WHY

Isaiah 10:1-11:16; 2 Corinthians 12:11-21; Psalm 56:1-13; Proverbs 23:6-8

“A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD - and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist. The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.”

“I don’t want what you have; I want you.”

“When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me?”

“Do not eat the food of a stingy man, do not crave his delicacies; for he is the kind of man who is always thinking about the cost.”

I am so thankful God did not consider cost a barrier to our salvation. He certainly could have. In His position, I would have. Honestly, I’m just not inclined to willingly sacrifice my son for any bunch of “sinners.” (The irony, of course, is being sinful ourselves, neither my son nor I can save anyone, including ourselves. Without Christ, we would all be headed to the same eternal destination.) Most “sinners” do not even see the need for, much less appreciate, others’ sacrifice. Going further, those who refuse to accept Christ as Lord and Savior usually could not care less about their “eternal condition.” Many just figure they don’t have one and so, have no need of Jesus or the Holy Spirit. But the Son died for them anyway. Despite all my study and teaching, there are still times I wonder why.

Why begins with the fact that disbelieving in the power of sin may make it easier to adopt a selfish or devil-may-care attitude toward life, but that attitude does not of itself validate the disbelief. What is, is. Our opinions on the matter change nothing. We sin, we die, we are lost without Jesus. God wants to change that. And a price had to be paid for it to happen. The fact that we may not suffer immediate consequences for our wrongdoings does not make them right or acceptable, either. It only hints of a grace far beyond our understanding. Such unmerited tolerance (“prevenient grace” for those interested in theological terms) is only a small, pale reflection of the grace the Father extends to those willing to be come His adopted sons and daughters. But it is what love does, even in the face of rejection.

Therein lies the real bedrock. God did not count the cost of sending His Son to die for a mostly ungrateful world because He is the essence of limitless love, and limitless love can afford any sacrifice. Moreover, love regards any sacrifice that brings hope to the hopeless as a worthy investment. I would have wanted a much higher, guaranteed return than God got. But I’m extremely glad He does not follow generally accepted accounting techniques and practices. The ledgers will never balance. We can never out give God. We can never out love God. The message of the Cross is we do not have to. We only have to follow Him.

Christ does not judge the way we judge. He does not judge performance. He does not even judge how or how much we love. His judgment, in essence, is based on how well we accept love. All the rest really stems from that one thing. Christ does not, and does not need to, condemn. We condemn ourselves when we reject Christ’s love. It is never a matter of getting Him to love us. That truly is a given. It is a matter of our ability and willingness (two very different things!) to open ourselves up to the idea that we need love, and then to the fact that we are loved, regardless of how we feel about us.

A book I’m reading, One Month to Live, presents a very basic and worthwhile truth. Our problem is not that we do not love God enough. Our problem is that we do not understand how radically and outrageously God loves us. If we truly got that, much in our lives would change. We’d be less grabby, and more generous. We’d be more understanding, and less bitter. But above all, we’d be more hopeful. We’d look forward to more, even as we invested more of ourselves into living out the present passionately and fully.

More than anything else in this world, Love wants to convey hope in a world where hope is in notably short supply. Hope is what Jesus’ ministry was all about, and hope is what the Holy Spirit lives in us to accomplish. We get so lost in the specifics, the how-tos. It’s tough not to fret about the future. But it is singularly counterproductive, especially when we allow the worry to distract us from the reality of the hope Christ provides. 

A GOD-LEVEL PERSPECTIVE

Isaiah 8:1-9:21; 2 Corinthians 12:1-10; Psalm 55:1-25; Proverbs 23:4-5

“Nevertheless, that time of darkness and despair will not go on forever. …There will be a time in the future when Galilee of the Gentiles, which lies along the road that runs between the Jordan and the sea, will be filled with glory…. For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity. The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will make this happen!”

“I don’t want anyone to give me credit beyond what they can see in my life or hear in my message, even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

“Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.”

If there is one consistent thing about this life, it is that things inevitably change. That, actually, is a very good thing. We can know with certainty, for example, that this current time of trial will not last indefinitely. Darkness will once more turn to dawn. In the interim, of course, there may still be a few more bumps in the road. But that is no reason to give up hope in the future. The Fat Lady has not sung, and the Lord has yet to play His final Ace. Our inability to see or predict the future does not mean there is not one. Indeed, we have little choice but to keep moving toward it. We can decide how we feel about it, though. We can live in perpetual fear of the unknown and timidly set our sights on mere survival. Or, we can choose to boldly move ahead, continuing to risk the adventures of life with Jesus and regarding any temporary setbacks – for a Christian, by definition, all setbacks are temporary – as learning experiences by which the Holy Spirit converts defeat into victory. The choice is ours. However, I would submit that one is deadly dull, literally, and only one holds the key to the fulfilled life God purposed for us from the beginning. That makes the decision a no-brainer.

Brothers and sisters, like Paul, afflicted as we each may be, we still have plenty to be grateful for. Another day has dawned. We are here to see and experience it. We have even been empowered to make it better, should we choose to do so. And there is always, ultimately, grace to fall back on. We will never fall so far that we fall out of the grip of the Creator’s unmerited forgiveness, restoration and strength as long as we continue to affirmatively claim them through prayer, confession and renewed obedience. So, let’s get about the business of living in grace rather than in defeat. We need to adopt a God-level perspective on our problems so that we do not confine ourselves to the view from the ground. That street-level perspective is always limited to the things we can see with our eyes, but our eyes can deceive us. If seeing is believing, we can easily come to believe we have no real future because our perspective just does not allow for it, or contemplate it. We remain blinded to what’s just past the horizon of our vision, and what remains is not necessarily the best view.

Ultimately, this day comes down to one major decision, as does every day. We can choose to walk with Christ and see the potential and possibilities of life through His unbounded, God-level perspective, or we can reject Him and His ways and become mired down in a life bounded by the horizons of our street level perspective. No matter what we may do to try to deny it, change is an integral part of life. How we respond to it can make the difference in whether we are blessed or depressed by the results.

