Deus Vult! (2006)

Luk 19:28-36 - After Jesus had said this, he traveled on and went up to Jerusalem. When he came near Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples on ahead
and said, "Go into the village ahead of you. As you enter, you will find a colt tied up that no one has ever sat on. Untie it, and bring it along. If anyone asks you why you are untying it, say this: 'The Lord needs it.'" So those who were sent went off and found it as he had told them.
While they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?"
The disciples answered, "The Lord needs it." Then they brought the colt to Jesus and put their coats on it, and Jesus sat upon it. As he was riding along, people kept spreading their coats on the road.

There’s a lot of stuff done in God’s name. Even today, there’s a lot of bloodshed and hate in the name of a strange god called Allah. In the church’s past, there’s a lot of bloodshed and violence in His name as well. A little over a month ago I brought up the will of God and how we’ve both been faithful and egregious in determining His will in things as well as how we’ve handled ourselves in following through with His will or what we think is His will. How do I know the will of God and how do I distinguish His will from my own counterfeit claims or someone else’s. But what about God’s will in the smaller things? Let’s face it; the idea of trying to do God’s will in intense or painful situations isn’t as easy as referring to Wikipedia or Britannica. Sometimes it takes a lot of patience, listening and willingness and a lot of times it seems we have none of those qualities. Once more, we can be fooled by someone else’s dogmatic execution of what we thought was God’s will and maybe now we’re not as sure as we were or we know we were duped and are despondent. Where’s God’s will in all the other voices, including our own, and how do we know?

Knowing you’ll be called (Luke 19:29):
Know matter what you thought about life as a follower of Christ, one thing you can’t suppress or ignore is the fact He calls you into service and He also calls you into particular service. There’s no such thing as a life in Christ that requires complete passivity. In the 18th century, there was a movement called Quietism, which held to a passive life where if anything was to happen, we were to wait on God to get it done. It was sort of like a farmer whose barn began to burn down and as the neighbor rushed over to see what he could do to help put it out, he saw the farmer leaning up against the barn calm, cool and collected. The neighbor asked him, “Hey, your barn is burning down! Why aren’t you doing something?” The farmer looks up and replies, “I am. I’m praying for God to send a lot of rain.”

God calls us to do things, not because He needs us, but because He chooses for His will to be accomplished through us. There is passivity in our life with Christ, but the passivity isn’t setting our brains or our bodies aside so we don’t get in the way. It’s to dedicate our minds and bodies to Him so that He can use us every day the way He chooses. Our passivity is in acknowledging God as God and ourselves as created means in which we can cooperate with Him in accomplishing a picture that is much bigger than us.

Knowing what He says (Luke 19:30):
These days, a lot of folks have trouble figuring out where the politician they voted for stands on certain things….they are uncertain where their bosses stand on certain things….but when it comes to God’s will, they seem to be very certain about so many things. “I really believe that God wants us to be more/less…..” or “I feel that God is more/less….” How do they know? You can even talk with folks who say they don’t even believe they know God exists or what or who He is, yet they seem to know what He’s thinking, not thinking and which ball team He roots for.

The Bible is the only propositional details of God’s plans for creation we have. I know that some would argue that the Gospel of Judas should be included in that plan as well. But again, they don’t know why they think that, other than they would like to see that happen. We live in a generation where fact is determined by hardly anything but either feelings or self-determination. But God has provided us with the Bible and it culminates into His revealed plan for all creation in the Gospel of Christ. It turns out, from reading it cover to cover, that the Gospel was God’s plan in calling all of this into being in the first place. Who’d of thought? Nobody unless they knew what God really had to say.

