If God is our creator, then does it not make sense that he would know what is best for us? It is quite logical that after Paul writes about how to “discern what is the will of God,”¹  he begins his discussion on the body of Christ and its particular needs, because the will of God has everything to do with our place in that structure. God has given us gifts that are designed to build up the body of Christ. Every one of us has unique functions in that body and Paul clearly says, “let us use them.”²  He mentions a few of the gifts: serving, teaching, exhortation, handling finances, leading, and doing acts of mercy. The list is not exhaustive, but it is quite broad and covers a lot of territory. As a matter of fact, I daresay that most of us can see where we might fit in even with that short list.

     Our job, then, in this life, is to find out why God created us because we have work to do! 😀 And here I must pause, for many folks do not like the sound of “work.” 😒 As a matter of fact, many feel like Solomon, who wrote, “I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun.”³  Solomon was looking for meaning in his life and turned to work to see if that would be where he could find it. His conclusion? “This also was vanity.”⁴  The meaning to life will not be found in work, but our work will take on meaning when we discover the specific job we were created to do in Christ Jesus!  The truth of the matter is that God created us with something special in mind and has already prepared the work for us. Here is his promise: “And we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”⁵ God’s work is good—not boring or arduous, but fulfilling and rewarding.

     We are God’s creation. We were created in the image of God. Therefore, we are created to create. And that is our “work”—to find that creative thing inside of us, which we all have. Being “creative” is not exclusively the job of an artist or musician or writer. It is also the job of a mechanic and a mathematician and a construction worker. Every job has a creative aspect to it. When we find our creative self, we find that thing which we were born to do. And when we find it, we discover it is a joy to work! 🙂 We actually get “lost” in our work. We lose track of time and forget that we are hungry or need to rest. I personally think that when we “lose ourself” in our work for God we are getting a little glimpse of what Christ meant when he said, “whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”⁶  It is a most amazing thing—to do what God created us to do!

     When we find that creative thing that we were born to do, God himself begins to work in us. The result is that we are able to do not only amazing things but purposeful things. “For it is God who works in you, to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”⁷  The purposefulness of the work is perhaps the most important quality because we live in a flawed world. God’s “good purpose” is something that is often hidden neath various afflictions and we sometimes are perplexed and though Paul was never “driven to despair,”⁸  we sometimes are. Even so, Paul urges us to be steadfast in our good works: “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of our Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”⁹

     Consider this: “We are God’s workmanship”⁵—his creation, his good work. He created us “to do good works.”⁵  The work has already been prepared for us. What happens if we do not do the work? Someone else gets to do it! 😧 Remember Esther? When Mordecai told her to go into the king and speak up for the Jews, at first she refused. She had some really good excuses as to why she could not do what Mordecai was requesting of her. Mordecai’s response? “For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place.”¹⁰  The work God wants to accomplish will be accomplished! God says about his word: “It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”¹¹

     The question for us is this: Do we want to accomplish the good works that God has prepared in advance for us? Do we want to be a part of his “good purpose”? God’s will for our lives “is good and acceptable and perfect.”¹  But we do not have to accept the task. 😯 It takes submission and sacrifice and testing to discern what God is asking us to do. Many believers, probably most, never make it to this point. Instead, they settle. And I’m sure things work out just fine for them. 😶

     Sadly though, they miss out on the “perfect” “good works” they were created to do in this life.

¹Romans 12:2     ²Romans 12:6     ³Ecclesiastes 2:18    ⁴Ecclesiastes 2:19    ⁵Ephesians 2:10 NIV  ⁶Matthew 16:25   ⁷Phillippians 2:13 NIV    ⁸2 Corinthians 4:8    ⁹1 Corinthians 15:58     ¹⁰Esther 4:14    ¹¹Isaiah 55:11

Jesus taught his disciples to pray “Your will be done.”¹ But what is God’s will? Here’s what Paul has to say about how we can discover God’s will: “Do not conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”²  First, I think it is important to understand that God’s will is “good and acceptable (pleasing and satisfying) and perfect.” But we may not recognize God’s will until a few things happen to us and in us. Because, frankly, what God thinks is “good and acceptable and perfect” is often very different from what we think is “good and acceptable and perfect.” 🤪

     So, before we are able to “discern what is the will of God,” some things must change in our minds. It’s called a transformation and involves rejecting the ways of the world, which is why Paul tells us clearly: “Do not conform to this world.” Therefore, before we discern what God’s will is we must discern what the ways of the world are. And Paul gives us a very good list.

