THE GRAND CONTRADICTION

2 Chronicles 17:1-18:34; Romans 9:25-10:13; Psalm 20:1-9; Proverbs 20:2-3

“Then Micaiah told him, ‘In a vision I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, like sheep without a shepherd.’ And the Lord said, ‘Their master has been killed. Send them home in peace.’”

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved. As the Scriptures tell us, ‘Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.’”

“May he grant your heart’s desires and make all your plans succeed. May we shout for joy when we hear of your victory and raise a victory banner in the name of our God. May the Lord answer all your prayers.”

“Their master has been killed. Send them home in peace.” What sense does that make? We all know what happens when visionaries die: countries destabilize; unity is lost; direction becomes confused; and people lose faith. Not infrequently, the death of a leader actually leads to war, not peace. Cut off the head and the body usually follows. How is anyone supposed to be at peace after the death of their master?

God has never looked at life or this world anything like the way we do. For the Holy Spirit, setbacks become victories. When we run out of gas, His power comes into play. We sin, He saves. We die, yet we live in Him. It almost seems as though the Creator’s real purpose in interacting with our world is simply to show us how very limited, and limiting, our own “rational” thinking is. Until we learn to see the world from Yahweh’s point of view, we will never experience lasting peace. We can’t, because we are living with a material viewpoint that conflicts with Christ’s. We will never see the possibilities and potential of the spiritual reality until we are willing to give up our stubborn addiction to all things tangible.

Just because we cannot see, feel or hear something does not mean it does not exist. It usually just means we are insensitive. In other words, we have to have hope when all we can see is defeat. We need to believe when all we feel is disillusionment. We need to trust when what we want to do is run and hide. If our lives are not living contradictions of what the world thinks and believes, we probably aren’t living out, or living in, faith at all. That’s a pretty sobering thought, particularly for anyone who battles insecurity.

Most of us spend too much time living out of our own individual strength. That is not the way we were designed to function. We were created to operate on Spirit power. We were meant to be so intimately intertwined with the Author of life that anxiety and insecurity would simply be incomprehensible, and pragmatically impossible. Who would even dare imagine such a lifestyle? Yet it is, in sum, the promise Christ gave us when He commanded us not to worry. He did not suggest or request. He ordered us to live anxiety-free. His underlying promise was that a life without worry was and remains possible, even today. And not just possible, either; a life free of angst is the very life we were intended to have. We messed it up when we decided to turn away from our Master. So, He died to turn us around so that we might again find peace. Our problem is that we refuse to repent or change. We are reluctant to live in faith. It sounds so intangible, so indefinite.  We find it hard to abandon our absolute dependence on the things of this world even when they don’t “work.”

We cannot know we are right with God, or honestly confess our salvation verbally, until we literally invite and allow Jesus to resurrect us from the ashes of our own failed attempts to live in peace without anxiety. Christ promises to make us new men and women – in fact, to make all things new – but we have a hard time buying into the idea until we have no other choice. Therein lies the grand contradiction of the spiritual life. We are never more alive than when we die to self. We are never closer to hope than when we give up our puny faith in the things of this world. We are never closer to (w)holiness than when we are completely empty. Granted, there’s not much that sounds logical about this particular line of thinking. But there’s nothing especially logical about a Savior who loved His wounded and flawed Creation enough to give up His own life, comfort and spiritual wholeness to save it, either.