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Why God Makes Us Wait
Why does God make us wait for difficult times to be over? Why does he sometimes delay his solution to the things that are troubling us? I was thinking about this while reading Acts chapter 8 and 9 this morning. Acts 8 describes what must have been a very difficult situation for our brothers and sisters in the early church:
At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria…As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.
How long did this time last? We’re not told, but it’s long enough for the events of Acts 8 to take place. It’s more than a few days. It had to have been at least a few weeks, or even months. Imagine how stressful and difficult those weeks must have been. Acts 9 begins by continuing the story:
Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
This gives us a further clue as to the fact that this time lasted for at least a little while. It lasted until Saul began to feel that his work in Jerusalem was sufficiently wrapped up, and he was able to turn his attention to other places. Where else were these Christians hiding? Somehow he heard about an enclave of them up north in Damascus, so he made plans to go there to keep his work going. And that’s when God decided to act. As it tells us in Acts 9:3-12—
As he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one. Then Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened he saw no one. But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank. Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and to him the Lord said in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” So the Lord said to him, “Arise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold, he is praying. And in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him, so that he might receive his sight.”
So there it is—that’s how God decided to act, and bring this time of persecution to an end. But why did God wait for all this to happen, and why wait so long? Why do it this way? The short answer, of course, is, “Who knows? God knows.” But if we stop, and prayerfully consider, we may at least try to learn a little about how God does things, and why he worked this way.
For instance, maybe God wanted Ananias, specifically, to be the one to pray for Saul. That would mean that Saul needed to get to Damascus. But if Christ had appeared to Saul and blinded him anywhere but in the city itself or (as happened) just outside the city, Saul wouldn’t go into Damascus at all. He would have gone home to Jerusalem, and God’s plan to get Saul to Ananias would have failed. Which means God waited to save Saul until he had travelled that far first. But first, Saul had to decide to take the journey in the first place. And he wouldn’t make that decision while he was in the middle of all his work in Jerusalem—he wasn’t the kind of person to leave work unfinished. So God allowed Saul to continue persecuting Christians because it would cause him to exhaust the possibilities for his work there, because that would turn his mind to other places to root out believers, and his mind would settle on Damascus (where he had discovered another group of believers), because then he’d make the journey north, because that would put him in the perfect place, outside Damascus, on the road, for Jesus to appear to him, because then it would be easy for someone to lead him by the hand into the city, because then he could easily wait for someone to come pray for him, because Ananias was the one Jesus wanted to go to Saul, and it was simple for him to walk to the house where Saul was, because then Ananias could pray for Saul and he could receive his sight.
Why did God want all this? As I once heard someone say, why does God do anything? 10,000 reasons.
Why did Jesus want Ananias for this work, specifically? I can imagine being in Jerusalem, and praying for God to end the time of trial in Jerusalem. And I think, if God answered me and said, “It will not end right away, because there’s a man named Ananias in Damascus who I want to be the one who prays for Saul when I save him,” well, I think that answer would have seemed confusing to me, at best, and infuriating at worst. What? What does Damascus have to do with anything? They’re not going through what we’re going through! Why can’t it be someone in Jerusalem? Why can’t it be Peter, for crying out loud? This doesn’t make any sense!
Did it really need to be Ananias? Only God knows. The answer must be yes—it was necessary that he be the one to pray for Saul to receive his sight and the Holy Spirit. Maybe God’s delay in ending the persecution was all specifically for him. Is that really that unlike God? Didn’t Jesus construct an entire travel plan around meeting one woman in John 4? Yes, he did. But then, even that wasn’t just for her in the end, was it? By the end of the chapter, we see that it was for her whole town (and then again, for all the people in that same region who heard Philip’s preaching in Acts 8). So yes, it was all for an individual, and yes, it was all for much more than that. Maybe it was for everyone Ananias’ family, and the church in Damascus. Maybe it was for the work of evangelism in Damascus. Maybe God let the time of trial drag on because he wanted the Jerusalem Christians scattered (see Acts 8:4), but not those in Damascus. Why? Well, the scattering did not lead to the death of the church in Jerusalem, but maybe that kind of persecution would have eradicated the church in Damascus. Maybe they weren’t ready for Saul’s persecution yet.
Which means, that by delaying Saul’s salvation, God was accomplishing many things, for many people, including:
- Saul
- Ananias
- Every Christian in Jerusalem
- The people in Samaria
- Every Christian in Damascus
- Everyone that heard the gospel when the Church in Jerusalem was scattered (Acts 8:4)
Imagine, again, a Christian in the middle of Saul’s persecution in Jerusalem, praying something like, “Lord why won’t you end this? Stop him! Save him! Something!” But what would God’s answer be? Maybe something like: “My timing has to do with thousands of things, and thousands of people, and everything I’m doing in the whole world to spread salvation to all kinds of people. If you had twenty lifetimes, I couldn’t tell you all I’m doing just in this several weeks of trouble. And no, I can not shorten this time without undoing all my work. Just wait a few more weeks. What I’m going to do outside Damascus will begin to show some of what’s going on. It’ll be just a glimpse—but a big, powerful glimpse.”
Which, I think, brings us to where we are today.
I am sure that, like me, you are ready for this time of spreading sickness and forced isolation and government-imposed shut-down to end. I am sure you’ve been praying for it to end. And it will end, one way or another. So, the question might arise, “If it’s all going to end in a few weeks or months anyway, why not just end it now? Why is God allowing this time to stretch on?” And, the answer must be something like we observed in the book of Acts, right? There must be something, or a hundred things, or ten thousand things God is doing in all this. It must be true—because that’s exactly how the Bible leads us to see the world. I don’t know why you can’t go out, but God wants to do a hundred things in your life from this time. I don’t know why school is shut down, but God wants to use this time for my kids’ good. I don’t know why much worse things are happening—deaths in isolation, people on ventilators, people losing work or businesses they’ve worked to build, loneliness, fear, global shut-down. And I don’t know why, as of April 15th, there’s no end in sight. But God knows why he’s allowing all this to go this way, and for how long it must. And he’s got good reasons.