And in order to know what God has to say, you have to go beyond your own feelings, knowledge desires and agenda. Us religious folks fail in this regard too. We split off from Catholicism because we didn’t believe that it was right to place human tradition on equal authoritative footing with Scripture. But do we Protestants really believe that? What about what we wear in church? Who determined that we’re supposed to wear monkey suits and mirrored shoes? Who determined that churches were to have tons of committees and meet in a red brick building with a white steeple? Who determined that joyful giving means putting 10% of your gross income in a basket every Sunday? Who determined that a Christian is defined as a good person? One hint: it wasn’t Catholics, unless you accept the fact that we hold human tradition just as high as they do. We’re just in denial. But unless we do refer to what God has said about things, we’re really chasing our tails and since He has said many things in Scripture, we can go there and find out, rather than rely on tradition.

Knowing we don’t get the big picture (Luke 19:31):
Here’s a big problem that is hard for the human mind to accept: our minds are finite and many times when God gives us a task, we probably won’t know or understand what it’s all about till we are at the other end, looking back, and even then, that sort of perspective may be reserved for the end of this age. Do you think the disciples were on board with what Jesus was doing or was going to do when He asked them to go retrieve the colt? They were clueless even if they went ahead and did as He said. So are we. We don’t know much of anything and when we do what God asks of us, we will, most times, not understand what the end result will be or even what role our tiny actions play in it all.

The human mind craves resolution. Why else do we sell crypta-quote and word find books or have them published in the daily paper? We have to know. We won’t rest until we know….and many times, knowing is a precondition to doing. The fact is, we are asked to do things and we aren’t given the game plan….just the admonition to go forward. This is another issue us religious people get caught up in. We can be certain of what God wants from us but then we move forward thinking we know what it should look like when we’re through. Most times, it looks totally different. Many times, we see things come about that doesn’t meet our expectations and we think we’ve either screwed up or that God has it in for us. It’s just that we never knew anything except the admonition to go forward in His name….period. Dallas Willard defines disappointment as unrealized expectations. In regards to God’s will, those who love Him and want to serve Him can experience huge disappointment in this regard. But the main admonition through all Scripture is to trust Him with everything. Many times, there’s an apposing relationship between the will of an infinite God and the expectations of a finite creature. I can’t tell you how many times I have realized this through my own disappointments. The crazy part of this is that I still have strong expectations and I can probably bank on getting the apple cart toppled again. But it’s usually after the cart has toppled that I discover His closeness.

Knowing a person’s authority holds tons of weight (Luke 19:33-34):
There’s a subject in philosophy called Epistemology, which is the study of knowledge. Many philosophers struggled with how we come to know things and how can we be sure we really know what we say we know. I’m not a philosopher and I can’t say that I have a clear explanation to this topic. However, when I read the Bible and then check it with my own life and what I see in others, I know one thing: a lot of what we know isn’t based on much of anything outside of our trust in the authority in which we received it. That goes for Christians, Buddhists, atheists or Rotary Club presidents.

Another aspect of human beings is, first, the human mind craves resolution and, two, it hardly ever gets what it knows directly. It usually has to come from another authority. Talk about the pink elephant in the living room! We’re tiny creatures that live around 75 to 80 years and during that time, struggle to understand what little we know….yet we’ve decided we know how old the universe is, how it came into being, what it smelled like and what color it was. We’ve also decided we know how we got here, how long it took and what happened along the way. But even with little things, our audacity is just as incredible. We think we know what is going on in the Middle East, why gas prices go up and down and why John Q. Politico is a dork and his opponent is the messiah.

The fact is, we don’t know and the only reason why we think we do is because we’ve placed our trust in authority in which it came. We read Steven Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Michael Moore or Sean Hannity and so we now we know a lot of things. Actually, it isn’t that we know it, but that we read it and think what they know is the truth and we adopt it. And us Christians get the reputation for being people of faith! The fact is, faith is the foundation to knowledge, rather than being opposed to it or in another category. We place our trust in God, rather than another human being (on our good days) and so we engage in knowing the way other’s who don’t trust in God do. The only difference is the authority our knowledge is based. There’s no better authority than the Cause of the world and the Cause of our Redemption. We can trust and move forward, even in the fire, because what we know is based on good authority.

