faith

God has bigger plans.

“Whenever God calls a man, he bids him come and die.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God has bigger plans for us than anything we can accomplish ourselves. So he tells us we have to die to ourselves and yield every desire of our hearts to him. We can be sure doing that will be a struggle!

The things we hang on to usually relate to our comfort, security, appearance, or reputation. We long for praise, recognition, and control. But we’re unaware that holding tight to managing our lives around those values creates a barrier between us and God and all kinds of anxiety within.

For our own good, he invites us to let him take control. Then he waits until our desire to let him lead is greater than our desire for living our self-centered, and often desperate, lives.

As, over time, we keep returning to an attitude of surrender, we will begin to see changes: We will care about what others are feeling more than about what they’re thinking of us. We will no longer be so focused on physical comfort: sleep, preferred foods, the way we dress, personal safety or health. We will accept circumstances and see beyond them.

Finally, we come to a point where we no longer look to God for what he can give us, but for who he is. When that happens, he comes close, and we find we’ve given up nothing, and we’ve gained everything.

Dying to self is not easy, but it is the only way to true joy and peace. It starts with a simple prayer: “I surrender.” He’ll show us where to go from there.

“I have been crucified with Christ . . . the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” – from Galatians 2:20

Just One Question

“To know him in your world now is to live interactively with him right where you are in your daily activities. This is the spiritual life in Christ.” – Dallas Willard

I love the account in the Bible about the Jesus followers who walked with him on the road to Emmaus and didn’t realize who he was – at least not at first. But, what an opportunity they had to talk to him, to ask him questions, and to be in awe of his resurrected presence. If only they had known who they were walking with!

Then I wondered: If I had a chance to walk with Jesus along a path, what would I want to ask him? Then, what if we had limited time, and I could ask only one question. What would it be?

I was surprised at what my question was when I imagined myself in that situation. It was not all the “why’s” I have demanded of him throughout my life. It was not asking for a miracle or a rescue. I realized that the real question I had for him wasn’t about any of my personal issues, it was about him and who he was.

Then I thought back on my prayers – for direction or special provision, or “why is this happening?” I couldn’t help thinking that if I had a better picture of Jesus in his glory, not just as a good teacher or a friend, my prayers would undoubtedly be different.

How about you? If Jesus gave you a chance to ask him only one question, what would it be? What would your heart want to ask? We don’t see him physically now, but he is present. Go ahead and ask your question!

“Jesus asked them a question, saying, ‘What do you think about the Christ?'” – from Matthew 22:42 

Image from Flickr

Encounters with Jesus

True encounter with Christ liberates something in us, a power we did not know we had, a hope, a capacity for life, a resilience, an ability to bounce back when we thought we were completely defeated, a capacity to grow and change, a power of creative transformation.  
—Thomas Merton 

How can we live in such a way that encounters with Jesus, as Merton describes above, are possible for us?

We start by wanting to know everything we can know about him. As Christians, one of our missions should be to read and reread the Gospels to keep gaining insights into Jesus – not only his teaching, but also his actions, attitudes, and habits.

Then we will want to know him, not just intellectually, but experientially through a one-on-one relationship with him. We will want personal encounters with Jesus – times when we can sense his presence or hear his voice as a thought in our mind or feel his love reaching out for us.

These moments with Jesus are possible, but they cannot be commanded. They can only be received. We can prepare space for them by walking in obedience to Jesus, desiring to please him in every possible way. Such a moment might happen when we pause in our prayer to listen, or when we’re driving to an appointment, or as we sleep at night. Every encounter with Jesus will cut to our heart, it will change us, we will never forget it, and we will want more.

Jesus, in the person of the Holy Spirit, lives within everyone who has put their trust in him. If we tune in to his presence and his power, he will respond in his own way and time.

“. . . “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” – John 14:2

The View from Above

“God wants us to choose to love him freely, even when that choice involves pain.” – Philip Yancey

Why is life so hard? What have I done to deserve this? Why doesn’t God do something?

Job asked those questions, too. At the beginning of his story he had it all. Then everything began to fall apart. He lost his wealth, his children, and, finally, his health. His friends insisted God wouldn’t be doing this to him if he hadn’t sinned. If he would just admit his sin, everything would be OK.