It’s always easy to read the stories in the Bible, because we know how they end—gloriously, always—and so the trials only seem to heighten the drama. But when you don’t know the end, the lengthening of time doesn’t feel like growing excitement. It feels like drudgery. It feels like loneliness or uncertainty or anxiety. But friends, the Bible leads us to live, and think, and even feel like people who do know the end of the story.
Even when we don’t know the end to the chapter (like, “this will end when a man gets saved outside of Damascus,”) we do know the end of the book. This will end when a man rides a horse down through the clouds and conquers evil. And when he does, he’ll tie up every story line into the one perfect ending of the whole, huge plan. That’s true for the story line called Coronavirus, and whatever other storyline you’re living through at this moment. Because he works all things together, for the good.
Right?
A Pandemic Reading Assignment
A lot of us find ourselves with extra time right now, and as this time stretches on, with no obvious end in sight, we’re going to find that we need to be alert to the kinds of things that happen in our hearts and minds when we’ve been in quarantine for say, five weeks, instead of just one or two. Alone, with lots of time—that situation is going to breed new struggles the longer it lasts. And so will the other situation many of us are in—in a house or apartment with a few family members, and not a lot to do, for a long time. That’s a little different, right? Our enemy can tempt us and tweak us whether we’re alone or in close quarters with others. We who know God should not be caught off guard by any of this—at least not for long.
So here’s a reading assignment—go through these passages and seek the Lord for how he wants you to put them into action:
- Romans 12:1-15:13
- 1 Corinthians 6:18-20
- 1 Corinthians 8:1-2
- 1 Corinthians 10:23-24
- 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
- 2 Corinthians 12:20-21
- Galatians 6:7-10
- Ephesians 4:1-4
- Ephesians 4:20-5:21
- Philippians 1:27-2:4
- Philippians 2:12-16
- Philippians 4:2
- Colossians 3:12-17
- Colossians 4:2-6
- 1 Thessalonians 5:5-24
- 2 Thessalonians 2:15-3:5
- 1 Timothy 2:1-4
- 1 Timothy 6:6-12
- Titus 3:9
- James 1:21
- James 4:11-17
- James 5:7-11
- 1 Peter 1:6-9
- 1 Peter 1:22-2:2
- 1 Peter 2:11-17
- 1 Peter 3:8-17
- 1 Peter 4:7-19
- 1 Peter 5:6-11
- 2 Peter 1:5-11
- 2 Peter 3:8-9
- 2 Peter 3:14-15
- Jude 20-21, 24-25
If you have the time, reading these verses while praying for God to help you hear them and internalize them will bring you into His presence, and give you good direction for the day at hand.
Guest Post: Rest is Resistance
NOTE: Friends, this is a guest post from Tony DeFranco, who wrote it last week. I find Tony’s thoughts helpful and edifying. Enjoy! –BW
Monday March 30th marked the start of week three. The third week of attempting to “flatten the curve” of COVID-19. That means the third week of no church gatherings. The third week of social distancing. The third week of working from home, or week one of no job. The third week of isolation. And, for all of us, the third week of relying solely on screens to feel some sort of connection to anything or anyone else. For me, it was a defining day in the midst of our current situation.
I work in content creation and social media management for our church. As you might’ve guessed, my workload has not decreased because of coronavirus, but increased. Church services are solely online, social media is one of our major avenues of communication to the people, and every ministry leader has a growing desire to learn how to leverage our technological tools in order to stay in touch with the people they minister to most. Who could blame them? It sounds exciting for someone in my position, and at times that is true. However, on that Monday the amount of filming, requests, posts, zoom meetings that needed scheduling, and updates that needed organizing just debilitated me. My anxiety spiked. Since we closed the doors of the church building I haven’t stopped working, something that I realize is a blessing, with major layoffs becoming the norm. But it has been constant, and I was leaning in full force. What I am doing is important after all, isn’t it? However, that day, I sensed my soul was just worn out. I read this article headline a couple days later, “Coronavirus Ended the Screen Time Debate. Screens Won.” Ouch. That woke me up, fast.
The irony of what I am writing is not lost on me. If you’re reading this, it is likely on a phone. You were probably on social media, saw a post from our account, and linked in. Please don’t hear what I am about to say as hypocritical… it’s time to resist our screen time, not lean into it.
In the article I mentioned, Nellie Bowles offers a confession from a friend,
“One friend of mine admitted averaging 16 hours of screen time a day, often on multiple devices at once.”
Wow. She goes on:
“I’m 31 and have lived almost all my life in San Francisco…Given our demographic, most of those having babies crafted careful plans to keep those fresh eyes from screens. Plans to keep the babies from using screens, of course, but also away from even seeing the screens in use. How are those plans going now?”
She offers some answers to that question; I think this is one of the most profound:
“We’ve all officially lost the battle,” said Dr. Helitzer, who has a 2- and a 3-year-old. “I’ve accessed every educational app you can. I’ve used every online interactive worksheet I can find,” Dr. Helitzer said. “If he’s sitting on his iPad for two or three hours a day, I literally don’t even care. It’s like, ‘Use that screen as much as you can.’”
We’ve all officially lost the battle. Did you catch that warfare language? Even people outside of Christianity admit that how much time we dedicate to screens is a battle. A battle for what? I think it’s a battle for us—our behaviors, emotions, thoughts, and dependence. What’s on the other end of those screens wants us, forms us. Information is not neutral. Can I just be honest? I resonated with Dr. Helitzer at the start of week three. I felt like I lost. Before COVID-19 I had strict guidelines in place to limit screen time. I barely averaged an hour per day on my phone, even with my job. I don’t say that to feel good about myself, but to acknowledge that I knew I was fighting a war. Why did I suddenly surrender to the all-consuming iPhone just because someone said “social distancing?” My answer is short: because the culture told me I lost, and I believed them.