     “Not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.”³  That’s it. That’s the list. Oh, Paul goes on a bit about spiritual gifts and love and evil but the gist of the ways of the world is summed up in that simple statement. Here is the whole idea: “I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”³  Although at first glance, it seems off topic (What does this have to do with God’s will? 🤔), it actually is the first thing we need to address before we can understand God’s will for our lives.

     You see, we naturally think too highly of ourselves—all of us . . . including those who have low self-esteem. How can that be? Well, thinking too highly or too lowly centers on the same problem—thinking too much about ourselves, being self-absorbed. Self-esteem—be it high or low—should never be our concern. But that is the way of the world, to be obsessed with ourselves. And so, Paul says before we can discern our place in the world (God’s will for our lives), we must renew our minds. Our transformation is nothing less than rejecting the world’s view of “Me First.”

     This is not easy. The world will never stop telling us how important we are, how we should demand certain things, how we deserve the best, how we should not necessarily forgive others or be patient with others as we travel on our quest for our place in the world. The world applauds us as we do whatever is necessary to achieve whatever we believe we deserve! The world encourages and expects us to live for ourselves. And it is tempting. Because it seems so right. Afterall, we are good people! 🙂 Most of the time. 😒

     And yet. God says, No. That is not the plan. And it never was. Here is the plan: “And he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves.”⁴ It is clear: we are not to live for ourselves. And this is where we lose many “candidates” and “recruits” as people consider becoming believers. The idea of giving up ourselves seems narrow-minded, old-fashioned, even primitive and enslaving. But we cannot compromise on this issue. Because living for ourselves—though it sounds delightful!—is never satisfying. Read Ecclesiastes! Solomon, the richest man in the world in his day, tried everything to please himself—and I do mean everything! He concluded that it was all meaningless, vanity, pointless, and futile. Why? Because it was all temporary and without purpose.

     God’s design? The exact opposite: eternal and with good purpose. So. Only with our renewed mind will we be able to “discern what is the will of God.” And even then, we may struggle with it. Because his will, which is always “good and acceptable and perfect,” is mostly foreign to us. It simply does not make sense to us that not living for ourselves will be liberating! But it is true. According to Jesus, we find ourselves only when we lose ourselves. He told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”⁵ We will find the life we were meant to live only when we come to Christ and understand who we are in him.

     Our place in the world, God’s will for our lives, can only be discerned as we truly learn “not to think of [ourselves] more highly than [we] ought to think,” but to embrace God as creator. Creator of the universe, yes.

     But mostly, creator of . . . us. 😉

¹Matthew 6:10     ²Romans 12:2    ³Romans 12:3     ⁴2 Corinthians 5:15    ⁵Matthew 16:24-25

A favorite verse for many to quote as people (primarily others 🙄) go through difficult times is this: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”¹  But folks conveniently leave out many words in this verse and end up quoting “all things work together for good,” which people may interpret to mean that everything will work out good—which is not even proper grammar, much less proper theology!  🤪

     To understand the verse properly, we can conclude that “those who are called according to his purpose” are “those who love God.” Therefore, this promise of things working out “for good” is only for believers! And we can also conclude that God’s “purpose” is always “for good”; therefore, the real question is What is his good purpose? Because it seems to me if we understood his purpose, we might be more accepting with the things that cause us to quote this verse in the first place—the fact that things do not seem to be working out for good at all! 🤨 Therefore, the correct question for us believers is not why are things not working out like we thought they would, but rather what is God’s good purpose in these things that are not working out like we thought they would!

     And that is precisely the question that the disciples asked Jesus regarding the blind man. “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”² It was presumed that the blindness was punishment. Many people still quickly jump to that conclusion when bad things happen, leaving them afflicted.  They ask, “What did I do to deserve this?” Jesus clearly explains that the blind man’s affliction was not punishment at all, which probably soothed the blind man’s soul. But then Jesus answers the real question that loomed in the hearts of everyone: What was the purpose, then, of the man being born blind?