FIGHTING THE BRIDLE

Isaiah 6:1-7:25; 2 Corinthians 11:16-33; Psalm 54:1-7; Proverbs 23:1-3

“You will listen and listen, but never understand. You will look and look, but never see.”

“If I must boast, I would rather boast about the things that show how weak I am.”

“Come with great power, O God, and rescue me! Defend me with your might. Listen to my prayer, O God. Pay attention to my plea. …But God is my helper. The Lord keeps me alive!”

Smarter people than me have noticed that God seldom thinks or acts like we would, or like we expect. It is His very unpredictability, and the fact that He is not accountable to us, than makes Him God. He is sovereign. We are not. It’s not a fair fight. Nevertheless, most of us spend most of our lives tussling with the Lord for the right to control our own destinies. We fight His bridle, never understanding it is really just a sign of our Master’s love.

The trouble with fighting the bridle is, when we decide to act independently of the Holy Spirit, we necessarily act without His power and guidance as well. We run off course. We get lost. We cannot find our own way home. Of course, most of us immediately respond by blaming God for abandoning us in our hour of need. The reality is usually far different. We do not want to believe our actions separate us from Christ. We may not even intend to throw off the bridle. But like wild mustangs, we are seduced by our freedom to run wild. We want to chart our own course, run our own race. We just want God to train us the way we think we need to be trained (often meaning “not at all”). Yet that is the one thing our Creator is most unlikely to do. He is our groom. He insists on His care being accepted on its own terms – in His own way and His own time – or not at all. Simply, we either decide to let Him be Lord, or we give up the right to claim Him as Savior. We give Him the reigns, or we have no claim to His corral, or the safety and security of it.

It is this truth, probably more than any other, that stands as a major stumbling block between us and Christ. Yet, if we would have the Spirit save us, we first have to let Him be God. That means, among other things, that He calls the shots and their timing. We don’t. We no more get to dictate to our Father how to answer the crises in our lives than we get to tell Him who lives and who dies. But that, unfortunately, does not keep us from trying, or from exhausting ourselves in the process.

Our incessant attempts to throw the bridle are plain trespasses on our Father’s sovereignty. We should not be surprised when He reigns us in. He is not like us, and when we try to buck Him, our thirst for independence becomes our worst enemy. Worse, when we demand He come at us in a particular way or at a particular time or do a particular thing, we are essentially asking God to quit being God and instead accept the bridle (i.e., limitations) we want to place on Him (usually, so we can assume the reigns of control over our own lives).

The horse does not tell its groom how to care for it. Neither should we be telling the Spirit how to manage the affairs of His Creation, including us. Still, the first temptation mankind ever faced remains the greatest and toughest to resist: “You can be just like God, knowing everything, good and evil.” The difficulty with taking God’s place and assuming sovereignty over our own lives is simply that we are ill-equipped to handle it. We are certainly prideful enough to attempt to do so, but the end result always culminates in failure and frustration. As the stallion can never be its own groom, so we just aren’t cut out to be God.

We should be very glad the Lord is not like us. He is way better and greater and smarter and wiser. We ought to give thanks that He, like the groom, knows more about what His charges need than we know about ourselves. We also should understand that, when we try to buck Him, truly, we engage in a fool’s errand.

I have no problem accepting Jesus Christ as my Savior. It is when He asserts His right to be Lord over my life that we most often come to blows, and I have to fight my natural tendency to turn away. Like a wild mustang, my soul is not inclined to allow anyone else to tame it or care for it. The wild mustang lifestyle looks pretty darn good to anyone who feels trapped in or bound to a life they neither asked for nor wanted. As we gallop through life, it is extremely difficult to appreciate having a spiritual bridle between our teeth to break us of our independence. But God desperately wants to keep us from hurting ourselves. His only desire is to turn us away from trouble and toward Him. We fight the bridle because we do not understand that it is actually the first step toward complete security and eternal safety. We don’t always understand what God is doing in our lives. We waste an awful lot of time, though, when we fight that which is, in fact, in our very best interest.

FINISH STRONG

Isaiah 3:1-5:30; 2 Corinthians 11:1-15; Psalm 53:1-6; Proverbs 22:28-29

“You have heard the case; you be the judges. What more could I have done for my vineyard that I have not already done? When I expected sweet grapes, why did my vineyard give me bitter grapes?”

“These people are false apostles. They are deceitful workers who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ. But I am not surprised! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no wonder that his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. In the end they will get the punishment their wicked deeds deserve.

“Only fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, and their actions are evil; not one of them does good! God looks down from heaven on the entire human race; he looks to see if anyone is truly wise, if anyone seeks God.”

When was the last time anybody read a story about someone doing the right thing because they followed Christ? Aside from the odd ballplayer giving credit to Jesus after a particularly fine play or game, I cannot remember the last time I saw a good deed outside the church that anyone associated with the Lord. Don’t misunderstand; I’ve seen any number of stories about good people doing good things. But the Son never enters the picture.  It seems the only time one hears of Christians is when one who claims to follow Jesus comes up short in the commitment department in the face of temptation. A cynic could fairly conclude that people outside the church are kinder and more ethical that those inside it, and that’s very sad.

Just this week, our newspapers have been full of unsavory details concerning the alleged sexual improprieties of a local community leader. This 43 year old man has been arrested on charges of having illicit relations with a 14 year old girl. Fortunately, the media has not mentioned his church or religion or if he even is a believer. Oh, but once upon a time, he lived a very different life. Ten or so years ago, this same man was very closely involved with our church’s drama ministry. I was privileged to serve as director of a play in which he was cast as, ironically, Peter. At that time, he was one of those young people who gave old goats like myself hope for the future. He was kind, creative, generous and thoughtful as a person could be. He became an integral part of our ministry and went on to do other shows, even as I moved on to other things. We eventually lost touch, as people do, and I had not thought about him in years, until last night, when I read about his alleged crimes. Jesus wept. I was stunned and disappointed.