Sherry Turkle, the author of Alone Together, has even come out and said:
“I think that this reveals the screen-time issue as a misplaced anxiety…now, forced to be alone but wanting to be together, so many are discovering what screen time should be.”
Ms. Bowles adds, “It should be about learning and connecting. It should be humanizing.”
Maybe they’re right. Maybe they’re not. We won’t know what will be produced from us during this huge surge in screen time until we can enter back into community, face to face, with other humans. I hope their estimations are correct. But, what I am concerned with is how we are going preserve our souls, the deepest part of our being, during COVID-19.
Regardless of whether this deepens our appreciation for human contact, or increases our ability to learn (both positive effects outlined in the NY Times article), the fact remains that devices form us. I don’t think that is a stretch, and I don’t think that formation is easily undone. So, what are we supposed to do? How do we resist that formation? Believe it or not, I am not about to suggest you burn your phone, or even cancel Netflix. I have come to the conclusion, personally, that rest from these screens will preserve us through this crisis, and beyond.
In Deuteronomy 5:12-15 the command is given to God’s people to “Observe the sabbath” (v. 12). It goes on to state this practice is so God’s people will “…remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there…” (v. 15). The original sabbath command is found in Exodus 20:8-11. That command was grounded in creation, and supposed to be practiced as a rhythm for the people of God. In Deuteronomy the command is reiterated to Israel and grounded in redemption (v. 15). It is supposed to be practiced as resistance from the norms of a society that excluded God from its view of life. It is literally a practice that can keep them from going back to Egypt in their everyday dealings. Think about it. He’s saying, don’t do life the way Egypt does. Don’t do life the way people who don’t acknowledge me do. Don’t do life the way society does when it is in a collective rebellion against me. It’s a call to live life redeemed from those currents. It’s a call to resist those currents. How? He doesn’t say don’t get jobs, or don’t rub shoulders with others. He doesn’t say shut yourself in and hide. Quite the opposite, He tells them to exist within that culture and work amongst those currents for six days with everyone else (v13). It is in the institution of the seventh day where we find resistance. On the seventh day, they practice sabbath.
The word sabbath literally means “cease.” The idea is…stop. It is a time to delight in God, and live into thankfulness for what is directly in front of you, focusing on nothing beyond that. It is acknowledging that God is God, and we are not. For Israel, that day was supposed to be observed, post-exile (v. 12), as a way to remember (v. 15) that God delivered them from Egypt. It is a profound idea. By forcing yourself to set aside intentional time to cease (from interaction with the norms around you that deny God’s goodness, sovereignty, and love), you can honor Him and remember you’re not a slave to those systems anymore. In fact, you, as one of God’s people, have been delivered from their grip. We need that reminder today more than ever.
As people under Christ, we don’t live under the Old Testament law referenced in Deuteronomy (see Colossians 2:16). However, I think there is something here for us, by way of invitation not commandment.
Do you know what pulled me out of my hole of anxiety and stress? Turning my phone off. I stopped. Was the work I was doing wrong? No. Was the volume of work coming my way wrong? No. Was my constant connection to the pace of increasing screen time, with no breaks, wrong? I found it to be so. That is the new battle before us. The battle of fighting our impulses to constantly gratify our need to feel in control of the situation by scrolling news feeds or producing content. Then there’s the constant allure of escapism through streaming ourselves into oblivion. Both ignore reality. Both are being peddled to us by the culture as the only options during COVID-19. One ignores the reality that we can’t control what’s happening, the other ignores the reality that there is a paradigm shift in front of us. All this screen time can and will form us into people who believe we are god in an age of information. We are not. It can and will form us into people trained to escape every difficult thing in life. We will miss what God can do in us and through us during those times.
So what is the way forward? I know things are changing, I don’t think we should delete social media accounts right now. We have to face the fact that with all the shelter in place mandates, screens are currently front and center, so how can we step into that reality without logging 16 hours of screen time per day?
Like Israel of old, rest—intentional time away from it all. Taking intentional time to put the digital connections away can be our way of acknowledging that God is God and we are not. It is our way of becoming present to the moment, our moment, and finding thankfulness in it because of what God has provided for us.
What Your Soul Really Wants
In the opening lines of Psalm 63, we read these immortal words, penned by David:
O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water.
I think, every time I’ve read this verse, I’ve read it this way: David is telling God how much passion he has for Him. And he’s telling us too, by writing it down. “Here is how much I love God—my heart longs for him! Even my flesh is part of this. I get up early to seek God.” It’s a beautiful sentiment. There’s a lot to learn by way of David’s example. We can read it and think, “Yes, that’s how I should feel for God.” And sometimes, we do.
But this morning I read this verse again, and heard something totally different. See if you can follow me here…
First let’s just isolate out the two things David says about himself:
My soul thirsts for you.
My flesh longs for you.
Is David proclaiming how much he loves God here? Well, sure, in one way of looking at it. He had just said, “You are my God!” The rest of the Psalm follows these lines as well. David totally loves God. But there’s more to hear in these words. Imagine writing out the emphasis this way:
My soul thirsts… for you.
My flesh longs…for you.
Or to say it another way:
I had always had this dull ache inside. This longing for something…more. It was right at the center of who I was. And it was never satisfied. And then…I found You, in the sanctuary (v.2), and I encountered Your power, Your glory, and Your lovingkindness (v.3). And then I knew what I’d been searching for all along. God—it’s You that my soul longs for—Your power, Your glory, Your love.
And when I discovered that, I discovered that my body, too, actually longs for You. I’d always thought that all these physical problems were just part of being human. Pain, sickness, weakness—just normal life. But then I met You. And I discovered that, not just my heart, but my flesh too longs for You. Why is there so much physical struggling in the world? Because our bodies need You in ways this fallen world can’t support.