Knowing you want a part of what He’s doing (Luke 19:35):
Even when you move forward in the trust of His authority, not knowing where it will specifically take you tomorrow, when we do trust a little, there is excitement in getting involved with what He’s doing. It may even end up making you look out of place….like a weirdo, but you don’t care, because you are involved with huge things….ultimate things….eternal things. The problem is that many times our circumstances can be used to take our attention off of those things and onto our circumstances. I can’t tell you how many times I have, in one moment, been so glad and excited to be placed right where God wanted me and doing what He wanted me to do, and in the next, worried to death about what was going to happen next and even doubting my own motives. What we see, hear, touch and smell around us can take priority over everything and that is the deception that this world and our corruption has on our ability to move forward in His name. But when we do, circumstances are a side bar. Circumstances are of little consequence in the big picture.

It’s a trust issue, in case you couldn’t see that theme through out the text and this topic. Do we trust in our circumstances or in Him who lies beyond all of them? I’m not saying it’s easy. In fact, a good definition of trust is abandonment and surrender, because the alternatives are impossible. Why do you think God created a Sabbath rest? Not only was it for the day of rest but pointed to our eternal Sabbath rest in Christ. Following Him is easy, rather than hard. It scares us because it seems hard, but the rest He offers us in the midst of His will being accomplished surpasses all circumstances. We can rest in that because we can rest in Him. We can rest in knowing we’re called to His service, knowing we can tell His voice from all the others. We can move forward without having to rely on our expectations. We can trust in His ultimate authority over all others be excited in our involvement with incredibly great and eternal things. You think about that.

What, Me Worry? (2005)

“An idle mind is the devil’s playground.”
“A penny saved is a penny earned.”
“Keep a stiff upper lip!”
“All work and no play make Jack a very dull boy.”
“All play and no work makes Jack a very poor boy.”

I don’t know about you, but it seems that if I were Jack and took everyone’s advice, I’d be looking for a very tall bridge to jump. “Advice on play and work make Jack a very neurotic boy.” Don’t you love clichés when going through a tight spot? I know I do. By the way, if you believe that, I have a very tall bridge to sell you. I know that sometimes people mean well and give advice when they struggle to find something to say. I know that happens with me. But when you are in the storm, it seems as if no advice is found that compelling or useful, and that if the storm doesn’t let up, you’re going to choke. Life is full of worry, anxiety and doubt. What will happen with my child at school this year? Will the company fail? Is that lump cancer? Will I be found out? If you haven’t understood anything I have written, then you’re either dead or can’t understand English. Everybody deals with this. Worry, doubt and fear are the energy that fuels our beliefs, decisions, game plans and a great deal of our personalities. It is within all of us from birth and it continues even after we accept Christ.

Have you ever seen a dog sell magazine subscriptions?
“Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” (Matthew 6:25-27, NIV)

Usually, when things get interesting in my life (and I am being sarcastic about ‘interesting’), I automatically begin forecasting, role playing in my head and going through all the possibilities for the near future. There’s nothing wrong with planning ahead. But, I have to admit, that is usually a cover for something more sinful in me than it is a pragmatic course of action. I doubt God’s goodness and feel compelled to take matters into my own hands. Worry over tomorrow consumes me out of distrust, rather than it being a disciplined action. It can also be recurring. God said that everything is turning and will turn out alright. He said it would, but sometimes I am not sure His definition of ‘alright’ is anywhere close to mine, which reveals a serious lack of trust in Him than it does anything else.

Animals aren’t concerned about these things. Have you ever had a pet dog or cat or lived in the country with wild critters in the backyard? Would you find it odd to find your dog stopped trusting you and took up a paper route to buy food? Have you ever met a field mouse with a 401K or a tax deferred IRA? Neither have I and that is precisely what Jesus is getting at in this text. If God takes care of field mice, and if we are not chopped liver, then what gives with the worry about essentials and especially non-essentials? So, it is clear with Jesus’ teaching that worry is not only sinful, but irrational.

