. The tree has no ability to handle the heat or drought by itself, just as we often cannot handle the tribulations of this world by ourselves. Only the abundant water allows the tree to thrive in such conditions, just as we can only thrive if we send out our roots through prayer and obedience to the word so that the Holy Spirit in us provides the power and grace to handle the trouble that comes our way.

 

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In a faculty meeting, we were voting by secret ballot in one of those situations where the bylaws were forcing multiple rounds of votes. One faculty member needed to leave to pick up her daughter from daycare and asked me to serve as her proxy. I agreed, of course, and stepped out of the meeting with her to get some guidance on how she wanted me to vote. Her response? “I trust you.”

We are called to trust God. In addition to Bible verses, I can think of a number of hymns with that theme starting with “Only Trust Him” and “Trust and Obey.” It seems to me that we often treat trust as an easy thing, as we tell people that all they need to do is trust in Jesus. That’s true, but is it easy? And do we always trust when we say we do.

When my colleague walked out of the building, she was not concerned about how I was voting for her. She had left that in my hands, and her focus was on her daughter and the evening ahead. She had no fear that I would use the power she had given me in any way that she would dislike.

This is the same kind of trust that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego expressed when they stood before the fiery furnace and declared, “If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king” Daniel 3:17 (ESV). It is the kind of trust that let Paul to say, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances” Philippians 4:11b (NIV).

Do we always trust God that way? Is it really trust when we grit our teeth and say we’re going to trust God, but then we spend the whole week worrying about whether God is going to come through for us? Can real trust happen by a simple act of will?

Look at one of the key passages about trusting God: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” Proverbs 3:5-6 (ESV).  This doesn’t say close your eyes and let God do what he wants even though you’re worried that it won’t be what you want, or even let God do what he wants because it is best despite the little voice of fear. It says “with your whole heart.” How we do that?

The key, I believe, is exactly what allowed my colleague to walk away leaving complete trust in me: relationship combined with knowledge of character. She’s known me for over six years, and she has come to believe that I have good judgment regarding the kinds of things we were voting on.

The only way to trust God with our whole heart is to come to know him in both his character and his amazing love for us. There are two songs playing on the radio these days that help me think about the degree to which God is worthy of trust. “Reckless Love” by Cory Asbury simply talks about the “overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God” that we could not earn and do not deserve. The other, “I Give You Control” by Tenth Avenue North, talks about how God doesn’t need us, but he wants us and loves us deeply, and that love is what frees us to let go and give him control of our lives.

I cannot will myself to trust God with my whole heart. I can look each day to recognize a bit more of his amazing love for me and I can work to understand his character a little better so that my trust because more deep and more complete with each day. As I understand God’s heart a bit better, he lays claim to more of my heart.

 

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** If you question the term “reckless” in referencing God’s love, I recommend checking out the video at https://youtu.be/6xx0d3R2LoU, in which Cory Asbury explains his use of the term about 5 minutes in.

As a scientist, and more generally as an academic, I have been trained to be a skeptic. There is value in skepticism, but there is also a great deal of danger in too much skepticism.

Back when I was in my teens and twenties, it seemed that people were trying to help me figure out my spiritual gifts every time I turned around. It wasn’t that often, of course, but I did take quite a few spiritual gift inventories in my younger days. Some were better than others, but one thing that was pretty consistent was that teaching always came up as one of my top spiritual gifts. I was skeptical. Yes, I love teaching and there is evidence to support the hypothesis that I’m good at it. However, I’ve wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember. I’m pretty sure I owe my sister an apology for my attempts to teach her to read when she was three. That puts the gift of teaching a few years before my profession of faith. It bothered me that none of the inventories seemed to be able to distinguish between a natural gift that came at birth and a spiritual gift that came at rebirth when I accepted Christ. And it seemed that leaders were constantly emphasizing that spiritual gifts might have nothing to do with natural talents.

What I finally came to accept was that it didn’t actually matter whether my teaching was a natural talent or a natural talent enhanced by a spiritual gift. The reality was that God gave me the gift whenever I got it, and he expects me to use my natural talents for his purposes just as much as he expects me to use the spiritual gifts he’s given me. All of my skepticism, all of my fretting, was just a waste of time and energy that could have been spent on things of value.

Unfortunately, skepticism is often more debilitating. I’ve been reading Hearing God by Dallas Willard, which I highly recommend. Willard makes the point that we often don’t hear God and don’t see him working in the world answering our prayers simply because we refuse to see. We work hard to explain away God’s activity on our behalf and convince ourselves that he’s not responding.

I saw an example of that in college. Several years before, I had been aware of an incident that I consider miraculous. A bomb hadn’t gone off. This bomb was in a hospital called Rumah Sakit Immanuel. The bomb was found ten days after it “should” have gone off, and authorities described it as large enough to level the hospital complex and damage the buildings on either side. No one could explain why the bomb hadn’t detonated. I had surgery at that hospital a few week later.

I was telling the story of the bomb that hadn’t gone off to one of my professors, someone who professed Christ. He immediately rejected the notion that the incident was miraculous, and started offering explanations. You may have some of the same thoughts he did. After all, this occurred in a third world. Maybe the investigators weren’t up to the task. Certainly, he believed that the incident had to have a natural explanation.

I’ll admit, I can’t prove that the incident did not have a natural cause. However, I am certain that God kept that bomb from going off, whether he did it through natural or supernatural means.

Why am I so sure? Well, that hospital was functioning as a powerful witness to a community that was very closed to the gospel, and God had shown up many times in small ways and bigger ones over the time of its existence, starting with the name of the place. The secular authorities suggested the name Rumah Sakit Immanuel instead of Rumah Sakit Baptis (Baptist), and the missionaries quickly agreed to having the “God with Us” hospital.

My professor did not convince me that God was not behind the bomb failure, though I did give up on trying to convince him pretty quickly. I have come to recognize that faith has to be a willing choice.

God doesn’t hit people over the head. He calls gently. Even when Jesus was actively working miracles before people, they didn’t always believe:  “Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him” John 12:37 (ESV). Our skepticism hurts us first when we refuse to believe despite what we see. We also run the risk that our lack of faith will limit what God does on our behalf. ” And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.  And he marveled because of their unbelief” Mark 6:5-6a (ESV).

Does some of your skepticism need to be replaced by a willingness to see and believe?

 

Photo by João Silas on Unsplash