God, it’s You. You’re the One who fills a soul and makes it love life. You’re the one who totally fulfills men and women—closeness to You, friendship with You. Your joy, peace, and love are what we need to give us…even the will to live. And Your fellowship makes life worth living—forever, in fact. Your love is better than life.
So now, no matter what happens, I know that my soul will be satisfied, and then, one day, even my body will experience this total fulfillment and perfection (Psalm 17:15).
I think that’s all in those few words. David is sharing his discovery with us. All his longing was really longing for God. It’s a realization that changed his life.
With all this extra time that many of us have (not all of us, true, but a lot of us), may I throw out this challenge? Sometimes when things slow down, we hear our hearts better. It’s harder to ignore the longings within. Or maybe, inactivity and isolation have even stirred up a bunch of new restless feelings. But in every longing, instead of thinking, “Man, I really wish I could…” maybe think, “My soul is hungry for God.” Or even better: “God, my soul is hungry for you. Closeness to you is actually what I’m longing for.” Yes, we weren’t meant to be cooped up inside. We weren’t meant to be inactive. We were meant to do things that matter, so it’s hard not to do any of that. But…when your life is full of activity, does that actually fill your heart? Or do you still feel that need for something more, right under the surface?
That’s how you know David’s words are the truth. God’s loving kindness is better than normal life. Or social life. Or campus life. Or career life. His presence is true fulfillment. Full fulfillment. Which is why David also wrote:
You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
My friends, there are a lot of ways to redeem this time. But let’s not forget to attend to the main thing our soul needs—closeness to God.
A Message for Gray Days
Great time with everyone who joined the Zoom call last night. I thought the format worked well, between the discussion and the ability for people to write in comments. We’d welcome any feedback. Unless we get hit with some amazing idea, and assuming everything holds steady till next week (and Lord willing…) we’ll go ahead with another Zoom call next Monday too.
By way of encouragement for the day, Dave Miller shared this bit of a sermon from Arthur John Gossip with me on Friday. I thought it might bless some of you, as it seems pretty timely. The sermon leads off with this quote from the prophet Habakkuk:
If the vision tarry, wait for it, for it will come; and it will not be too late. (Habakkuk 2:3)
Then the sermon begins:
There, to begin with, is a claim on you and me, a warning that if we wish to be really helpful to God and our fellows we must cultivate a certain calm and equanimity of mind, a certain valor and imperturbability of spirit that believes in righteousness and the success of its cause much too stout-heartedly to grow afraid even if things do drag a bit, that knows God far too well to think of doubting Him even if His promises seem slow of foot and our dreams lag and the time grows longer than we hoped.
“The function of religious people,” so [Habakkuk] heard God saying to his heart in dark and trying days when there was not much to encourage, “What is it? What do I set them in the world to do? What is it I ask of them? Is it not largely this—to keep cool and unfidgitey when other folks are growing flustered about things; to look out upon this confusing life with steady eyes when those around them, badly scared, have taken to glancing back across their shoulders, and there is that ominous feeling of panic in the air; to trust Me not only when that is easy and the sun is shining but when there is most need for faith, yes, and some valor in the offer of it?”
Suppose times are disappointing and disquieting, that I [God] seem to have forgotten, appear not to care; that in spite of all your efforts nothing, so you judge, is happening. Still, don’t get nervy and irritable, fussy and on edge…
If we wish to be helpful to God. You ever feel this pull? Let’s follow Mr. Gossip’s lead, and cultivate calm, evenness, and stoutness of heart. What great language. If you are weak—God loves you and he will hold you up. For the rest of us, let’s shake off anything that would weaken us, and seek God’s strength to be pillars he can use.
Be of good courage
And He shall strengthen your heart
All you who hope in the LORD
The Most Powerful Covering
The word of God is medicine. It is the true cure for the things that make us sick. It heals our wounds. But it is not only medicine. It is also food. It is also light. It nourishes our hope and our strength and our vision. And so, whenever you might be tempted to focus on one part of scripture (say, verses about fear and uncertainty, for instance), resist that temptation. Instead, continue feeding yourself a steady diet of all that God says, even while you continue to apply targeted medicine-verses to particular, current struggles. Along those lines, today I wanted to share these thoughts from John Calvin on what a powerful covering the righteousness of Christ is. This is a helpful meditation on Psalm 32 and Romans 4:7 (“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered”). Calvin writes:
Christ’s righteousness, which as it alone is perfect and alone can bear the sight of God, must appear in court on our behalf, and stand surety in judgment.
Furnished with this righteousness, we obtain continual forgiveness of sins in faith.
Covered with this purity, the sordidness and uncleanness of our imperfections are not ascribed to us, but are hidden, as if buried, that they may not come into God’s judgment, until the hour arrives when, the old man slain and clearly destroyed in us, the divine goodness will receive us into blessed peace with the new Adam.
There let us await the Day of the Lord in which, having received incorruptible bodies, we will be carried into the glory of the Heavenly Kingdom. (1 Corinthians 15:45)
(Institutes III.14.12)
Furnished with this righteousness. Covered with this purity.
Friends, there are more dangerous things in this universe than any virus. Sin is a dark weight which will drag me down to eternal darkness. Impurity is a disease which will kill me forever. Separation from God, for even a moment, is more terrible than any quarantine. If we must be alone in a room, let us have it filled with his presence. If we must catch a virus, may we be cleansed from all sin. If we must be at risk, may our eternity be secure. And may the fact that Christ has already destroyed our greatest enemy always strengthen our hearts. Nothing worse can befall us than what befell him on the cross—and he has taken that penalty out of our way. He faced it so that it may never face us. Whatever else may come, those truths are worth their weight in eternal gold. Let us rest in them now, and we will praise him forever that they are true.
There let us await the Day of the Lord in which, having received incorruptible bodies, we will be carried into the glory of the Heavenly Kingdom.