Folks, we – certainly, I – let one get away. It looks like a brother headed for the Kingdom took a wrong turn somewhere and had no one to help him find his way back. Maybe he ended up rejecting the things he’d learned with us. Maybe life just caused those things to atrophy and fall away from the man and politician he eventually became. In any event, while I have no idea if he is truly guilty or not, just the claims involved give rise to two important points.

First, if we are to truly disciple others, we need to bring them all the way home. I never challenged this young man about his position with Jesus. We talked a lot about being inspired and following the Spirit, but no one to my knowledge ever put him on the spot. If we care enough about people to bring them to Christ, we owe it to God, them and ourselves to close the deal. It’s not enough to leave them on the front porch and hope they will walk through the door. We have to bring them all the way inside. We do everyone a disservice when we do not actually put the question to those we minister to. Finish strong. Discipleship is not done until the new disciple is absolutely secure in Christ, and discipling seekers of his own. Bringing someone into contact with Christian ministry and not asking them where they are with the Lord is no better than quitting a marathon half a mile from the finish. All our good intentions count for nothing.

As important, though, Christians need to get serious about living as re-presentations of Christ. We need to take more responsibility for our actions and understand others will see them in the light of our claim of faith.  It’s no good to claim to follow Jesus yet live like we know nothing of Him. If our lives do not lead to the Lord, there’s really little reason to bother to claim we follow any religion at all.

Jesus was painfully clear. He will never be our Savior until we allow Him to become our Lord. We are only His friends if we do as he commands. He expects us to finish strong, as disciples and as His children. Christianity is not a get out of jail free card. Nor does it give one license to live as he or she pleases. Stay the course. Push through the distractions and temptations. There will be a final judgment. We will be held accountable. And we better start taking seriously that Jesus will disown us in the next life if we disown Him in this one. 

ACCEPTING HIM AS HE COMES

Isaiah 1:1-2:22; 2 Corinthians 10:1-18; Psalm 52:1-9; Proverbs 22:26-27

“’Come now, let’s settle this,’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.
 If you will only obey me, you will have plenty to eat. But if you turn away and refuse to listen, you will be devoured by the sword of your enemies. I, the Lord, have spoken!”

“The trouble with you is that you make your decisions on the basis of appearances…. But we will not boast of authority we do not have…. As the Scriptures say, ‘If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord.’ When people commend themselves, it doesn’t count for much. The important thing is for the Lord to commend them.”

“I will always trust in God’s unfailing love. I will praise you forever, O God, for what you have done. I will trust in your good name in the presence of your faithful people.”

Isn’t it strange how the Lord sometimes has to convince us of our own worth, and frequently of our own forgiveness? We can do the actual math: one Life for all. The power of sin and death was defeated at the Cross. One perfect sacrifice paid the price for all our imperfections. It might be illogical, but at least we can connect the dots. However,  when it comes to actually accepting the results for ourselves, still, things just don’t always add up.

I remember when I first accepted Christ…, and I remember a few months later. At that time, I began seriously despairing of ever becoming the man God made me to be. The problem was, although I now had assurance of eternal salvation, I did not feel one bit better as a person. I was still overwhelmed by my shortcomings. I had not discovered any discernable spiritual gifts. Nor had I suddenly sprouted wings or donned a halo. I was just the same old guy, trying to put one foot in front of the other as I slogged my way through life. My insecurities still had to be dealt with. The Rapture did not happen. There was no spiritual bailout. I very clearly recall wondering what the big deal was about this “personal relationship” with Christ if He wasn’t actually going to improve my situation. Many of my friends gave up entirely on the Holy Spirit at that point, because they had nothing to show for it. After the emotional high of their first experience of Christ, the fact that life returned pretty much to the same old, same old left them disillusioned and, in some cases, even angry. I more or less stuck with Jesus, but as time passed, I became less and less sure of exactly what that meant in practical terms. Being a “nice” or “good” guy still came with the same rules, regulations and expectations. It did not seem God brought anything new to the table. I did not feel one bit better. And as I watched my “fallen away” friends, it began to look a whole lot easier to live their careless and irresponsible way. Like cats, they always landed on their feet, and there did not appear to be any serious consequences of their turning away from Jesus.  I began to seriously wonder why I was bothering with Christ.

God really does work in mysterious ways, though, for another, better question suddenly popped into my mind: why would Christ bother with me? At my conversion, I’d kinda taken His love motivation for granted, but then I started to seriously consider it. Did He love me? Why? I didn’t feel very lovable. What did He see that I didn’t? A fuse was lit. To figure out if the Lord really loved me, I had to know if the Holy Spirit was truly living and working His will in me, or if I had just deceived myself with an attractive fantasy. I went back to the well, so to speak, figuring if it had worked the first time, it might work again. I once more challenged the Spirit, but this time, I dared Him to make Himself affirmatively known to me. The response was immediate. “I have been and will continue to be with you, Tom. But you have not known what to look for. If you want to see and feel Me, you need to put your expectations on My altar as an offering of your will, and you have to begin seeking Me as I choose to come to you. Until now, you’ve had that order reversed. You must agree to let me be God before you can know the depth of my love as God.”

I should have figured that out on my own. We have to love and accept people for who they are before love can ever become mutual. Why wouldn’t that also apply to the Lord? Our Creator is fundamentally sovereign, or he is not God at all. If He responds to our challenges, it is only because we finally open ourselves up to the way He wanted to come to us in the first place. God does not take orders, and He seldom appears or makes His Presence known in the way we expect or desire. That does not mean He’s not there, nor does it mean we have somehow failed in the area of forgiveness. It just means our Father will always remain a bit of a mystery, and that His ways are not and never will be our ways, no matter how much effort we put into trying to become spiritually oriented.

The Lord has spoken. Our sins are forgiven. He is and will be with us always, even to the end of the age. We will have trouble, but He has overcome the world. He has gone to prepare a place for us. His Spirit will guide us. Period. How we feel about any of this is irrelevant to its reality. It only prevents our experience of it when we doubt. I found my answer when, instead of worrying about the truth of all this, I just started living as if it were true. What I learned is that experience verifies reality. In other words, Christians cannot ever know the power they have just based on how they feel or what they think. Only when we take the leap of faith to live as if these truths are real do we begin to understand just how concrete they really are.

