WHEN YOUR LIFE AND TIMES ARE IN THE HANDS OF GOD

In Chapter seventeen of book Three in The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis a conversation takes place between Jesus and a disciple.

Jesus says:  MY CHILD, allow me to do what I will with you. I know what is best for you. You think as a man; you feel in many things as human affection persuades.
 The Disciple says:  Lord, what You say is true. Your care for me is greater than all the care I can take of myself. For he who does not cast all his care upon You stands very unsafely. If only my will remain right and firm toward You, Lord, do with me whatever pleases You. For whatever You shall do with me can only be good.  If You wish me to be in darkness, I shall bless You. And if You wish me to be in light, again I shall bless You. If You stoop down to comfort me, I shall bless You, and if You wish me to be afflicted, I shall bless You forever.
 Jesus says:  My child, this is the disposition which you should have if you wish to walk with Me. You should be as ready to suffer as to enjoy. You should as willingly be destitute and poor as rich and satisfied.
 The Disciple Says: O Lord, I shall suffer willingly for Your sake whatever You wish to send me. I am ready to accept from Your hand both good and evil alike, the sweet and the bitter together, sorrow with joy; and for all that happens to me I am grateful. Keep me from all sin and I will fear neither death nor hell. Do not cast me out forever nor blot me out of the Book of Life, and whatever tribulation befalls will not harm me.

Can we trust ourselves to God that way?  Can we let everything go to God, and with a spirit of release embrace the story that comes to us?  Does God have to bless us to get our affection?  Does God have to "come through every time" for us to accept that He is here?  Maybe I should personalize this a bit.  Can I let everything go to God that way?  Does God always have to be satisfying me in order to gain my love? 

à Kempis makes me think of Habakkuk of old, who confessed to God, "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, although there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.  The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of the deer, en enables me to tread on the heights" (Habakkuk 3:17-19, NIV).

You know, there are times when life just doesn't make sense.  Pain trumps the day.  Chaos trumps the order.  Evil wins, and mocks the very thought of good.  There's not enough money.  Health suffers.  Relationships remain broken.  Everything that can fall apart falls apart.  If it can go wrong, it does. 

What do we do when life hits us in the emotional sternum and leaves us writhing in pain?  Gripe at God?  Run away from God?  Curse the day we were born?  Many do.  Habakkuk didn't.  When life could not get much worse, Habakkuk rejoiced in His God.  Chose to be joyful in the face of the grief.  Found God's strength in his story, and embraced the fact that even in the mystery God was still God, and that, in the rough and hostile environment of an ugly mountain, he still had the agility of a deer treading on the heights.

It doesn't make sense.  Faith doesn't, I suppose.  Or, maybe, faith is the only thing that makes sense when things are falling apart.  And, truth is, things are falling apart most of the time in our world, aren't they?   How shall we live?  What shall we do?  How shall we survive?  How do we be Christian when everything around us calls our faith into question?  How do we go forward when every step is a challenge of mammoth proportions.

In his book, You Gotta Keep Dancin' (David C. Cook, 1985) Tim Hansel writes of faith in crucible when he wrote,

Most of the Psalms were born in difficulty. Most of the Epistles were written in prisons. Most of the greatest thoughts of the greatest thinkers of all time had to pass through the fire. Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress from jail. Florence Nightingale, too ill to move from her bed, reorganized the hospitals of England. Semi paralyzed and under the constant menace of apoplexy, Pasteur was tireless in his attack on disease. During the greater part of his life, American historian Francis Parkman suffered so acutely that he could not work for more than five minutes as a time. His eyesight was so wretched that he could scrawl only a few gigantic words on a manuscript, yet he contrived to write twenty magnificent volumes of history.

Sometimes it seems that when God is about to make preeminent use of a man, he puts him through the fire.

I'm not smart enough to know how to read every situation that comes down the pike but I do know that life does not have to do us in.  The God who held Habakkuk together is still present, this time in the resurrection power of Jesus Christ.  Our days are held in the arms of grace, and the dark night is filled with the light of Jesus.  Don't give in.  Look up.  Jesus is Lord.  Maybe the prayer of our heart, when life is perplexing, confusing, and painful, be the prayer of à Kempis, " I shall bless You forever."  Better yet, may our prayer be that of Habakkuk, " I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior."

It's not necessarily easy; but who said faith was easy?  It is reality, though, when your life and times are in the hands of God.