Cast Your Burden on the Lord, with Your Words.
In 2 Samuel 15, we have the record of one of the most stressful times in King David’s life. In verses 30-34 he receives bad news on top of the bad news. It was the kind of day where rough things were piling up. He was already fleeing for his life, and then he heard that his most skilled and trusted counselor had joined a rebellion against him. When it rains, it pours. Maybe later that night, it seems, he decided to pour out his anxiety onto a piece of parchment. A lot of people think that Psalm 55 was a poem or a song David wrote in response to the news. And it’s not just a song—it’s a written prayer. David’s response to the bad news was to pray—and in fact, to work on composing a beautiful, poetic prayer. And right in the middle of the prayer poem, David does something very interesting—he tells us why he’s doing this praying and writing in the first place. He tells us to do the same thing, whenever we face trying times: “Cast your burden on the LORD,” he says, “And He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.”
So, David says, if you have a burden, cast it on the Lord. Throw it onto His back. Drop it into His hands. Give it to Him. And then God will sustain you. How? David says, “He won’t permit you to be ‘moved.’” That is, He won’t allow you to be shaken, to slide off the path you’re supposed to be on. There’s a passage that’s helpful to put alongside of Psalm 55:22 for even deeper insight. It’s 1 Peter 5:6-7. In this passage Peter quotes from the Greek translation of Psalm 55:22, and writes, “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”
Peter and David, writing God’s words in the Old and New Testaments, lead us into a simple and powerful truth. Do you have cares or anxieties? Cast them on the Lord, and then leave your situation to Him. And don’t miss what Peter wrote in verse six. The things that stress us make us feel like they’re going to ruin our life, but Peter tells us that we can know that we will be “exalted” in God’s timing—meaning lifted up or honored. It’s kind of what we mean when we use the word “success.” The way to attain the kind of life would God would consider successful is to understand that we don’t have to run our lives and make sure they’re successful all by ourselves. All that stress is a burden too great to bear, and it’s exactly what worry makes us think.
Instead, we’re supposed to take that burden, and cast it on the Lord. But how exactly are we supposed to cast our burdens or stress on God? These verses imply it, as if we’re almost supposed to already know. We do it in prayer. Philippians 4:6 says it directly—“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” Take that burden of stress, and give it to God by praying.
Is that usually your first reflex when you’re stressed? It’s not my natural reaction. Mine is to talk about it to the people around me. That used to mean mainly friends, but after I got married, my go-to person to talk to became my wife. (She’s great to talk to. The best, really.) A little while ago the Lord really addressed this with me, and showed me some things about how this works for me personally. I realized that my tendency had been, whenever something was stressing me out, to the most natural thing, and talk to her about it. It seems totally innocent. We talk about everything, so why wouldn’t we talk about this negative-feeling stuff too? But what I discovered is that sometimes in these situations, maybe even most of the time, when I “got things off my chest,” or just “talked it out,” I could leave the conversation feeling better, but she left it feeling worse. She might feel bad for me or angry at the situation, or just agitated by the stress I was describing. In that situation, what had just happened was that I took the agitation I was feeling and I used my words to unburden myself onto her. All I did was hand the burden or the stress to her with a conversation.
I had kind of known that I did this. Pieces of this realization had already been slowly coalescing in my mind, but then, a couple years ago, they all came together for me. I love how God does this when we’re actively following him—using all kinds of ordinary things to create the daily school in which he’s constantly teaching us. In this case it was the “speaking” aspect of both conversation (with other people) and prayer that provided the connecting point for me, and gave me my light bulb moment. The Lord brought these two verses to my mind, from Psalm 55 and 1 Peter 5, and I realized that this language of “casting my burden” or “casting my cares” perfectly described what I was doing to Veronica. And of course, what do these verses invite me to do instead? They invite me to cast my burdens on God. In other words, God Almighty is asking me to use my words to talk to him about my stress. Literally, in the same way that we might tend to use other human beings to unload on, God says, “Unload on me.” And when we see that, I think we have to also see that there’s probably an unspoken, silent acknowledgement of the other side of this coin. “Unload on me, and not so much on other people.”
And this leads us to a couple more insights. Both David and Peter tell us things about God’s ability to handle our burdens that show us why he’s really a superior burden carrier when compared with anyone else. David says, “Cast your burden on the LORD, And He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved,” and maybe implies, “and remember, whenever you’re talking to other people, they can’t sustain you, and they have no power, ultimately, to make sure you won’t be moved. Only God can do those things.” And Peter says, “Cast all your care upon Him, for He cares for you,” and we can imagine him saying, “No one else has the same kind of love and concern for you that he does. His love is actually big enough to handle all of your stress, and his desire to help you isn’t limited by any human limitations.”
It’s not negativity; it’s just realism to finally notice that no one around me can handle the stress of my soul. I can’t, so why do I keep expecting other people to be able to? In fact, what realizing this actually does for me is free me up from being disappointed with people all the time. It frees me up from feeling like people have let me down if I make them handle my stress and then (surprise, surprise) I don’t actually feel sustained and strengthened afterwards. You know what it’s like—no matter how much you talk about it to other people, at some point the stress comes rushing back and then you’re just looking for a few more minutes to make someone listen to it all again. But when I’ve relieved others of the duty of carrying my stress, it frees me up to have much more realistic expectations for my relationships.
The fact is that God did not make my wife or my friends to handle all my stress. That’s not why he led her to marry me. That’s not what they’re for. And that’s the craziest part of this whole thing—God says that’s what he wants us to use Him for. God presents Himself as Someone who understands that we live in a world filled with things that overwhelm us. And what he says to us, really through the whole bible, is that his solution for that reality is himself. It’s like he’s saying, “you were never meant to face the world without me. Come talk to me about that world that’s stressing you out.” The follower of Jesus learns to handle stress by telling God—unloading on God—about everything. And then we leave it with him. We get up from telling God about the situation, and we let the words of David and Peter shape our thoughts. We think things like, “Ok, I told God. He won’t let this destroy me. He’ll get me through. He cares about me.” And then we go about our day with that confidence.