     And here is Jesus’ answer: “that the works of God might be displayed in him.”³  Hmm. 🤔 So, the man was blind . . . from birth . . . so that Jesus would heal him one day and God’s power would be revealed? Hmm. 🤔 I wonder how the blind man felt about that!  And if this is true for the blind man, is it also true of our afflictions as well? Are we afflicted in order “that the works of God might be displayed”? And if so, how do we feel about that?  🤨

     Paul was afflicted and wrote this: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed . . . so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”⁴ Hmm. 🤔 It seems that Paul has a similar conclusion as Jesus about afflictions. Do we then conclude that at least one of the purposes of our afflictions is that “the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh”? I think so. Paul concluded that his suffering was “all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.”⁵

     One purpose for our suffering, then, is for the greater good—that it would somehow glorify God. And if there is a greater good, then perhaps we can be at peace with our afflictions. And even be strengthened by them, which is why Paul inserts “so we do not lose heart.”⁶   But it is an act of faith—believing that there is a greater good—a good purpose—for our afflictions—and some will mock us for believing such a foolish thing, but a more sobering thought is that chances are we will never truly see the good purpose! Paul knew this as well, for he concluded “for this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”⁷

     Ours is a life of faith, is it not? We are called to “walk by faith, not by sight”⁸—to believe that the “momentary affliction is preparing us” for some good purpose. The choice is this: we can respond to afflictions believing in God’s good purpose and be “always of good courage.”⁹  Or we can believe our afflictions have no purpose and be “crushed,” and “driven to despair,” and feel “forsaken,” and the weight of our afflictions could cause us to be “destroyed.”

     And as I look at Paul’s list more carefully, I realize that I have not been—as he was—“afflicted in every way.” Nor have I been “persecuted.” Nor “struck down.”  But I have been “perplexed,” as most of us have. So, the decision we face is to not be “driven to despair” in the midst of our confusion, frustration, and bewilderment regarding our affliction. Being “always of good courage” then, is the challenge, isn’t? Perhaps the only way to truly be “of good courage” is to accept the fact that “we know in part.”¹⁰ And know that God can be trusted and confidently say to him, “Those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.”¹¹

     When we are finally healed of our afflictions—and we will be—and we see for ourselves that truly “all things work[ed] together for good,” and see how the works of God were indeed displayed because we were afflicted, I believe that those of us “who love God” and are “called according to his purpose” will be glad that we chose to “not lose heart”⁶  and find strength in the fact that God’s purpose truly was good . . . and was worth it all.

¹Romans 8:28    ²John 9:2    ³John 9:3    ⁴2 Corinthians 4:8-11     ⁵2 Corinthians 4:15    ⁶2 Corinthians 4:16    ⁷2 Corinthians 4:18    ⁸2 Corinthians 5:7     ⁹ 2 Corinthians 5:6      ¹⁰1 Corinthians 13:9   ¹¹Psalm 9:10

TRUE STORY

Say What You Mean

Once a friend of mine (let’s call him Joe) asked several of his friends (me included) to help him out with a certain event he was asked to lead. We all commended Joe for having this great opportunity and told him we would be glad to help. With plenty of time to execute the details, Joe gave us the date, assigned us our duties, thanked us kindly, and proceeded to plan the event knowing that he could count on us! But as the date drew near, one by one each friend backed out on their commitment. And each friend gave Joe a very good excuse as to why he could not attend. But they were just excuses—all of which could have been altered if helping Joe had been a priority. I watched this evolve with sadness in my heart and decided I would not renege. Two days before the event, Joe told me that I did not have to come, that he knew everyone was very busy, and he would be fine leading the event solo.  I told him I would be there. And I was.

I tell this story not because I am a good person (because I am not), nor because my friends are bad people (because they are not) but because it broke my heart to see Joe become disheartened by the promises broken by his friends. And I kept thinking to myself, how often I have done the same thing: promise to do something and then find a really good excuse to excuse myself from it.

I think it is an important quality: keeping your promises. Jesus thought so too. He said we should not swear to God that we will do something. He actually said, “Do not take an oath at all.”¹  And then added, “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.”² In other words, we should say what we mean and mean what we say.