Great! So now I can add a heaping dollop of guilt on top of my angst salad, right? Maybe. But don’t quit reading, because He isn’t being a killjoy or glib with cheap advice. He is going somewhere with this and it is good. But first of all, we have to understand where the worry comes from before we can see clearly where Jesus is taking us.

Confidence builder?
“If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:30-34, NIV)

Jesus describes worriers as ones with very little confidence. The Greek word He uses means ‘you of very little confidence.’ The thing about worry is that it doesn’t stop tomorrow’s surprise attacks and it robs you of whatever joy is offered you today. But as irrational and wrong as it seems, it is very natural and seems totally unavoidable. Why is that? If you go all the way back to the first humans on earth, you see the beginning of something that has infected all of us. It is our distrust that God is looking out for us and an arrogant attempt to use that terror to take matters in our own hands. Adam and Eve ate the fruit because they believed Satan’s lie that God was holding out on them, keeping them from good food and essential information for living. When a child is born, the screams and cries are coming from the very same distrust. Instead of it subsiding, when we grow up, it becomes more sophisticated and complex. It’s what introduced death into the world. Its sin and it’s what separates us from God and it’s the reason Jesus came into the world. Still, we all have the Garden built into our psyche and feverishly plan to recreate it or get back into it through our efforts. ‘Utopia’ didn’t get added into our modern language by mere chance. We want perfect jobs, perfect kids, predictable income and savings stashed away. I truly believe that humanism is nothing more than man’s way to reverse his own mistakes and get back to the Garden of Eden, through unaided human reason and effort, when it was unaided human reason and effort that got us where we are in the first place.

You do Your part if I’ll do mine…
But even in the church, the distrust comes out disguised as something else. Many times, teaching Scripture is used to try and convince us that our plans are God’s plans. It smells like smoke but it is appealing because it proposes that you really don’t need to worry because God will get to every concern on your list, provided you do your part. If we ‘keep it simple’, just teach the Bible and be obedient, then life will work out. That’s a cop out. If it were true, then there wouldn’t be any such thing as disobedient Christians and everything would end up like an Elvis Presley movie. Don’t get me wrong. Obedience is required of us and spiritual disciplines are for our good. But if we do them to achieve results, then we aren’t worshipping God anymore but results, with God simply being reduced to a means to get there.

The fact is, regardless of how obedient we are, sometimes God permits broken marriages, lost children, lay offs or a deafening silence with no response in the midst of prayer and fasting. There are many out there that are godly yet lose the job and can’t pay the bills and God doesn’t seem to do anything about it. There are obedient parents who have done everything they know to raise godly children and they are lost to awful things in this world. There are those who fervently spend quiet times in the early hours, consistently read God’s Word, fast and pray, without any relief from depression or despair. You would think that I have provided fodder for the atheist to conclude that God simply isn’t there. Are you kidding me? Considering tragedy as a problem unavoidably points to God. If there is no God, then what’s the problem? Buck up! The real definition of an atheist isn’t someone who doesn’t believe in God, because deep down the Bible says we all do, whether we admit it or not. The real definition of an atheist is someone who simply wants nothing to do with God, out of bitterness resulting from unrealized expectations. After all, just like Adam and Eve, we think we know better than God what’s best for humanity and the cosmos and can’t see our own arrogance the entire time.

This is Jesus, not Santa…
Jesus wants us to know that God loves us and knows we need to eat, but He’s also telling us that all we need is Him. “For the pagans run after these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” The Greek word for ‘pagan’ literally means ‘nations of the world.’ In the time Jesus said these words, and even in our own day, most folks believe that when you die, you die and it’s over, so party, grab, get and live it up while you can. These same folks accept the fact that it is eat or be eaten. Jesus is saying that we are latent atheists when we worry about getting our needs met, no matter how devoted we claim to be.