This way of operating becomes habitual. God becomes the main person about whom we think: “I can’t wait to talk to Him about this.” And think about it—He will never get tired of listening. We never have to worry about gossiping if we’re alone with Him. He loves everyone else we talk to Him about. He knows everything about us and about any situation we’re in, and he has total power and wisdom to do whatever should be done about the situation. And none of those things are true about any of our friends or family.
I just relearned this again, the other night. I haven’t been particularly stressed out about the situation we’re all in right now—but I have been pretty aggravated at people in authority. And people around me have been hearing about it. My wife has been getting loads of my opinions about everything going on. So here I am again, with you all, having the Lord walk me through this again, like he’s saying, “Are you agitated about your situation? Unload that burden on me. Not on your wife.”
Now, I’m not saying that any of this means we can never talk to another person about something that’s messing with our heads. That would just be weird. And of course, God does use other believers to bring his grace to us, and to help us with all kinds of things. That’s why Paul writes to the Galatian church, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” If we love each other, we want to help each other out with hard things. That’s not the issue. The issue is what I do when I’m feeling stressed out. Yes I want to help other people. And they want to help me. But that doesn’t dictate what to do when it’s my issue I’m dealing with.
I think the key to see how all this goes together is to understand that, if we let Psalm 55:22 and 1 Peter 5:7 do their work on us, and we learn to use prayer to handle stress, it’ll enable us up to use our relationships the right way. We will be the kind of people who can talk about difficult things, when necessary, without loading burdens on others. We won’t expect other people to do things they could never do or bear weight they could never bear. We can ask for prayer, or advice, or help, and do it in a way that we’re actually asking people for things God will enable them to do for us. We’ll use the community of Christians in the right way. Our relationships will be healthy. We can go through hard things with each other, and, when we each let God be God for us as individuals, we can be the body of Christ for each other.
So let’s all grow in this simple act of obedience. Let’s turn to prayer—talking to God and letting Him be our burden bearer. Let’s be quick to unload on Him—let’s spend as long as we need actually telling him about the things that trouble us. Let’s give other people a break. I suspect that nailing this down early in life will save us a lot of relational pain down the line. And we’ll find that our burdens are actually getting carried, too—and not by us.
Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. —Psalm 62
Trust in God v. Trust in Self
“We will never have enough confidence in God,” writes John Calvin, “unless we become deeply distrustful of ourselves.”
Think about this. If Calvin is right, there is a particular relationship between faith in God and faith in ourselves. They are inversely proportional. When one goes up, the other goes down.
Where does this leave the whole movement to help people by telling them to believe in themselves and have confidence in themselves? If Calvin is right, then it is exactly the wrong thing to do, to teach generations of children to believe in themselves, first because it doesn’t work (and hence the epidemic of anxiety and depression, which are, among other things, a complete lack of confidence in ourselves to be able to face the world), and also because it will make it harder for them to find the true source of strength–God Himself. We receive the strength we need from him by trusting him.
Calvin continues:
We will never have enough confidence in him unless we become deeply distrustful of ourselves;
We will never lift up our hearts enough in him unless they have been previously cast down in us;
We will never have consolation enough in him unless we have already experienced desolation in ourselves.
Therefore we are ready to seize and grasp God’s grace when we have utterly cast out confidence in ourselves and rely on the assurance of his goodness–“when,” as Augustine says, “forgetting our own merits, we embrace Christ’s gifts.”
(Institutes , III.12.8)
Now, this is not the Bible, but Calvin wrote from a Bible-saturated mental world and a deep reverence for God and scripture. And, he wrote hundreds of years ago, so we have the opportunity of hearing truth that is not influenced by any ideas of our time.
With those thoughts in mind, consider what a revolutionary and provocative idea this is: “We will never have enough confidence in him unless we become deeply distrustful of ourselves.”
Calvin says we must become deeply distrustful of ourselves. Don’t trust your heart. Don’t trust your deepest feelings. Stop trusting yourself.
That’s modern heresy. But it’s really just an application of words like these:
He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, But whoever walks wisely will be delivered. (Proverbs 28:26)
Thus says the LORD: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man And makes flesh his strength, Whose heart departs from the LORD. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, And shall not see when good comes, But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, In a salt land which is not inhabited. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, And whose hope is the LORD. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, Which spreads out its roots by the river, And will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green, And will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from yielding fruit. The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:5-9)
And so let’s remember the insight Calvin helps us towards. It’s not just that trusting yourself in bad. It’s that it robs you of the better, stronger thing–God’s strength.
God With Us Changes Everything
A few years ago someone gave me a copy of a movie about Corrie ten Boom’s life and ministry under Nazi occupation. I decided to check it out, but half-way through, I had to shut it off. It’s a little embarrassing, but I finally realized that I couldn’t take it. It was stressing me out. And I thought, why would I take a perfectly good couple hours and spend it stressed about Nazis? But the experience bothered me for a few days. Why had I been so anxious during that movie? It was kind of embarrassing, actually. For today’s post I wanted to share what the Lord so graciously taught me through that situation, about worry over the future.
So, why was the experience of the movie so stressful? Because in viewing the movie, I was contemplating the experience of living under Nazi occupation without actually experiencing it. It seems counter-intuitive to talk this way—wouldn’t living through the experience be more stressful than just watching it on a screen? Well, of course, except for one reality which changes everything. Followers of Jesus do not walk through their days alone. We walk through our days with God. His presence, in us, with us, fills our days. He fills our thoughts. He strengthens our hearts. And who is He, as it pertains to this particular need of ours? He is the great ocean of calm. He is the most peaceful, secure, confident being in existence. And he generously shares his peaceful calm with all one who draw near to him. So, when a child of God walks through stressful times, they do it with Him, and they have the opportunity, at every moment, to receive his peace and strength while they do so.