Most of us like to give the appearance of being supportive and loyal and quickly make promises of all kinds. But when all is said and done, talk is cheap. Jesus told this parable: “A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?”³

What really counts is what we do—not what we say we will do. But what really really counts is that we do what we say!  It becomes our testimony. Of the kind of people we are. And though my friend Joe was gracious in understanding his friends’ “excuses,” he was disappointed and bewildered. And sad. It was a statement of the value they placed on his friendship. How could it not be? Joe suffered a loss that day that probably will never be repaired.  Their broken promises broke his heart.

I, too, have had my heart broken by friends with good intentions. I am reminded of my favorite Dr. Seuss book: Horton Hatches the Egg.* Read it. It will take you ten minutes. Read it to your kids. Read it to your Bible Study group. Read it to your students. Read it to your family. The recurring point is simply this: “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. . . . An elephant’s faithful one hundred percent!”

Faithfulness is underrated. Faithfulness is possibly the most important quality of any relationship. But experience has taught me that it is also possibly the most neglected quality as well. That’s why when people let me down, I quote this verse to myself: “In God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken.”⁴

My hope is that I do not shake the ground of my fellow humans with my broken promises but instead simply mean what I say and say what I mean.

¹Matthew 5:34     ²Matthew 5:37     ³Matthew 21:28-31     ⁴Psalm 62:5-6   *Seuss. Horton Hatches the Egg. Turtleback Books, 2017.

The Pharisees were great at following rules. And although they often get a bad rap, what teacher would not want a room full of Pharisees in her classroom? What parents would not want their children to be pharisaical? 🤨 But Jesus had serious issues with the Pharisees and they with him! They questioned Jesus’ message and motives and actions constantly.   

“One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees were saying to him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’”¹ The disciples were, in fact, breaking the rules. It seems to me that following the rules would be something that Jesus would want his disciples to do out of respect for the law and for the Pharisees who valued the laws so much. I mean, Jesus himself said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”² So why were the disciples (with Jesus’ blessing) disrespecting the Pharisees and their laws?

And here is Jesus’ answer: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”³ Hmm. 🤔What does that mean exactly? It means that rules should not be followed just because they are rules, but rather they should be followed if the purpose for which they were inaugurated applies to the situation at hand.

The Sabbath rule was established to set aside a day of rest and worship in order that man could be replenished. It was made for man. The rule was not created in order to enslave men to a list of things not to do on the Sabbath.  And this “rule” about rules should be followed for every rule. 😬  

Many nonbelievers mistakenly believe that God has given man a set of rules to follow that will be the key to getting into heaven, and most of these rules prevent us from having fun! And I have to admit, many religious people do appear to be a bunch of boring “rule-keepers.” The problem with stressing the rules so much is that no one can live up to the standard of obeying all the rules! 🤪 Jesus actually broke many of the religious rules of the day. That’s why the Pharisees were threatened by him, accused him of blasphemy, and eventually conspired to have him killed.

But don’t get me wrong! Rules have their place. We need laws and guidelines in every aspect of our lives—in the classroom, in our relationships, and especially on the highway! 😏 But when following the rules become the end all, the goal, then we have misunderstood or perhaps overlooked the very reason for the rule. Understanding the reason will help us discern if the rule should be observed or not! 🧐

So, what’s my point? Following Jesus has nothing to do with following rules. The Pharisees, in order to trick Jesus, once asked him what the greatest rule of all was. His answer? “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”⁴  In other words, all of the laws stem from the two laws about love. And really, if you think about it, if we would just follow these two laws, there would be no reason for any of the others!

And so. We believers must be careful to not hold on to rules for the sake of holding on to the rules! And we cannot expect a nonbeliever to understand the reason for following a good rule—even if it’s a good reason! Instead, we need to listen to the words of Jesus. When he recruited his disciples, Jesus never said, “Follow the rules.” He said, “Follow me.”⁵

¹Mark 2:23-24    ²Matthew 5:17    ³Mark 2:27    ⁴Matthew 22:37-40    ⁵Mark 1:17

One day some friends of a paralytic man were so intent on bringing him to Jesus that they found out where Jesus was staying and carried the man there on a stretcher. But his house was packed and they could not get in the door. With dogged determination, the paralytic’s friends removed the roof top and lowered the man down through the ceiling! Jesus was in the middle of teaching a lesson when the commotion of it all interrupted his train of thought! “And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’”¹ And I am sure Jesus smiled and probably nodded his head at the man’s good friends.