INTIMATE STRANGERS

Song of Solomon 5:1-8:14; 2 Corinthians 9:1-15; Psalm 51:1-19; Proverbs 22:24-25

“I slept, but my heart was awake, when I heard my lover knocking and calling: ‘Open to me, my treasure, my darling, my dove, my perfect one. My head is drenched with dew, my hair with the dampness of the night.’ But I responded, ‘I have taken off my robe. Should I get dressed again? I have washed my feet. Should I get them soiled?’ My lover tried to unlatch the door, and my heart thrilled within me. I jumped up to open the door for my love, and my hands dripped with perfume. My fingers dripped with lovely myrrh as I pulled back the bolt. I opened to my lover, but he was gone! My heart sank. I searched for him but could not find him anywhere. I called to him, but there was no reply.”

“As a result of your ministry, they will give glory to God. For your generosity to them and to all believers will prove that you are obedient to the Good News of Christ. And they will pray for you with deep affection because of the overflowing grace God has given to you. Thank God for this gift too wonderful for words!”

“Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. Then I will teach your ways to rebels, and they will return to you.”

“Don’t befriend angry people or associate with hot-tempered people, or you will learn to be like them and endanger your soul.”

If there is one thing that poisons a relationship faster then anger, it is blatant self-centeredness. Egoism can manifest itself in many, many different ways, but the translation is always the same. “My needs, dreams and desires are just more important than yours.” Worse, even a little bit of selfishness can do serious damage. It keeps us strangers, intimate though we may be. Abishag, as focused on Solomon as she was, learned this the hard way. The King came to her out of a storm late at night, soaked to the skin and seeking refuge, warmth and comfort. Her response, essentially, was “It’s late, I’m not dressed, and I’ve just done my nails. You are not convenient right now. Go away. I don’t want to deal with you. Take care of yourself.” For only a moment, the door to her heart was locked. But that moment was pivotal. Even as Abishag moved to undo the damage her thoughtless words had done, her lover disappeared. She was left alone and vulnerable, wandering the streets looking for the love she could have had, if she had just taken a second to see life from his point of view.

Now, of course, Solomon’s pride probably contributed some to the problem as well. No doubt, “no” was not a word he was used to hearing, and he got chapped off sooner than he should have. The word for those of us who sympathize with him is that pride and impatience is just as effective at destroying intimacy as self-centeredness. The three are kissing cousins anyway, and often trigger each other, making a mess of everything they touch. However, in writing his Song, Solomon chose not to go there. Wonder of wonders. (I guess the moral there is it’s good to be the King….)

Bottom line, while it is a hard thing to accept and even harder to do, Jesus Christ was not negotiating with us when He directed that we are to love each other as we love ourselves. There is not a single condition or prerequisite stated in that command. There are no breaks for “me time” factored in, and no where does the word “unless” appear. If we are to truly call ourselves His disciples, we must put the interests of others at least on a par with our own comfort, convenience and plans, every time. Really. Even more specifically, the life of a husband and wife is designed by God to be an equal partnership, and His desire and plan for it is that two souls really do become a single unit. Most of us do not take “the two shall become one” seriously enough. We keep certain doors shut. However, as far as the Bible is concerned, while there is always forgiveness from the Father, of course, there is no acceptable Plan B alternative for marriage if the two refuse to become one. The only result possible is that we condemn ourselves and our spouses to a relationship that ends up being far less that what the Holy Spirit had in mind when we do not fully unite in intimacy with our spouses.

Put simply, our spouses’ needs have to become our needs; their joys and disappointments, our joys and disappointments. Our fundamental priority must be given to those things that build our marriages, not those things that break us apart or that put a premium on individuality. This is not to say that we become doormats or abandon or personal hopes and dreams. It is only to say that we let the Spirit have its way in blending our individual ministries and passions into a single, unified whole. We fight our tendency to remain intimate strangers.

Most couples don’t really talk much about blending their lives together. It’s much more common for discussions to focus on “my career” or “my needs.” Scripture tells us plainly, though, that two are better than one. Not “might be” or “have the potential to be” better. “Are” better. So, we have a wonderful opportunity when God joins us to another in love and marriage. We can be better than we are. Let’s not miss the opportunity. Instead, let’s claim it, passionately.

CHERISH IS THE WORD

Song of Solomon 1:1-4:16; 2 Corinthians 8:16-24; Psalm 50:1-23; Proverbs 22:22-23

“You have captured my heart, my treasure, my bride. You hold it hostage with one glance of your eyes, with a single jewel of your necklace. Your love delights me, my treasure, my bride. Your love is better than wine, your perfume more fragrant than spices. Your lips are as sweet as nectar, my bride. Honey and milk are under your tongue.”

 “As for our brothers, they are representatives of the churches and an honor to Christ. Therefore show these men the proof of your love and the reason for our pride in you, so that the churches can see it.”

“He summons the heavens above, and the earth, that he may judge his people: ‘Gather to me my consecrated ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice.’”

Call me an old softie, but I love Song of Solomon, even as arcane as it is. While it has many lessons to teach those who would truly study its words, its first and most obvious message may be simply that we need to change our vocabulary. Especially when dealing with the overused word “love,” it’s just possible we can do better, at least from time to time.

It would be easy to go off on a tangent about how misused the word “love” has become (second, possibly, only to “awesome”). We could talk about how confusing the different types of love are, or how easily one can be mistaken for another and end up embarrassing everyone involved. What’s the point, though? There is not a soul alive who does not have first hand knowledge of the emotional and spiritual damage the flippant, thoughtless or calculating use of “love” can cause. I know of one couple where he said he loved her for the first time, then repeated it frequently the next several weeks while he waited for her to agree, only to exit the relationship almost as soon as she did. Whether he was manipulative, confused or just plain stupid didn’t and doesn’t matter. He left behind a broken heart and a wounded soul, and my personal bias is that we go too easy on people – including myself - who don’t really think before they speak. On the other hand, I know men who will not use the word “love” until they are sure, which can sometimes be a very long time to wait. I would encourage the impatient ones to consider that they are trading (hopefully, at least, if the guy’s really being considerate and not just cold footed) a somewhat prolonged initial period of uncertainty for what is much more likely to be a lifetime warranty when the word is finally spoken. In other words, it’s worth the delay, if you both are sure that what you are waiting for is a certainty of the heart and an unconditional commitment of the mind that binds the very soul.