However, when we think ourselves into the future, and walk through situations in our thoughts that we’re not actually experiencing yet, we don’t find the same peace. That’s what a lot of our worry is over, right? It’s contemplating the future, and experiencing how hard we think it will be then. (What if that horrible thing happens? That will be hard! How will I manage?) And so, in our minds, we’re living through stressful things, and feeling all the stress—but here’s the key—when we do that, we’re experiencing it without God, or at least, our brains are imagining what it would be like to experience it without God.
Why should this be the case? Because God lives in our present, and he strengthens us to thrive in the actual situation we’re living through, at any given moment. But when we contemplate the future, we might feel some of what it feels like to go through those things, but we’re not actually going through it. That day in my basement, I wasn’t living under Nazi occupation. I was just watching a story about people who did, and thinking about what it would be like. God did not give me the grace to live through that stressful situation, because I wasn’t living through it. If I had paid attention to the story, it would have been pretty clear to me that God did in fact give Corrie ten Boom the strength to live through that exact situation. But why should he give that to me, a guy sitting at home on a quiet day? Has God ever promised to give me strength for situations I’m not facing? Of course not.
What does he give us the grace to handle? The day at hand. His presence is with us, always, to strengthen us to do that actual thing we have to do, today. And as soon as you say it like that, you realize that this is exactly the way Jesus spoke: “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” In other words, today is the thing God takes care of. Whatever I have to do today, God will strengthen me to do it. So I can wake up, seek God for strength, and then depend on him moment by moment, for whatever the day brings. Many days are made up of repetitive, mundane things. God gives us the grace to handle the thousands of those days we live through, one day at a time. Some days have extraordinary, difficult things. When those things come, and that day is today, God is there with us, in the moment, giving us exactly what we need to live and serve him despite it, in it, and through it.
So…if you know the Bible, just scan your mind back and forth through it, and think about all those stories of people who went through crazy things. Some of them are our favorite stories. And you can tell how much we love them by how much we talk about them. Think about how many sermons have been preached on David and Goliath. But have you ever noticed, in every “What’s your Goliath?” sermon, and every “What’s your Jericho?” sermon, it’s always assumed that you’re not actually facing an exceptionally huge man who’s trying to kill you, or a walled city of hostile warriors who want to exterminate your people. Of course not. God wouldn’t let people he loves go through situations that hard, would he? Think about it. Don’t we tend to make a lot of the stories in the Bible allegories for the things we expect to face? And of course, it’s true: God can be with me in my trials, because he was with them in theirs. But what about if we actually face something that’s more…biblical in nature? The people in the Bible did, after all. Just to take a representative sampling, here are some of the things people in the Bible went through:
- Surviving a civilization-ending flood in a home-made boat
- Running into the desert alone, fleeing a brother bent on murder
- Being sold into slavery by jealous brothers
- Being thrown into prison for refusing the boss’ wife
- Forty years of futile wandering in a desert
- That giant, in a valley, with armor and a sword
- Running from a murderous king, to sleep in a cave
- Running from a murderous queen, to sleep in a cave
- Invasion by hostile, cruel armies
- Spending months in a city under siege
- Being thrown into a cesspool pit for telling the king God’s truth.
- Being abducted and taken far away from home by an invading army.
- Being thrown into a furnace for not bowing down to a statue.
- Being thrown into a pit with hungry lions.
- Living life in exile, in a strange, hostile country.
Now, you can probably name the main characters in all those stories. And what else do you know about them? In every one of them—God was there. He was there speaking, protecting, guiding, working. The people in those stories saw great things. They knew God. He was close to them. They did great things. They earned mention in, say, the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. Their life was hard, full of twists and turns and upheavals. They often probably felt very exposed to things too big for them to handle. And God let it all happen to them. But he was there the whole time. He was with them. And that changed everything.
He’s there in the stories, for us, because it’s his word. That’s why we love reading them. We read those words and God is there, with us, speaking to us. And often he applies those stories to our situations, which are very much not like those stories. But what if our lives, one day, start to look more like the actual stories in the Bible? What if we’re called to live through things as intense as the people in the Bible? Doesn’t the question answer itself? He was with them, not in the metaphorical fire, but in the real fire. He was with them, not when they felt like they were in exile, but when they were actually in exile. He helped them face, not a giant of a problem, but a real huge man.
And he has not changed. Should we ever be called on to live through the things the people in the Bible lived through, God will be with us. And that will change everything.
Realism & Optimism
Are you a pessimist, or an optimist? Or, maybe you place yourself in the middle…you’re a realist. Sometimes optimists call realists pessimists. But realists know better. They’re just facing the world head on—and being realistic! Of course, a lot of times that sounds pretty pessimistic to optimists.
What are Christians called to be? It seems pretty safe to say that a follower of Jesus probably doesn’t have the right to be a true pessimist. We have to believe that, in the end, God’s going to win. Right? That’s what the whole bible is moving towards—that’s what the Bible shows us history is moving towards. No matter how pessimistic we are by nature, or how much bad news happens, in the end, Jesus is going to be king, and fix everything.
So should that make us optimists? Well, consider these words from Jesus. Here is what he said once, when he was speaking to his followers:
“You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But not a hair of your head shall be lost. By your patience possess your souls.”
That’s from Luke chapter 21. Sounds pretty pessimistic at first, right? A Christian realist would say, “Nope. Sounds realistic.” People are going to hate us. Some of us will be put to death. It’s happening right now, around the world. But then, notice that total upswing right at the end. “Endure. It’s worth it. In the end, you won’t even lose one hair.” So which is it? Will it get bad, or will it all be ok?