Isn’t it interesting, though, that Jesus did not heal the man? (Not at first, anyway! 😏) Jesus’ reputation had preceded him. A few days earlier, “the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons.”²  Surely the crowd was anticipating that Jesus would restore this man’s legs, which was undoubtedly the reason he came. So when Jesus did not, and instead spoke words about sins being forgiven, I imagine the room got very quiet. The paralytic man was probably a bit perplexed with Jesus’ words—though grateful. 🙂

It was a tense moment. The scribes were darting their eyes at each other and taking mental notes, and “questioning in their hearts, ‘Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?’”³ The scribes were pondering, Who does this man think he is! But dared not to speak it aloud! And then . . . after a moment or two . . . Jesus stunned everyone by asking, “Why do you question these things in your hearts?”⁴

Wow. This must have made everyone sit up straight, don’t you think? The scribes were shocked! How did he know what we were thinking? Did somebody say something? I think it’s a good observation to make—to understand that God knows that we question him! The real question is do we? 😯

Do we realize how often we question God? Are we aware of how many times we doubt him and by doubting him, doubt his omnipotence and omniscience? Every time we question him, we are confessing that we have no faith in him. And you know, God does not require that we work hard for him, or that we understand everything, or that we are perfect or even good. He only requires that we believe in him!  Believe that he exists, and is our creator, and loves us, and, most of all, that he knows what he is doing! Or as Solomon writes, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.”⁵

We, however, prefer to trust our “own understanding” (intelligence, wisdom, insight)—as if we know more than God! I wonder if one of the paralytic’s friends walked over to Jesus and kindly pointed to his friend’s legs, thinking Jesus had overlooked the obvious problem. 😬 I wonder if the paralytic man might have felt disappointed when Jesus said he forgave his sins, for surely in his heart he was thinking, Yeah, but what about my legs! 😕

It sounds quite heretical to admit it, but God disappoints us sometimes, doesn’t he? And maybe we do not voice our disappointments aloud, but the questions are there.  Even though we know we need “to trust in the Lord,” it is hard.  Let’s face it—just like the scribes, we question God in our hearts. 😞 A lot. The good news is this: he loves us anyway! “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”⁶

But here’s the best part!  After acknowledging that the scribes did not trust him, Jesus looked at them and said because he wanted them to “know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”⁷ he would go ahead and heal the paralytic man. And he did! And the man “rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We never saw anything like this!’”⁸

So. . . to be clear . . . Jesus healed the paralytic man’s legs because the scribes questioned things in their hearts! 🤔 Hmm. How great is God’s love for us? Have you ever seen anything like it? 🙂

¹Mark 2:5    ²Mark 1:33-34     ³Mark 2:6-7       ⁴Mark 2:8    ⁵Proverbs 3:5     ⁶Romans 5:8      ⁷Mark 2:10     ⁸Mark 2:12

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart.”¹ That is all God asks of us—to trust, to believe, to have faith in him. Specifically, then we are to trust that God (our creator) loves us (because he created us), and he knows what he is doing (because after all, he is our creator)! And so the command is: Trust God! 🙂 With all our heart!  😀 With everything in our lives! 😁 If only we could do it! 😒

Why do we struggle with this one request? Because we like to understand things. 🤓 And although we believe that understanding is the impetus to trusting, it is actually the antithesis of it. 🤪 We think that if we only understood why God did things, then we would be able to trust him more. Nope! Understanding things negates the need for trust! 🤔 Hmm. If we understood everything God did, we would not need to trust him at all because we would know that he knows what he is doing. (Which he does!) Therefore, it is essential that we do not understand things.  🧐 Hmm. I don’t like the sound of that! Not understanding things makes me feel uneducated and unprepared, even simple-minded and foolish. But not understanding is the prerequisite to trust.  Aargh! 😠

Which is why Solomon did not stop with that first thought: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.” No. There’s more. He added, “and do not lean on your own understanding.”¹  In other words, do not even think you will understand! As a matter of fact—count on it! Bank on the fact that You Will Not Understand What God Is Doing! 😦