After all, “love” is as much a decision as an emotion. Actually, it is misunderstanding that love is most of all a decision, an absolute and exclusive dedication, which usually leaves us on different pages. And really, that goes for pretty much any kind of love worth having. It is entirely possible to will oneself out of love. That tells us all we need to know about our need to will ourselves into it. Scripturally speaking, the decision to love is an absolute requirement for the exercise of love. “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Love - true and completely unconditional love – sometimes goes all the way to the Cross, but it takes a lot more than emotion to get it there. It takes an in-the-trenches dedication to build up another, no matter the cost to oneself.

I’ve told the story of my wife’s Dad’s death and the problems probate caused for us, but I think I did not complete it. As the conflict was winding down, I distinctly remember really studying my frazzled and beaten down spouse for probably the first time in months. I forced myself to see her as she really was and to contemplate the damage my impatience and lack of thoughtfulness had done to her soul. God spoke in that moment, clearly, asking (in a voice gentler than I deserved) if I was proud of my handiwork. I still can feel the shame of that moment. But I also recall something else: a promise, barely thought, suddenly blooming until it literally exploded in my heart. “Never again. Never. I will not intentionally harm this woman ever again. Instead, I will do something with my love. I will manifest it, and make it real, by actively cherishing her.” That was the beginning of a brand new relationship. Our marriage had always been good, but it’s our mutual lifeblood now. We were close before; today, we are truly joined as one. We still have individual goals, purposes and missions, but all are celebrated, shared and thought about by both of us. A no for one is a veto for both. A yes for one is a promise for both. She now knows what she always hoped: aside from Christ, she is my first and only and forever. I don’t talk about “love” as much anymore, either. I “cherish” or “adore.” And the semantics matter. I have a treasure to keep and protect. Changing my language a touch helps me keep my eye on the ball. It also provides a ton of clarity, even when I don’t want it. When I get frustrated or put out (yes, it still happens, but not often), before I blow, the Spirit just asks how the cherish thing is going. Ugh. Even if it costs me a capillary or two, I swallow the anger and wait to deal with the issue until we are both rational again.

Words alone will never make a relationship. But if they are used correctly, and intentionally, and followed by consistent action, they can darn sure save a relationship. Let’s use them carefully. More important, let’s be sure we mean what we say when we talk about love.

GOD'S GPS UNIT

Ecclesiastes 10:1-12:14; 2 Corinthians 8:1-15; Psalm 49:1-20; Proverbs 22:20-21

“As dead flies cause even a bottle of perfume to stink, so a little foolishness spoils great wisdom and honor…. A quiet spirit can overcome even great mistakes…. Laziness lets the roof leak, and soon the rafters begin to rot…. If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done…. Don’t let the excitement of your youth cause you to forget your Creator…. Here now is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty. God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad. ”

“Here is my advice: It would be good for you to finish what you started a year ago…. Now you should finish what you started.”

“But as for me, God will redeem my life. He will snatch me from the power of the grave.”

Over the years, I have been the recipient of some very good advice. Much of it, to be honest, was thrust on me, even though I did not ask for it. That’s usually the toughest, and also the most important, advice to consider, in my experience. There have been other times when I actively sought out wisdom from trusted friends or mentors. That’s not as easy to do as it sounds, either. It can be a pretty humbling experience, in fact. Still, it is usually worth the effort, even if I do not always follow the counsel given. All of this kind of came to a head as I was reading today’s Scriptures. They led to an obvious but nonetheless somewhat distressing conclusion: I’m just not smart enough to navigate the path of life on my own. I know. I’ve tried, and I routinely get bogged down with detours, rough spots in the road and flat out misdirection. What starts out as a simple passage from Point A to Point B frequently becomes a daunting quest just to find a landmark or mileage marker to reset my present location. I lose track of where I’m going because I don’t know where I am. Many times, I’ve thought to myself, “This shouldn’t be so hard.” Sometimes, I flat give up and just sit beside the road until some understanding soul is kind enough to offer help. That can be a very long wait, though, especially if I’m too proud to send up a flare.

God does not want any of us to be lost. That’s why He offers his Holy Spirit as a Counselor, Guide and Friend. To put it another way, the Holy Spirit is the Creator’s own little GPS unit, offered to each of us if we will just go to the trouble of turning it on and following the advice we are given. But for most of us, getting to the point where we are ready to ask for directions is the most difficult part of the trip. Nor is this an exclusively male predisposition. I’ve know both men and women to go way out of their way, sometimes even into quite dangerous territory, to avoid having to admit they need advice. They don’t intend to be “bad.” They just get lost. The lines of ethics, of right and wrong, somehow get confused in their minds and blur together. They lose their bearings. But then, they bullheadedly forge ahead into the very center of sin and depravity, just because they were too proud to ask directions before they got completely turned around. Even now, some reading this are too proud to admit they have no idea how they got where they are and less of an idea of how to get home.

Being proud and lost is its own special hell. Pride engenders a unique isolation that poisons everything around it. Beauty cannot be seen or appreciated. Joy is a long-abandoned dream. When love turns to self-loathing as we finally confront our inadequacies, worst of all, pride keeps all help at bay. It’s time for many of us to face the cold, hard truth. We simply cannot get there from here, at least, not on our own. We are past the point of being able to save ourselves. Nothing we do is going to repair the bridges we have burned or the relationships we have taken for granted. They have atrophied from nonuse. We need help. We need directions, a way out of the mess we are in. We need the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

This is our chance to take Christ seriously: He says he’s standing at the door, knocking, willing to come in and get us reoriented and pointed in the right direction. Ask Him in; put Him to the test. He says He’ll stay with us always, even to the end of the age, if we’ll have Him. Jesus will walk right beside us, if we aren’t too proud to be with Him. He will do this just because He loves us in spite of ourselves and knows we need Him to help navigate life. It’s OK to ask the Holy Spirit for directions. He won’t laugh or take advantage of our weaknesses. He’ll steer us around them, in fact, if we follow His course. He’s just waiting to be asked.