SHAMELESS AUDACITY

I have to admit that some times I get overwhelmed at the bigness of things, the complexity of things, and the magnitude of the issues before me.  Truth is, some times I don’t even know how to pray.  It is an ongoing concern in my heart but, thankfully, I am learning not to let it get to me too much.  O. Hallesby said in his work on prayer, “Helplessness is the real secret and the impelling power of prayer.”  

In the sixteen verses of Psalm 42 and 43, the writer talks to himself and says, “Why are you in despair, O my soul?  And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence” (Ps. 42: 5, 11, and Psalm 43:5).

I’ve asked that “despair” question once in while; maybe you have, too.  But aren’t you glad despair isn’t Lord.  Jesus is Lord.  His presence is with us in the good times and bad, in the up times and down, on the mountain and in the valley, when the world is crashing in on us and when we are so thrilled in our walk with God that we just about can't contain the joy.  Thank God for His abiding, never leaving or forsaking us, presence.  

So, like so many of you, I just keep on praying and lifting impossible situations to God. In His keeping grace I'm learning to keep seeking His face.  I keep calling on His name.  When despair raises it’s ugly head, and it does once in while, doesn't it, I seek to pass it along to Jesus and let Him embrace it by His presence, and expectantly remember God “is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us” (Ephesians 3:20).

I used to read a lot of information about prayer.  I read books and sermons and articles and essays on prayer.  I listened to tapes and Cds, and, in more recent days, have logged on to YouTube to set-in on teachings about prayer.  Some time ago, however, I had a moment when it was almost as if the Holy Spirit whispered into my ear, “Quit reading so much about prayer and just talk to me.”  It was a jolting moment that changed things for me.

I am not by nature a man of faith.  My nature is fear, carefulness, and caution.  It would never occur to me, like it did to Peter, to actually get out of a boat and walk on water to Jesus. God has had to do a lot of cleansing in me to get me out of myself and into Him, never mind getting me out of a boat and onto the water.  In and of myself I feel like a case study on how not to be a man of faith.  Still, God keeps showing up in my life, calling me, drawing me, and, dare I say, wooing me to Himself.  It is a remarkable story in which I find myself.  Me, so unworthy, and God, so worthy, working out a relationship! Who would have thought it?

I've never asked anyone to follow my example in prayer.  It's just not in me to do so.  I do pray, however, even though my prayers are broken and incomplete and so very lacking.  I pray for people who don't know Christ. I pray for miracles.  I pray for my friends and family. I pray for healing.  I pray for broken relationships. I even pray for my enemies, not because I am so holy, but because Jesus calls His followers to do so.  I take James seriously and anoint people with oil as I join them in seeking healing and help and guidance.

The greatest prayer in my heart is probably the greatest prayer in your heart, too; "Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come.  Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:9-10).  This prayer is profoundly important to me for two reasons. First, it is a prayer Jesus taught us to pray.  Secondly because, as I said earlier, sometimes I am overwhelmed at the bigness of things, the complexity of things, and the magnitude of the issues before me, and I really don't know how to pray.

The Bible teaches us that God's will is "good, pleasing and perfect," (Rom. 12:2).  I understand this to mean that God's will can't be improved.  So, why wouldn't we pray "Your will be done"?  It is good, pleasing, and perfect.  Also, on the earth the kingdoms of the world aren't doing so well.  We need help, and help is here in the kingdom of God of which we are called to pray for its full influence in the world.

Prayer, for me, has become a trust; a trust that God is God and knows full well what He is doing in the world.  What He is doing has as its foundation the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  That event signals the way God is present in the world.  He has involved Himself all the way to death and through death, revealing that Jesus is who He says He is and that life falls within the scope of God's amazing grace.

Because of Jesus we see the heart of the Father, a heart of sovereign compassion that moved Him to "empty Himself of all but love and die for Adam's helpless race" (Charles Wesley, in the hymn, "And Can it Be).  God cares about His world.  He cares about His creation.  He cares about us who have been created in His image.  The cross says that God would never leave His world alone and empty.

So, prayer for me is a trust.  It is a trust that God is good, holy, just, perfect, forgiving, healing.  He cares.  I may not "get it," but God gets it.  I can't see two seconds into the future. God sees the past, the present, and the future, in the present moment.  To pray is to invite God and His amazing grace into our story.  We don't know the outcome but we do know God.   

In a world broken by sin and infected by the ramifications of sin, we don't always see things clearly.  In fact, many times life simply doesn't make sense.  We look around and realize that so many things seem to be unaddressed by the grace of God.  The apostle Paul described it as seeing "only a reflection, as in a mirror" (I Cor. 13:12).  He says, "Now I know in part."  We don't know everything.  Things don't make sense.  Everything is in process.  We're not home yet.  But in this broken world "we do see Jesus" (Hebrews 2:9).  And, Jesus shows us the heart of the Father and the depth of His love. 