But why? Why can I not understand? I am intelligent. I am contemplative. 😏 And what’s more, “God created man in his own image.”² And “we have the mind of Christ.”³ And we are “predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ.”⁴  How’s that for quoting scripture at God? 😉 Here’s why. God says, “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.”⁵  In other words, we do not think like God, and we do not plan things out like God does. And we never will! Why is that? It’s simple: We are not God! 🙄

And although we know that in our heads, we love to pretend we are God! If God were to share with us why he does some of the things in our lives, I am sure we would argue with him on a few points! 🤨 Because we think we know as much as he does. But we don’t! Because we do not think like God!! Paul writes, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”⁶

We are, however, not to be discouraged or frustrated by his “unsearchable” and “inscrutable” ways. But rather, this is where we realize that “the depth” of God’s love is unreachable because it is limitless! Paul’s prayer is that someday we may all “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”⁷

And you know what will happen as we begin to grasp how deep the love of Christ is? We will be able to “trust in the Lord with all our heart.” 🙂

Therefore, even though it makes us frustrated and angry when we do not understand God and his ways, we must get used to it—even become comfortable there! It is the only place we will learn to trust. Trusting is always accompanied with waiting. And waiting is a tricky place. Impatience and doubt hover around us there, ready to poison our thoughts with lies. They are enemies of trust. Here is the perfect scripture to recite when we do not understand God’s thoughts and ways and find ourselves waiting interminably. “I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him. The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”⁸

We need to embrace the times when we do not understand God, for they can become great opportunities to grow our faith, to nurture trust, to discover the depths of God’s love. It is good and right to say to God, I don’t understand! 😠 For when he hears those words, he smiles and says, Perfect! 😉 

¹Proverbs 3:5     ²Genesis 1:27     ³1 Corinthians 2:16      ⁴Romans 8:29     ⁵Isaiah 55:8     ⁶Romans 11:33     ⁷Ephesians 3:18-19     ⁸Lamentations 3:24-26

The most important thing about having faith in God is understanding that we will never understand how God thinks nor will we ever comprehend the purpose of his ways—not until we can see clearly instead of seeing “through a mirror dimly.”¹ Not until we reach the place that Jesus is preparing for us, in the “Father’s house,” where there “are many rooms.”² Jesus promised us: “I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”³ And in the meantime, he implores us, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.”⁴

But we are troubled! 🙁 It is difficult to “believe in God” when we do not understand how he thinks or understand why he does what he does. Does God withhold from us the purpose of his ways intentionally? Well . . . 🤔 sometimes. Why is that? Well . . . 🤔 let’s just concede to the idea that “the secret things belong to the Lord our God.”⁵ In other words, in this life we will never know everything we want to know! But why is that? Now, that question I can answer. 😉 Actually, Isaiah has answered it for us: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.”⁶  And let’s just pause right there and meditate on that.

God does not think like we do. God’s thoughts are not only different from ours they are inconceivably better than ours. And I really do mean inconceivably. We cannot even imagine God’s way of thinking for he “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”⁷ So let me repeat: God’s “thoughts are not your thoughts.” We will never understand how he thinks. It will always be beyond our capacity. And therefore, we must have faith in him.

Having faith in God is not a matter of understanding why things happen, but rather being perfectly okay with not understanding why things happen because we have faith; we “believe in God.” We have peace—we rest in the understanding that God loves us unconditionally and will never stop loving us. We have peace—we rest in the understanding that nothing can separate us from his love and that the best is yet to come! We have peace—we rest in spite of the turmoil in our lives. We, who choose to have faith in God—and it is a choice—even though our circumstances tempt us to be anxious are not anxious because we know “the Lord is near,” and we are never alone. We, who choose to have faith—and it is a choice—will possess “the peace of God” which will absolutely baffle most unbelievers and many believers as well. 😦 They will not understand how we can be at peace in our troubling situation, and, frankly, we ourselves will not be able to explain our peace because “the peace of God transcends all understanding.”⁸

And that’s why the most important thing about having faith in God is understanding that we will never understand how God thinks nor will we ever comprehend the purpose of his ways. Faith is trusting that the one in whom we have faith will be faithful. For the Lord declares, “For my thoughts not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.”⁶  Isaiah ends his mini-sermon with this encouragement: God’s thoughts and his ways of doing things—regardless of how they appear to us—will always be purposeful. The Lord declares, Whatever happens to you—whether you understand it or not—it “shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”⁹😀

Faith is not understanding why things happen. Faith is “understanding that the unwelcome change in the plan is the mighty work of the omnipotent hand.”*

¹1 Corinthians 13:12    ²John 14:2    ³John 14:3    ⁴John 14:1    ⁵Deuteronomy 29:29    ⁶Isaiah 55:8    ⁷Ephesians 3:20    ⁸Philippians 4:7    ⁹Isaiah 55:11    *McDermet, Deborah. “Big Picture.”