So Job began to pray asking what he had done wrong and what he could do to appease God and get the pain to stop. No answer. What he doesn’t know is that God didn’t do any of this to him. Satan did – with God’s permission. It was not punishment, it was a test to see if he would trust and serve God even when things didn’t go his way.

There are some standard take-aways from Job’s story including that God doesn’t always protect us from the evil in this world and that trouble isn’t always (maybe seldom actually) a punishment for sin.

Those are good points, but, in my mind, the greatest lesson from Job’s story is this: Though others criticized, condemned, and shamed him, it is what God said about him that mattered. And God said he was blameless and upright.

When we choose to trust Jesus with our lives, God sees us as one of his beloved children. When we focus too much on what others think of us, or what Satan says about us, maybe the story of Job will remind us to ask God what he thinks*. That’s all that matters really.

” . . . you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you (Isaiah 43:4a)

*Hint: He tells us in his word.

This Present Moment

“Leave the broken, irreversible past in God’s hands, and step out into the invincible future with him.” – Oswald Chambers

I heard someone say, “A truly happy person is someone who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.” Can we live fully in the present moment even it’s not what we planned? Do we spend too much time in the past or the future and miss engaging with the now? What can we do to change that?

The Past

We can all look at our past and find things we don’t like. Things we said. Things we did. Things that happened to us that changed the trajectory of our lives: Hurts, rejection, unresolved relationships.

Wise counselors tell us to acknowledge that these things are painful, but unchangeable. We can’t redo life. We can, though, forgive those who have hurt us. And we can confess our own mistakes and sins and receive God’s forgiveness. When we do that, we will feel that a weight has been taken away and this present life is refreshed.

The Future

When we look ahead, we can fall into worry far too easily, anticipating what could possibly happen that will be hard. And there will be those things. But that’s what the life of faith is all about: Trusting God even when we don’t understand. Trusting him because we know his character is good, kind, loving, powerful, just. The future is full of his promises, his presence, and his protection. Let’s choose to believe that!

The Present

When we let go of the past and trust God for the future, we will be fully alive to today. We can count on it!

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” – Romans 15:13

Letting Go

“This is how our holiness grows, by small surrenders, without which we cannot finally become free.” – Emilie Griffin

We want to be in control of where we go, what we eat, how we dress, how we spend, where we work, where we worship, and everything else. Yet God calls us to surrender. Surrendering means letting God control all of those decisions. Surrendering is hard. Maybe impossible.

So how does anyone do the impossible? One small step at a time. One small surrender at a time: Letting someone else choose the movie. Going to church when we’d rather be working in the garden. Not taking charge of every conversation. Even going to sleep at night can be a surrender.

J Todd Billings in his book, The End of the Christian Life, says that when we fall asleep at night. “We don’t think ourselves to sleep. We surrender our bodies to being overtaken (by sleep). . .” To Billings, going to sleep at night is a way of learning to surrender control of our bodies, our minds. Maybe that’s why some of us have a hard time sleeping. Our minds are still engaged in trying to control the world around us.

And, whether we are healthy or sick, young or old, we are eventually facing death. How can we live full and productive lives knowing that an end is coming over which we have no control? How will we be able to surrender our bodies and souls to him in life or in death? Only by small surrenders now, bigger ones as we get grow in our faith. The better we get at surrendering day-by-day, the easier our final surrender will be.

“. . . this is the one to whom I will look:
    he who is humble and contrite in spirit
    and trembles at my word.” – Isaiah 66:2b

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Beyond Fear

“. . . for the believer, fear is always God-forgetful. If God is sovereign and his rule is complete, wise, righteous, and good, why would you fear?” – Paul David Tripp

How do you think God reacts when we are constantly stressed and worried? When I go to him with my troubles, I often find soothing words in the Bible, or I sense his tender care toward me. He responds to our fears, but I found out recently that, at some point, he seems to think we should develop enough spiritual confidence to get beyond fear.

I had been lying in bed worried about stuff (you probably understand). Then I prayed, giving it over to God. And I fell asleep. About two hours later, I was wide awake – thinking about everything that challenged me and assuming the worst possible outcomes.

Before I could even begin to pray about it all (again!), I sensed these words in my head, “Don’t you dare be anxious. After all I’ve done to prove my presence in your life, you have no right, no cause, to be anxious.” Hey, where was that tender touch, that reassurance, that sympathetic response? God was challenging me to grow up spiritually. To learn to really trust him.