I don't have a theology of answered prayer but I have a God who calls us all to lay everything down at the feet of Jesus and let it go to God.  How He answers is His issue.  That I pray and include God in on everything in my life, within my sphere of influence, and in His entire world, is my issue.  So, I pray.  In Luke 18:1 Jesus taught His disciples "that they should always pray and not give up."  In Luke 11:8 Jesus speaks of praying with "shameless audacity." 

I pray not because it all makes sense to me.  It doesn't.  I pray because

My hope is built on nothing lessThan Jesus' blood and righteousness;I dare not trust the sweetest frame,But wholly lean on Jesus' name.On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;All other ground is sinking sand.

("My Hope is Built on Nothing Less"by Edward Mote, 1797-1874) 

A part of what it means for me to "wholly lean on Jesus' name," is to trust in His trustworthiness.  He is the Christ, the Son of God, after all.  How He chooses to go about being the Messiah is His issue, not mine.  He is God and I'm not.  So, I pray. 

Karl Barth said, “To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”  I believe he is correct.  There is disorder everywhere in our little world.  It is a world filled with pain, disillusionment, unfairness, anguish, unanswered questions, fear, evil, untold acts of man's inhumanity to man, and atrocities of a thousand varieties.  It is a dangerous world, where sin and wickedness, narcissism and pride, greed, cheating, and debauchery run rampant. It is a world where walking wounded and broken people are everywhere.  Where in the world do we begin to address the disorder?  "To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world." 

It was John Bunyan who said, “You can do more than pray, after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.”  So, join the uprising.  Inundate this world in prayer and, As Phillips Brooks said, “Pray the largest prayers.  You cannot think a prayer so large that God, in answering it, will not wish you had made it larger. Pray not for crutches but for wings.”

See you at the altar.

SEE YOU AT THE ALTAR

We have a prayer team in our church. Hardly a day goes by when a request doesn’t come to us.  We take it seriously; seek to be faithful, and to live in hopeful anticipation of how God will involve Himself.  We are trying to mount an ongoing and perpetual ministry of prayer.  Recently, I wrote the enclosed letter to our prayer team.  Let me share it with any of you who have a heart for prayer, as we seek to stand in solidarity with each other.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Over the past year we've prayed a lot of prayers together.  Why?  I'd like to think it is because God has invited His people to come to the throne of grace and to place on His altar everything it means for us to live for Him in a dangerous world.   Life is what it is.  What we do with it is who we are. As followers of Jesus we take what is given us, all of it, and we place it into God's story.  We live in a story greater than our story alone.  We live in the story of God who is so passionate about His creation that He has provided for us to come into His presence and to lay down everything before Him, and to invite God to cover it all by His sovereign, compassionate, eternal, and amazing grace. 

Over this year we have prayed for people we don't know, for issues we couldn't control, and for concerns so deep that at times we couldn't find the words.  We've prayed for miracles, for guidance, for healing, for restoring relationships, for aunts and uncles and moms and dads, and children and grandchildren, for peace, comfort, and understanding.  We've prayed for our neighbors and for situations a world away.  We've prayed that lost and broken people might discover the love of God in Jesus.  Everyday we've come to God and placed our world onto His altar.  

Some days the words flowed.  Other days we were silent and word-less.  Some days our faith was strong.  Other days we felt outnumbered, overwhelmed, overpowered, and ineffective.  Regardless of everything, we kept on praying and trusting and believing and committing everything to God.    

Why have we prayed? Oswald Chambers says it best for me.  He was speaking about the greatest things we are to do for God.  When it came to praying he said, "Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work."  

So we've pray.  We've come to the altar.  We've opened our hearts.  With shameless audacity we've pour out our prayers and petitions to God.  And, we'll continue to do so.  Let no worship service go un-prayed for.  Let no ministry go un-prayed for.  Let no event go un-prayed for.   Pray for every volunteer.  Pray for people who don't know Christ and for people who long to know Him better.  Pray for the towns and communities around us.  Pray that the Holy Spirit will find God-driven ways to open doors to the hearts of countless thousands, if not millions, of people all around us who are busy about the business of their lives.  Pray for the sick, the hungry, the thirsty, and be Jesus in their stories.  Develop your prayer list, and make it long.  Then stamp across it these words

Father,

Your kingdom come.