FUN, AND DISCIPLINE

Ecclesiastes 7:1-9:18; 2 Corinthians 7:8-16; Psalm 48:1-14; Proverbs 22:17-19

“So I recommend having fun, because there is nothing better for people in this world than to eat, drink, and enjoy life. That way they will experience some happiness along with all the hard work God gives them under the sun.”

“I am not sorry that I sent that severe letter to you, though I was sorry at first, for I know it was painful to you for a little while. Now I am glad I sent it, not because it hurt you, but because the pain caused you to repent and change your ways. It was the kind of sorrow God wants his people to have, so you were not harmed by us in any way. For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.”

“Listen to the words of the wise; apply your heart to my instruction. For it is good to keep these sayings in your heart and always ready on your lips. I am teaching you today—yes, you—so you will trust in the Lord.” 

Have fun! Hey, it’s Biblical. It is actually OK to enjoy friends, life, happiness and good food and drink (even the occasional “good glass of wine”), as long as we don’t lead others to sin in the process. In fact, assuming the “Teacher” can be trusted, it’s not just an option. It’s nigh unto mandatory. We need to have fun, and especially in trying times like these, we can forget that simple truth. God did not design us to be all work and no play. We are made in His image, with the capacity – and hence, the mission – to create. That’s probably why some bright person dubbed certain leisure time re-creation in the first place. Fun relaxes and restores. Fun allows us to interact without making demands. Fun keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously. Fun and laughter are some of the Great Physician’s best medicine… provided they are taken in measured doses, and we don’t lose our heads in the process.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that many of us have a tough time when it comes to keeping our “fun” within appropriate limits. (I am not suggesting fun requires artificial input or boundary bending, only recognizing the obvious fact that certain people seem to think it does at times.) Nothing in the Bible condones promiscuity, drunkenness or any of the other vices that can turn our fun into lawlessness and hurt in a heartbeat. I’ll confess crossing the line a few times myself in my younger days. I also will freely admit the aftermath always outweighed the so-called “fun” which led to it. Perhaps that’s why I consider myself blessed to have such a low tolerance for alcohol today; I just figure God was protecting me from my own lack of self-discipline when wiring me this way. However one looks at them, “morning after” migraines are a not-so-gentle reminder that our fun has gotten out of hand. One has very little dignity or self-respect left when waking up beside the toilet bowl after a long night spent “worshiping the porcelain gods.” It is SOOO NOT cool! I don’t think that’s exactly what the Lord had in mind when He commanded us not to worship idols, but in a skewed sort of way, I wonder if we don’t get to something approximating the same futile endpoint, either way.

I think our problem is we just don’t know when (or sometimes, how) to stop having fun once we let ourselves go to start.  Many of us are so starved for anything that will make us forget our plights for a few hours that we just throw caution, and discretion, to the wind. A wise man once said, “Know when you are done, and when you are, put down your brush.” While this advice specifically concerned painting, it presents a universal truth. Know when the fun is done, and then stop. God knew when He was done with His first magnificent act of Creation, and even He was smart enough to stop and rest when the time came. Christ knew when every party He attended was over – or should be – and never got caught having “one too many.” The fact that Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine for a wedding tells us he was as appreciative of a good party as the rest of us. The fact that He knew when to end the Last Supper and head to the Garden tells us even Christ had His limits and was acutely aware of them. (How tempting it must have been to consider just getting completely sloshed and ignoring His date with Judas and destiny! The alcohol might have even given Him a plausible excuse for ducking the lynch mob looking for Him. Certainly, enough other humans use the hangover excuse for avoiding unpleasant activities, like work…. But, I digress.) The point is, God gives us a perfect example of recreation: spend time with friends or doing what you love to do, but “know when to say when.” Life is still out there and must be faced.

That raises one more thing to add today. It’s so obvious it probably doesn’t even need to be said. But when has that stopped me? The final point is just this. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can fill the emptiness in our souls with the exact fit the Holy Spirit longs to bring to us. There are, admittedly, any number of cheap substitutes. But none of them are tailor made to fill the “God-shaped void” within each of us, and if we are trying to use them to fill that space, we will inevitably end up incomplete and frustrated.

I realize it’s a bit odd to think about frolicking with the Spirit. I certainly don’t come up with any mental image that sells the idea. But when I look at Jesus – God’s model of how life should be lived and the things of this world enjoyed – I wonder if my problem isn’t just that I don’t know the Spirit well enough to be on a first name basis. After all, the guy who filled all those canisters with wine apparently knew a good party when He saw one, and didn’t want it to end prematurely. Maybe He’s more of a “Regular Joe” than I thought. And just maybe, He also enjoys watching us enjoy the world He created for us, too… within limits.

THE COMPANY WE KEEP

Ecclesiastes 4:1-6:12; 2 Corinthians 6:17-7:7; Psalm 47:1-9; Proverbs 22:16

“Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”

“Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness?”

“God has ascended with a mighty shout. The Lord has ascended with trumpets blaring.
 Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises!
 For God is the King over all the earth. Praise him with a psalm!”

My wife and I just got back from having dinner with friends we had not seen in a year or more. For over a decade, we’d shared the same church and many of the same friends. We built ministries, raised kids and laughed and cried together. But eventually, as it usually does, life intervened. New opportunities came knocking, and off they moved to Arkansas to the chagrin of all they left behind. It was positively delightful to catch up on what life has held for them these last months. Like all really good friends, though, the best part of being together with them was that they made us feel better about ourselves. I actually caught myself thinking at one point that to have such special friends must mean that we have something to offer in that department as well. That’s not self-centeredness talking. It’s the simple recognition of a powerful fact. Friends make friends better. One of the greatest compliments a professional basketball player can receive is the acknowledgement that he makes his teammates better. Good friendship is like that. When we are with folks like that, it’s actually good to think we might be known by the company we keep.