The disciples cried out to Jesus, “Increase our faith!”¹ But he did not! 😲 Instead, he rebuked them for having a faith so small that it was almost impossible to see! (Read the August 10^th blog for more information.) The question is, then, if Jesus does not give us faith, or even help us grow our faith, where does faith come from? Are we born with it? No, but the writer of Hebrews says “without faith it is impossible to please [God].”² Therefore, if we are interested in pleasing God, we should pause and ponder the concept. 😬 That verse tells us, actually, what faith is: “for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists.”² It sounds quite simple, really. Faith is believing that God is real! But since God is invisible and intangible and mysterious, we, who live in a finite world, struggle with it! We demand to see evidence of God, even though we read that faith is “the conviction of things not seen.”³  For the sake of time (and writing space), I will bypass the fact that the evidence of God is . . . well, it’s everywhere! 🙄 Let’s just focus on faith: its definition, its benefits, how to get it, and how to grow it. All in a few paragraphs!  😏 What a deal!

     Faith is so simple that most people do not believe that all we are required to do is believe! Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews and a very learned and respected religious man was amazed and impressed at what Jesus was doing. He told him, “No one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”⁴  And then Jesus told him that he needed to be “born again” before he could “see the kingdom of God.”⁵  Which confirms the fact that we are not born with faith! Nicodemus was totally confused with the idea, and they had a great discussion about spiritual things.

     And then Jesus drops this little nugget into the conversation: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”⁶  Eternal life!!  And that’s only one of the benefits (albeit, the best one! 😉)  for “whoever believes” (whoever has faith). Wow!

     Okay then! So. We are not born with faith. God does not give us faith. Jesus will not increase our faith. Where do we find faith? 🤔 Here it is: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”⁷ That’s the answer: “hearing through the word of Christ.” Listening to Jesus. Reading the Word of God. Faith begins there. And then if we want our faith to grow, we must continue reading and listening. Take a look: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all he does, he prospers.”⁸

     Faith takes root “like a tree” as we meditate on his Word and ponder its truths and apply its lessons. Faith only grows if we feed it, like watering a tree.  Therefore, we are in charge of our faith growing or not! And this explains why most people have little faith! They do not meditate and ponder his Word. Oh, they may own a Bible, read it occasionally, even go to church faithfully—but they depend mostly on others to study and explain God’s Word to them. As a former English teacher, let me report that few people in our world actually read. They skim; they scan; they scroll; they read SparkNotes! 😠 And they justify that they are just “not readers.” Really? 🤨 Okay then. Don’t read novels, or biographies, or history, or poetry, or newspapers, or magazines, or textbooks. Stop learning from the written word, if you wish. 🙄 I am aware that we can learn “stuff” in other ways. I get it.  🧐

     However . . . However, if we want our faith to grow, we must read and ponder and meditate on God’s Word. And let me add something else to my unpopular list of things to do: we must memorize and recite God’s Word as well. It is our protection and guide for life. The psalmist writes, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”⁹  God’s Word will show us the way (the way to live and which way to go) and our faith will grow when God proves his Word can be trusted over and over again. However, we can only learn what God’s Word teaches, if we read it! 😕 If we practice what it teaches, we will be able to withstand the storms when (not if) they come. But don’t take my word for it. Jesus told his followers: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.”¹⁰

     Jesus is our rock! The foundation of our faith! He is God’s Word in the flesh. How strong our foundation is, how grounded our faith is, how much our faith grows—all depends on us. Not God—although we love to blame God when things are rough for us! (It’s usually our fault when things are rough, by the way! 😒) When the storms come, we will be able to determine the strength of our faith. If we are “like a wise man” and have prepared ourselves for them, we will “not fall.” Guess what happens if we are not wise?