God has not provided us with a sure-fire equation or recipe for a workable life. Our purpose isn’t to make life work great, but to find Him, even through a life that seems to have totally unraveled. Our focus naturally sets on what we want, rather than Him. There is a hair’s distance between desiring to harness His power from submitting to His power….to ask Him for predictability, rather than forgiveness. You can easily picture the ‘name it-claim it’ televangelists but don’t fool yourself. Throw in all of us conservative evangelicals as well. When we preach about seven biblical keys to a stable marriage, Godly family or overcoming debt, we are preaching the exact same thing as the televangelist. The televangelists are telling you how to create wealth while the syndicated radio programs or ministries are telling you how to raise well mannered kids or strong marriages. There is nothing wrong with wanting these things or pursuing them. But anytime we teach God as a means to accomplish a desired end, we are no longer worshipping God but an idol of our making. All it takes is a single circumstance to get us away from submitting to God and into manipulating Him to meet our needs.

Weight of Glory beyond all momentary afflictions!
“For the pagans run after these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

If everything I have said above is true, then how in the world can we get excited about life with Jesus and sharing Him with others who don’t know Him? Can I be happy in unemployment, at a funeral or during an MRI? I do know that I can be sad and empty with good health, lots of money and great relationships. So, obviously, happiness isn’t a result of circumstance. Jeremiah 29:13 states that if we seek God with all our heart, we will find Him. In Amos 5:4 God states that if we seek Him, we live. But finding Him may be through bad stuff and if you think about it, it may be much easier to find Him in turmoil than when times are great. It could be that God doesn’t let up on the depression, the failed marriage or the dry spiritual desert because He is using that to make you draw closer to Him. If you believe in our infection from Adam and Eve, then it makes sense to see that God can possibly shake our world up so He can love us, because when life works well, we don’t think we need Him that much. And, if you’re willing to admit it along with me, when we try to do keep Him in the picture when times are good, it usually is done to get assurance the other shoe doesn’t drop, rather than out of desperation for His forgiveness and life.

It is possible to find unspeakable joy in God while attending your Hearing on Assets, discovering a spouse’s betrayal or a child arrested for drugs. If we depend on circumstances to be what we expect before we seek Him, then we may be met with silence and possibly some serious shaking. He has offered us eternal life with Him. He has offered us something that is so good, we cannot fathom from where we are. In fact, Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight 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.”

Is it possible to see shattered dreams as transient compared to what He has given us? Is it possible to accept train wrecks as something God uses to bring us close? Can we experience a joy in Him that surpasses any circumstance we find ourselves consumed? Can we accept Jesus’ command to stop worrying and trust Him? Even though I find myself guilty of distrust and demanding my way, in the midst of accepting my utter failure and sinfulness, I have found Him. I have found Him when I give it all up…my reputation, my preconceived spiritual maturity level, my intellectual castles, etc. Even though I am still untrusting and demanding, He’s told me that I can trust Him even when I fail, am rejected or in big trouble. I can be myself, take the blows, and rest in Him. He really does offer a weight of glory beyond any comparison we can throw at it. Against all conventional wisdom, I can find His rest and peace in the storm and so can you. He said so and we have no reason to doubt Him. There is unspeakable joy to be had in this life. He’s never been skimpy with us. We’ve been skimpy with Him.

You may be saying, “That sounds profound, but don’t tell me you’re speaking from the mountain top.” I’m not. I haven’t gotten there and as I write this, I am writing it to me. I need to be reminded of this because I want circumstances to be good and for life to work out more than I want Him. I’ve felt awful about what I’ve turned my worship into and accepted my depravity in this area. It isn’t pretty to do that. But you know what? When I did, He showed up and reassured me that everything will be alright, no matter what happens. And He told me to tell you. Tomorrow, when the IRS calls, you can then remind me!