Solomon understood this well. There are precious few positive passages in his sad and despairing Book of Ecclesiastes, but one of the best is quoted above. Solomon knew that no man or woman, no matter how powerful or well-to-do, is ever as good alone as he or she is when paired with the right friends. Good friends get each others’ backs. Good friends make work go faster and better. Good friends pick each other up; as important, they keep each other from falling in the first place. Good friends keep each other warm. Still, even the most intimate friendships have their limits. Some don’t travel well. Some don’t tolerate the differences inherent in maturation and change. Some are limited to a specific purpose or goal. That’s why the very best friendships are a strand of three, with Jesus Christ serving as the tie that truly binds one soul to another.

This mutual relationship with and through Christ is the one thing that we and our friends truly shared. Our backgrounds were quite different. The circles we traveled in did not cross, except at church. Our interests were just as diverse, as were our family situations. But the Holy Spirit didn’t care about any of those “human” things that could have separated us. Because the Holy Spirit also saw something in us I doubt any of us even thought about at first, much less recognized. The Holy Spirit brought us together precisely because we were so different. We shared our differences until they became mutual strengths. We gave each other opportunities to experience and understand God in new and exciting – sometimes, even innovative and quite unorthodox – ways. Fundamentally, we made each other better because Christ was working in and through us to build his Body and make each of its parts stronger and more complete.

A three strand cord is better. Those joined together in Christ, not just man and wife but any two people, are much harder to separate. So, it only stands to reason that I could benefit from being more intentional about seeking out other Christians to befriend. I’m not talking about exclusive clubs or cliques. But it is clear that in the process of making disciples of all people, God also expects us to seek out and make friends with those of similar faith. He knows, better than we, that a shared faith is a transforming faith. Who among us couldn’t use a little transformation from time to time? When you think about it, isn’t that what the Body of Christ has always been about since the very beginning?

THE SCURRY MENTALITY

Ecclesiastes 1:1-3:22; 2 Corinthians 6:1-13; Psalm 46:1-11; Proverbs 22:15

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance….”

“For God says, ‘At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you.’ Indeed, the ‘right time’ is now. Today is the day of salvation.”

“Be still, and know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world.”

“A youngster’s heart is filled with foolishness, but discipline will drive it far away.”

If there was any doubt I’d hit on something yesterday, Ecclesiastes’ first few chapters just confirmed it. Solomon may have been a self-proclaimed “Teacher,” but in these verses he teaches more about what not to do than what to do. One can feel his desperation grow as he flits like a moth to the flame, experimenting with one diversion then another, always trying to satisfy himself. How sad to have a life so filled with material blessings, worldly power, personal accomplishments and universal recognition yet still be so empty on the inside. Solomon certainly is right. He just never completed the sentence. All is vanity…, as long as one is focused exclusively on self.

But enough of that. Today, Solomon’s hyperactive quest for meaning has more to say to us.

As a young attorney, there was nothing I liked better than having my desk piled high with files and having a dozen more assignments than I could reasonably complete in a month. I’ll be honest. It was a rush. I felt important, possibly even indispensible. The hurrier I went, the behinder I got, but the adrenalin kept me alive and feeling vital. People needed me. I held fates in the balance. A sense of power coursed through my veins. I had arrived, brothers and sisters, and I was out to take on the world.

One day, though, a partner walked into my office, sat down and just watched as I “finished up a few things.” After about fifteen minutes, he uttered a single word that changed my life, “Stop.” Now, this was not just any old “Stop.” Writing cannot do it justice. But I felt it all the way down in my bones. It felt something like this:

“STOP!”

So, I did. And he began to talk, seriously. He let me know in no uncertain terms that quality mattered more than quantity. I was not helping anyone by churning out more sloppy work product than my peers. Worst of all, he said, I was exhausted and basically no good to anyone in that condition. Who knew? I had not even taken time to consider my personal life or situation. But as soon as he said it, I felt it. Total depletion.

“Tom,” he said more gently once he realized his words had sunk in, “You have got to give up the scurry mentality.” Answering the question in my eyes, he continued.  “You’re like a hamster in a cage, running on his wheel. He’s moving fast, alright, but he’s not getting anywhere. You’ve got to learn to pace yourself. Because this Firm will burn you up if you let it. Intensity is addictive. It will kill you unless you get your priorities straight.”

Personally, I think most people carry cell phones, text and Twitter for much the same reason I lost myself in my work. We are all too desperate to capture a sense of personal significance for ourselves. In the slow times and the silence, our essential humanness haunts us. We know our limitations, but we figure if we move fast enough, if others think we are vital enough, maybe no one will recognize our fundamental emptiness.

Even God rested on the seventh day. But then, He has no self-image problems. He knows He is complete. He does not need to worry about performance standards or what other people think. The thing is, neither do we. At least, we no longer have to obsess about whether we are important enough, powerful enough, liked enough or good enough. Christ answered all those questions from the Cross. Christians have the right and the ability to say no to our egos. Ego is, after all, a tank without a bottom. Only One can fill it. About all we can do is slow down and pray Jesus was serious when He told us to seek first the Kingdom of Heaven, and all the rest will be given unto us. 

THE MOST DIFFICULT THING IN THE WORLD

Job 40:1-42:17; 2 Corinthians 5:11-21; Psalm 45:1-17; Proverbs 22:14

“When Job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes. In fact, the Lord gave him twice as much as before!”

“Whatever we do, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them…. This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! ...We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God!’ For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.”

I’ve learned a lot about the Book of Job the last two days. Yesterday was big, but the most important revelation – probably obvious up front to anybody but me – is the how and why of Job’s final restoration. I always thought the story was as follows: 1) Job is great and good; 2) Job is virtually destroyed; 3) Job mourns and questions God; 4) Job’s friends fuss at him without justification; 5) God challenges Job; 6) God restores Job. The end. Au contraire, mon ami.