You know, Jesus spoke like this a lot. Consider this, from Luke chapter 12:
“The very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. Also I say to you, whoever confesses Me before men, him the Son of Man also will confess before the angels of God. But he who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God… Now when they bring you to the synagogues and magistrates and authorities, do not worry about how or what you should answer, or what you should say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”
You might be called to appear before hostile governmental assemblies to answer for your connection to Jesus. That’s realism! But you’ll be told what to say. The Holy Spirit will be with you. So, no need to worry. That’s optimism! And here is what he said another time, quoted in Matthew chapter 24:
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”
Tribulation (that’s real trouble) will come. The physical order itself will be shaken. Pessimism? Realism! But then Jesus will come back. For those who are waiting for him, that’s major optimism! Or listen to this, again from Luke chapter 12:
“And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.”
You might have to face people who can kill you? Realism? But don’t worry—the only one you need to fear is God. …Optimism! (If you know Christ.)
So here is where Jesus leads us. Christians are to be true realists. We have been told, all through the scriptures, that we should not think that society offers any true security. Crops can fail. Diseases can come. Persecution can flare up. Sickness may get us. Any combination of those things, at any time, can assail the believer, just like anyone else. The world is bent and broken because of sin and the curse on creation. Things often break down, and nothing works exactly right. Sometimes, those factors combine to create huge difficulty. On top of it all, the active rebellion of humanity against God’s rule creates real problems for the people of God in particular. Those who pledge allegiance to the King will often experience hostility from those who do not. In fact, we should expect that we will face at least some, if not all, of those things, in our lifetimes. Jesus said as much. The bible is clear.
In response to the facts, we learn to divide our view of the future into two parts. First, there is everything that may happen up to physical death. That time is shaped by the conditions of this imperfect, fallen (and even sinful) world. Then, before the next part, is death, which for those who have their sin forgiven and removed by Christ’s blood, is no longer an end, but a passageway. And that passageway takes us to what the Bible calls Life.
Imagine this scene: when it’s all over, and you’ve entered into Life, you are walking with Jesus, down some trail or path, in the new earth. Imagine that you suffered greatly in your life. As you walk, the thought of what you went through in life is troubling you greatly. Finally, it gets to be too much, and you stop walking, turn to Jesus, and say, “Lord, I don’t understand. You said that if I followed you, you’d meet every need. You said I’d be full of joy. The bible talked about healing and victory and life. But I experienced so many hard things. What gives? Why promise all those things if you weren’t going to deliver?”
Imagine Jesus standing there, looking at you. All around the two of you is the new, glorified earth. Huge, beautiful trees line fields of tall grass and flowers. There is a breeze blowing. Your strong body is completely untired from your walk. Birds fly overhead. Somewhere across a field, the crop is coming in. People are laughing—the harvest is huge. The path you’re walking on is taking you to the day’s feast. Everyone you love will be there. There is not a trace, anywhere to be seen, of any of the difficult things that once plagued the world.
And Jesus looks at you and says, “Where is all that suffering? Didn’t I keep all my promises?”
Jesus knows that his followers will walk through the fire. That’s why he warned us to expect it, and left the words written down and preserved for the church through the ages. So the follower of Christ lives with an opened eyed realism about the world and what we can expect. Our Lord has been very clear for us. No difficulty should catch us off guard, as if it calls into question God’s love, or anything like that. But that’s not the whole story, is it? Whatever difficulty we face, it will never be the final thing we experience. It will only last till the end of this present stage of existence. It is temporary. Our death, or the return of Christ, will be the end of this chapter, but it won’t be the end of the book. There is a next chapter. In that chapter, King Jesus rights all wrongs, fixes every broken thing, and expels from the world everything that ruins, breaks, and lies. In that chapter, God makes the world as he always wanted it—and nothing causes pain, any more. There is no more optimistic place to stand, than to know, deep in your bones, that one day you’ll hear, with your own ears, these words: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. Behold, I make all things new.”
With these words echoing in our ears, Christians move forwarded into whatever the day at hand presents. We are realists to the core—the truth is, anything may happen. We’re supposed to talk this way about the future: “If the Lord wills, we will live, and do this, or that.” If God wills. Maybe we will be faithful while things continue, the same way, for a long time. Maybe we will receive his strength and direction when things change quickly. Maybe we will praise him for provision, friends, and joy. Maybe we will trust him through scarcity, loneliness, or uncertainty. We simply don’t know what will happen to us, on this side of death and the coming of Christ. “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit;’ whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” That’s bible realism. We don’t know how things will go.
But here’s a crucial key for all this: Christian realism never descends into pessimism, because, when we think about our lives, we learn to include eternity. When our mind moves forward into the future across the timeline of our life, it doesn’t stop at death. It goes beyond death. Our timeline includes the new earth, and eternity with Jesus, and at the same time we recognize the temporary nature of this time of uncertainty. In other words, the New Testament teaches us to reach forward with our thoughts and pull that eternal, glorious future into our present thinking, so that our future with Christ colors our experience of the present. We can be realistic about how little we know about our near future, because our hearts are anchored beyond the near future—they are anchored in God’s promised new creation, and in the promised experience of his presence we’ll enjoy. And even while we admit the uncertainty of the present, we celebrate the total certainty of eternity.
If death was the absolute boundary of our lives, the uncertainty of our circumstances would trouble us, undo us, because the human heart can’t live without joy and hope. But there is so much joy and life in eternity with Jesus that he sends the scent of it to us on the wind of his word. In his promises, we can smell the perfect eternity that’s coming. We can smell how close it is. And the smell of joy and peace and family and life forever changes our present circumstances. Whatever comes, Jesus is coming. Whatever happens, the new earth will last forever. And he is there, having prepared the place, joyfully pulling us forward to join him in the future. And he is here, faithfully strengthening us to press on to meet him.
Whether you’re stuck inside right now, or whatever the situation, let the coming day when Jesus will have fixed everything color your experience of the present. Read about it. Think about it. Pray about it.
And remember that nothing can separate us from the love of God. And one day soon, nothing will.
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