Then I remembered when Jesus and the disciples were in a boat and a violent storm came up. When the men called frantically to the sleeping Jesus, he didn’t say “Don’t worry, guys, I’ve got this.” No. He said, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” Kind of what he said to me. He wants us to grow up spiritually. And the true test of that is whether we really trust him or not.

“When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
In God, whose word I praise-
in God I trust and am not afraid.”
– Psalm 56:3-4a

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Looking for change?

“It’s much less demanding to think about God’s will for your future than it is to ask him what he wants you to do in the next ten minutes.” – Francis Chan

Do you realize how often in the Bible we read stories of instant change?

Think of the man born blind who was made to see. Do you think he thought that would happen when he woke up that morning?

Or of the Samaritan woman who, after just one conversation with Jesus, announced him as Messiah to the people of her town who had condemned her life choices. He even came into the village with her and stayed for a few days. She went from outcast to heroine instantly.

Or of the people of Israel, under enemy siege and out of food, barely surviving on scraps. Two lepers found the enemy camp hastily deserted, leaving an abundance of food behind. They went from starvation to plenty in one instant. From despair to joy. No one saw that coming.

As we look back on our lives, we sometimes can identify meeting someone who changed our life. Or making a small decision that had big consequences. Or having an opportunity we never could have anticipated. These turning points have happened to all of us.

So if you are feeling stuck now or in a rut or disappointed with the way things have turned out for you, don’t despair. God can intervene. We just need to watch for his hand and his guidance as we go through our days. Sometimes God’s changes are slow, sometimes fast, but there’s always a turning point. Today may be the day when everything changes!

“Behold, I am doing a new thing;
    now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
    and rivers in the desert.” – Isaiah 43:1

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A Big World. A Big God

“God made man small and the universe big to say something about himself.” – John Piper

Have you been looking at some of the pictures of space and stars and galaxies that are being captured by the James Webb Space Telescope? They are revealing . . .

. . . the vastness of the universe – bigger than we thought it was, endless maybe.

. . . the details of the universe – like icy compounds of complex organic molecules that scientists can identify from millions of miles away.

. . . the beauty of the universe that inspires awe just because it is there in dramatic expanse and color.

Then we think about the God who created it. The creator is greater than the creation. How limitless our God must be in terms of his mind, power, and authority. The more we learn about the universe, the more we stand in awe of him.

And that leads to something else:

When we stop to think about how great God is, we begin to understand that we can’t demand anything of him. We can’t control or manipulate him. And we are wise not to be angry at him or disappointed in him. Who are we compared to God? Who are we to question him? To second guess him? The universe, as it unfolds before us, invites us to do one thing: Worship the one who created it.

We will never completely understand God and his nature, but the more we allow ourselves to ponder his greatness, the more we will learn to depend on him and trust him and, eventually, to love him. We don’t have to understand everything. We just have to receive what he offers of himself and his gifts. And that is enough.

“These are just the beginning of all that he does, merely a whisper of his power.” – Job 26:14

Photo of Saturn from NASA’s website, taken from the James Webb Space Telescope, 2024.

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I don’t want to bother God about this.

“It is but a small thing for Me, thy God, to help thee.” – Charles Spurgeon

Do you ever hesitate to pray about something because it’s just too little a thing to bother him about? Or too big to ask for? Or because you don’t deserve his help? I think we’ve all been there.

Then I read this (below). It was as if a switch was flipped, and I had an entirely different perspective of what God thinks of my human requests. This is from Charles Spurgeon. He lived a long time ago, so you’ll have to put up with some “thee’s” and “thou’s”, but take a deep breath and read what he sees as God’s response when we ask for help:

Consider what I have done already. What! Not help thee?

Why, I bought thee with my blood. What! Not help thee? I have died for thee, and if I have done the greater, will I not do the less?

Help thee! It is the least thing I will ever do for thee. I have done more and will do more.

Before the world began, I chose thee . . . I laid aside my glory and became a man for thee; I gave my life for thee; and if I did all this, I will surely help thee now.”

Wow, right? What we think is too much to ask of God is a small thing to him. If he loved us enough to save us, won’t he love us enough to listen to every prayer, no matter how big or small? Won’t he love us enough to give the answer to our prayers that will ultimately be the best thing for us? Yes.

So, let’s ask!

“The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” – Psalm 145:18