     I’ll let you read that one for yourself! 😉

¹Matthew 17:5   ²Hebrews 11:6    ³Hebrews 11:1   ⁴John 3:2   ⁵John 3:3   ⁶John 3:16   ⁷Romans 10:17   ⁸Psalm 1:1-3   ⁹Psalm 119:105   ¹⁰Matthew 7:24-25

One time “a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years”¹  touched the fringe of Jesus’ garment believing that if she did, she could be healed. And she was!  Another time a blind man approached Jesus and said, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight!”²  And he did! And then there was the time that ten lepers cried out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”³ And they were all cleansed! 😀

     What was it that prompted Jesus to grant these folks’ request and heal them? Their faith. Jesus’ response to each of these suffering souls was the same. He said, “Your faith has made you well.”⁴ Note that it was not the faith of Jesus that healed them—it was their faith, their personal faith. 🤨 Faith that was not given to them, but faith that they brought to Jesus. So, kudos to these folks for two reasons: 1) their faith was in Jesus—not another god, not in themselves, and not in pharisaic righteousness, and 2) their faith was something they chose to exercise. They took a risk—a chance, a gamble—which included the possibility of being disappointed. They expelled their energy. They had hope—when probably most people they knew had advised them to simply accept the life that had been given to them, the hand they were dealt, so to speak, and stop expecting things to change.

     So it was their faith in Jesus, along with the power of Jesus, and his decision to heal them, that healed them. And we must note that they believed that God could heal them—not necessarily that he would heal them. You see, if they were sure that God would heal them, it would require no faith. And just to complicate this concept a little bit more, we must understand that Jesus has the power to heal (or not heal) whomever he wishes, even those who do not ask for healing. Consider the man in the synagogue who had a withered hand. He did not ask to be healed but Jesus told him, “‘Stretch out your hand.’ And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other.”⁵ And we must understand that Jesus has the power to do miraculous things for people who never ask him to.  When Jesus fed four thousand people with seven loaves of bread, he did so after the disciples asked him, “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?”⁶ It never even crossed their minds that Jesus could resolve their dilemma! But also remember the time when Jesus was at his home church and people refused to believe that he was who he said he was? He “did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.”⁷

     Hmm. 🤨 How’s that for a simple and clear introduction of what it means to have faith? 😉  It prompts me to ask the question—What kind of faith do we have? I daresay, for most, it is mere lip service. To say we believe in God is not the same as to actually have faith in God. The unbelieving world demands proof that God exists and questions how a loving God could permit so much evil in the world. Is our faith any different from the unbelieving world? Do we not demand signs from God that he is present? And do we not often question why he permits certain (bad) things to occur in our lives? 😦

     Some people are grateful to God that he meets their needs; they feel blessed by God. But that’s not faith, that’s being thankful—which is right and good. Faith in God, however, is trusting that God can meet our needs when he does not. Faith is believing God loves us when we feel unloved by him. Faith is being confident that God can fix an impossible situation when he does not. Our faith is not measured by our church attendance or our generous nature or our thankful hearts or our positive attitudes. It is measured when we are suffering and are disappointed and are bewildered at our unsuccessful attempts to serve him. We discover how much faith we have in God only when he appears to be silent and absent. 🤔

     And one more thing! Many faithful church goers pass part one of the faith test—putting their faith in Jesus. But few pass part two—exercising their faith. Most of us never step out into faith—do something that requires risk. We, in fact, thwart the need for faith by living a very safe (mediocre) life. We settle. We dare not hope for a different (abundant) life because it is so uncertain. So, what kind of faith do we have? We will never truly know until it is put to the test, i.e. until we suffer. Which is why I love James for writing, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”⁸  If we do well on the test of faith, we will become steadfast (faithful, steady, unwavering, resolute) because of our suffering. But doing well is not guaranteed. It will depend solely on our faith. And we can shout to Jesus all day long, “Increase our faith!”⁹  but that, my friends, is entirely up to us.

     Wouldn’t it be lovely to go through a trial and to hear Jesus say to us, “Your faith has made you well!”⁴  😁

¹Matthew 9:20    ²Mark 10:51    ³Luke 17:13    ⁴Matthew 9:22; Mark 10:52; Luke 17:19      ⁵Matthew 12:13    ⁶Mark 8:4    ⁷Matthew 13:58    ⁸James 1:2    ⁹Luke 17:5