Come to find out, I’ve simply missed the most important part of the book every other time through it. One verse makes all the difference, and brings light out of the dark. One simple verse (out of forty two LONG chapters consisting mainly of one diatribe or another) changes everything, even if it admittedly stops short of explaining everything. No verse, not even the book as a whole, adequately explains suffering. But one verse, standing alone, tells us everything God wants us to know about how to deal with suffering:

“When Job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes. In fact, the Lord gave him twice as much as before!”

It may be just this side of impossible for humans to accept, but Job’s antidote for suffering was one thing, and one thing only: do something for someone else (and be prepared – that “something” may be for a tormentor, even if they call themselves a “friend”)! Job spent some forty-odd chapters grieving, questioning, arguing, feeling sorry for himself and just generally bottoming out around the question, “Why me?” God provided absolutely no answers. But the second, Scripturally speaking, Job began to pray for those who just heaped more anguish on him, he was restored and remade, even better than he was at the start.

Oh, good grief! I hear you, Lord. I really think I do. But that is just too hard! Talk about kicking a soul when it’s down and out, or adding insult to injury! I know myself; in a Job situation, I simply don’t think I’d have it in me to start praying for those who are giving me grief. My inclination, no doubt, would be to just curl up and lick my wounds in resentment. Kinda like Job did, at first… and very unlike Christ.

There it is again, at the Cross. “Forgive them, Father, for they don’t know what they’re doing.” The antidote for suffering is to start thinking about, praying for and blessing others, particularly those who make our lives miserable. This cannot be avoided by anyone who is serious about the Bible. It’s not logical, easy or even necessarily possible in our own strength. But it is right. Christ clearly modeled what the Book of Job teaches. And Jesus wasn’t just restored, either. He was literally resurrected, and made completely new! Why did I not see it before? Maybe I just couldn’t, or wouldn’t, accept it. Jesus gave us a head’s up when He said to turn the other cheek and pray for those who persecute us. But that just sounded like the good and kind approach to bullies, bigots and others who abuse power. It wasn’t presented as a soul-saving prescription for the treatment of despair and alienation….

O.K., thinking about it, maybe it was; I just never saw it. Now, however, after thinking about it, the other shoe drops, too. The “why.” Why, when we are beaten down beyond our capacity to rise up, when we are wounded beyond our capacity to recover, and when the only priority of our minds and bodies is healing, are we nevertheless instructed to bless our enemies? The answer is found in another question. “Where?” Where, when we are the most depleted, are we supposed to find the strength to even pray for ourselves, much less others? Paul answers clearly: Christ.

“…We have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them….This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!...We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God!’    

if we want to find life after death, joy after despair, it all begins with the Holy Spirit acting in and through us. It requires looking completely outside ourselves for the strength we need. But here’s the whammy: the power to save and be saved will never be ours until we first commit ourselves to giving it away, often to the ones we want to have it the least. There are going to be times this seems like the most difficult thing in the world. Pretty much every time, it may well be the hardest thing to do. We’re not wired to look outside ourselves when we are so torn up on the inside. But here’s the thing. When God wants to heal and fulfill a life, He never asks, “What can I do for you?” His question is always, “What can I do through you?” And the emptier we are, the more space there is for Him. Our challenge, always, is simply opening ourselves up and giving Christ the room to work.

QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS

Job 37:1-39:30; 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:10; Psalm 44:9-26; Proverbs 22:13

“Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said: ‘Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone-while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?’”

“We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory. That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”

“Rise up! Help us! Ransom us because of your unfailing love.”

 I’m a big mystery fan. Except for one thing: I tend to read the last several pages of the book as soon as the mystery becomes apparent. I do the same thing with pretty any much any fiction. Who lives, who loves, who dies…, I just cannot stand not to know. Of course, that means I do know, and there is not much suspense in actually reading the book. I satisfy myself with the rationalization that I can better appreciate the author’s plotting because I know where the story will end up.

But rushing to get all the ultimate answers is always less satisfactory than experiencing them in the ordinary course of time. Taking things as they come allows one to appreciate character development and the nuances of the story’s telling. It may lead to some bunny trails, but at the end of the day, it actually helps avoid false assumptions. Mainly, though, there’s a strange sort of thrill that only comes when the reader puts the pieces together on his or her own.

I feel much the same about life generally. I want to know how things end up. Bad economics, swine flu pandemic, wars and rumors of war… how much suspense are we supposed to be able to stand without going crazy? How many questions without answers are we supposed to tolerate? Getting to the answers sometimes is most definitely not half the fun. If Christ is planning to come back anytime soon, now might not be such a bad time for a Rapture.

Thinking through things, it’s probably a really good thing God has more patience than I do. Though He sometimes seems positively inscrutable, it’s still good to know that I, at least, am not the one who put boundaries on the oceans or who laid the foundations of the earth. I don’t have the responsibility for knowing or explaining the tough answers. I can rest easy, knowing that matters outside my ability to handle or respond to them are being addressed by a Higher Authority. Had I been in charge, I likely would have messed things up, because I would not have had the patience to let anyone figure out things for themselves. I’d rush headlong into the future, heedless of the joy and beauty that could be mine if I was not so single-minded about getting to the end of the mystery.

Jesus wants to know if we are willing to let God be God and allow Him to come to us on His terms, rather than our own. He wants to know if we are going to trust Him completely, even in spite of our knowledge that things are not as they should be, and that we don’t have good answers for why. He wants to know if we will have faith, or if we are going to petulantly insist that God explain Himself to us before we will believe?

It is almost impossible for any human to take a long term perspective on much of anything. It is impossible for us to see things exactly as the Lord does. Job and his friends all wanted to rush to the conclusions of life, to reveal the mystery. It’s a difficult answer to hear, much less accept, but God does answer that request. He lovingly says no. Some things must be left to the imagination precisely because faith is the evidence of things unseen. We don’t have to explain God, nor does He have to explain Himself to us. That would spoil the surprise. The Holy Spirit’s answer to the tough questions is always the same. Believe. Just believe. We don’t need to know the reasons or the endings. We just need to know Who’s in charge.