Your will be done here

as it is in heaven.

See you at the altar …

SOMEWHERE IN TIME

We are a few hours into another year now, and enter it with a sense both of endings and beginnings.  We lay to rest and we take up at the same time. 

Life is lived one moment at a time, isn't it?  Yet moments don't come out of a vacuum.  Moments bridge the past to the future.  They are the hinges, tiny hinges in time in which we are invited to comprehend the world we leave and the world into which we move.  A moment is where we connect mind, emotion, and will. It is the so-called, now where we choose what we will do with past, present, and future.  We are always in the moment but so often we don't understand the moment until it has become the past.  Also, the clock is always ticking, stopping for no one.  Therefore moments are always moving and so are those who live them.

In Psalm 31 we learn that for those of us who believe in and live for God our times are in God's hands.  Our past, present, and future, our moments in time, are caught up into the life of the One who called time into existence.  We are not alone.  Time marches on but in the hands of God.  God is in our moments and in Him we live and move and have our being.

How does this speak to our lives?  What does it mean for our times to be in God's hands?  Whatever the answers to these two questions are, somewhere in the mix the matter of faith comes to play a profound part.

Faith isn't only a belief.  Faith is trust. To believe in is to trust. To trust is to act. To act is to subject one's self to the trustworthiness of the object of one's faith.

Faith is rooted in relationship—relationship with God whom faith believes in trustworthy.  Faith, therefore, is not a visible issue so much as the evidence of things not seen; this and the integrity of God.

Because of the faithfulness of God one is free to live as a person of faith.  Immediate outcomes don't matter when everything is of faith in the faithfulness of God who keeps His Word.  Faith changes the inner life of a person, and tethers that person to God. 

In this relationship a faith-commitment emerges that becomes a crucial matter for people of the Living God. That commitment says, "What I want for my life is what God wants for me."   In that relationship context, for those of us who are seeking to be faithful to Jesus, a profound prayer accompanies that commitment.  It is the prayer Jesus taught us to pray to His and our Father, "Your will be done."  It's nothing to the left and nothing to the right.  What God want for us is the consuming passion. 

If we perceive that our times are in God's hands and if our passion is to want what He wants for us, then certain questions become important to us.

1. Is this what God wants for me?
2. How can God use this to get what He wants for me?
3. How do I pay attention to God?
4. How can I best listen for the voice of God?
5. How do I live as a servant of the Servant-King
6. What is my part in the relationship with God that God is providing for me?
7. How can I be present with the God who is present with me?

I think of several things Jesus called His disciples to embrace.  He said things to them like, "Deny yourself, Become like a child, Follow me, Obey me, Trust me."  Taking these things seriously require careful attention.  They require that we really show up in our relationship with Jesus.  They require a careful self-evaluation from time to time where we give ourselves to God in the spirit of the prayer, "Search me, O God, and know my heart" (Psalm 139:23-24). 

To love Jesus this way reveals that we really are in a relationship with God.  Our moments in time are not without meaning.  Our times are in the hand of God, and we treat them with upmost respect and dignity.  Our lives are not defined by the moments in time that have been given to us but by the God who has given the moments in time to us.  Since these moments are given to us, we take them as gifts, and seek to live as stewards of the gifts.

At this late date in my life, time has become a very important issue for me.  Perhaps it should have been more important to me all the time; but at least it is important now.  I think the wise Mr. Seuss speaks for me when he said, "How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?"

Truth is it got late so soon one moment at a time.  C. S. Lewis said, "The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is."  Benjamin Franklin, "You may delay, but time will not."  And, I would be remiss if I did not add this thought from Eric Roth in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button screenplay. He says,  

For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again. 

Albert Einstein said, "Time is an illusion."  I suppose that in a physics sort of way he might right.  However, this does not explain the wrinkles forming on my face, and the soreness in my bones, and the graying of what is left of the hair on my head.  Something is, in fact, going on, around me and in me; moving on is perhaps the best way to describe it.   Time is on the march with our without my attention. 

I am in no intellectual position to challenge Albert Einstein, but because of what I see in what is going on all around and in me, I'm going with the God of Scripture on this.  The Psalmist prayed to God, "I trust in you, Lord; I say, 'You are my God.'  My times are in your hands" (Psalm 31:14-15).

In this New Year in time may we take seriously what has been given us, and may we, time and time again, draw near to the God who has dared draw near to us.  Let's not follow Sam Levenson's counsel, "I'm going to stop putting things off, starting tomorrow!"