Deuteronomy 31:1-32:27; Luke 12:8-34; Psalm 78:32-55; Proverbs 12:21-23
“Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you.”
“So don’t be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the Kingdom.”
“Then they remembered that God was their rock, that God Most High was their redeemer. But all they gave him was lip service; they lied to him with their tongues.
Their hearts were not loyal to him.
They did not keep his covenant.
Yet he was merciful and forgave their sins.”
Could it, just maybe, really be possible to live without – I mean, completely free of! - ultimate failure? I’m not talking about little slips and screw-ups, or even significant-but-not-fatal “educational experiences.” We can, and should, learn to live with those. I mean the GINORMOUS (yeah, it’s almost a word – go ask your kids…), Oh-my-God-how-I have-been-so-stupid, ruined-my-life, self-image crushing failures. Once again, I find my two “inner men” disagreeing, and pretty violently over this one. The practical, worldly one is bellowing in protest, “NO! Pollyanna, how could you be so utterly stupid?!? And talk about impractical and unrealistic! You’re just setting yourself up for even worse disappointment!!!” However,… just over the last 24 hours, I’ve begun to hear another, much smaller voice, but it’s been gaining strength. Two words: “What if?”
“WHAT IF?” indeed….
OK, rest easy, I don’t really hear actual voices. Probably, I’m just mostly absolutely sick to death of all the incredibly morbid negativity and depression in the world right now. But no matter how I’ve tried to blow it off or rationalize it, the thought just keeps hanging around, tickling my imagination: “What if?”
Simply chewing on this, for me, is almost an earth-shattering thought, a seismic shift. No ultimate failure? Could that be anything like what the Bible means in a here-and-now, pragmatic sense when it talks about eternal life? I think this line of questioning just might change my whole approach to life, if I’m daring and dedicated enough to stick with it. Fact is, I think I’d like that very much, but I’m already starting to doubt myself. No, that’s not strictly true, either. If I’m going to be unflinchingly honest – and that’s actually a pretty good place to start testing the whole “What if?”/no failure idea – I’m just continuing to doubt Christ!
Wait a minute! Could it be that simple? Probably not. But still, “What if?” my fears and even experiences of serious failures really are mainly a symptom of my continuing to doubt Christ? Oh, my God! How much of my life have I already wasted, just because I didn’t dare dream and got bound up in slavery to anxiety instead! (No, that’s not a question. It is an exclamation!)
Please forgive me if you are reading this. In all truth, I’m only beginning to understand some of this as I write it, so please bear with me. This may be what I was close to hitting on yesterday, which started all this, when I wrote about playing to win instead of playing not to lose. That point, if any, probably doesn’t matter much, but here’s what does: there’s just a massive difference between believing in, and even trusting in, Christ; and actually, honestly living in RADICAL, I MEAN RADICAL!, reliance on Him. Now, this last thought probably borders on blasphemy, but still, here goes: I wonder if only one of those options is really “choosing life.” Maybe all this time, I honestly thought I was affirmatively choosing life by accepting and trying to trust Christ, when all I really was doing was barely “getting by.”
Tell you what; not much of this is Scriptural, but it is certainly beginning to feel about right to me. It needs more thought, to be sure, but I can do that. I think I’ll start where I began today:
“Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you.”
“So don’t be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the Kingdom.”
2 comments:
Tom, it looks like you've had an epiphany. So what do you think this "radical Christianity" involves in your life? How do you think it will change? It sounds as if you have reached a "crisis" moment in your faith walk.
I was a little confused about what you thought would be blasphemous thought. Could you elaborate a little?
Godspeed, my friend.
Dean
Dean, thanks for visiting! It is good to have brothers and sisters who hold my feet to the fire, no matter how uncomfortable it may sometimes be!
You are sure correct about the epiphany! It can be summed up in the direct answer to your question: I don't yet KNOW what a radical reliance on Christ looks like! That was my blindness: I thought I did. I thought belief and trust were synonyms for reliance. God showed me they are not. Trust is passive ("God is with me; He'll keep me safe."). Reliance is active ("In the power of Christ, I will put myself at risk for the Kingdom."). I should add that, intellectually, none of this was or is news. But as a practical matter, I get a sense my blindness was related to my low risk tolerance, so I suspect radical reliance probably has something to do with increased risk. More on that thought later, as the Lord leads....
As to my "blasphemous thought," that was a little tongue in cheek, but concerns the implication that belieF and trust are not enough to constitute an affirmative choice of abundant life. That takes an active component, an actual living, and not just accepting. I trust all will understand this is not an issue of salvation but one of ongoing sanctification.
Thanks again for your caring interest!
Peace,
Tom
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