How Big is Your God?

I Can Fix It!

There is a passage of scripture that God has reminded me of perhaps more than any other.  I was sharing with a friend of mine my most recent reminder, and he wrote back some interesting insights, and so I would like to use the passage and his comments as the base for today’s blog.  First the passage from Matthew 6 (ESV):

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?^{[g] 28} And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹ Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. ³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  ³⁴ “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

And now, here are Randy’s comments to me:

We struggle because we assume we have to. I mean, you and I were part of a generation raised by shade-tree mechanics and self-starters. If something’s broken, you fix it. If something needs doing, you do it. If you want a new toy or tool or appliance, you save up for it or do something else to earn it. Nothing’s free and it is our nature to actively make things happen rather than passively living with a sense of entitlement. So this passage naturally goes against the way we were taught to live – the expectation that Someone is taking care of us is a concept we’ve been taught NOT to rely on since childhood. And of course, there are times when we get totally stressed and depressed by the fact that there is more that needs doing than we can handle or the task before us is simply beyond our ability to cope – and these verses are the answer. But still hard to process.

I don’t know about you, but his comments describe my approach to many things very aptly.  

And it applies to the areas of marriage and divorce as well.  When a marriage has problems, for those of us with the mindset Randy describes, the task is to face the problems head on and work to solve them.  Enlist counselors, read books, attend weekend seminars, take hours of time to try to get away and talk….whatever we can do to try to save our marriage and get it back on track is what we do.  However, real life is there are some marriages that cannot be fixed like that….at least, not by just one partner.  

It is a very hard thing to believe that God led you into a marriage, that you have been faithful in that marriage, and that you have worked hard to deal with the problems in the marriage…and yet God would allow the marriage to fall apart and end anyway.  We like to think if we just try a little harder, or that God will come in and somehow make it all okay.  But that doesn’t always happen.  You can blame one partner or another or society or Satan or whatever you want to blame, but the bottom line is that you come out feeling a failure that you weren’t able to fix it.  But God has the ability to take our failed attempts at fixing a marriage and use them to form the basis for the next stage of our lives…which for me has been a second marriage that is very different from the first.  In the times when the marriage home is collapsing all around, it is hard to hang on to Jesus’ challenge to have no anxieties or worries, and truly believe that God is looking out for you even in the midst of that devastation.

And then, after the divorce has come, when money is tight, futures uncertain, hearts are broken and fears assail, we once again are faced with the challenge of this passage.  It is one thing to have no anxiety when the bank account is full and the job is secure and the home is a haven and life is good.  But when everything has fallen apart, and the money has been divided between you, your ex and the attorneys (not in that order) and the cupboard is less full and you fear that your children’s future is at risk, not to mention your own now that you are all on your own for the first time in how many years?...  

When life is like that and you read verses like these, the test comes strong…as if God is saying, “Do you trust me?”  When problems loom large, it can be hard to remember that God is even larger.  Passages like Isaiah 40 can remind you of that fact, though, and the assurance of Jesus that God’s care is always there can become the one thread of sanity to which you hold while everything around you seems skewed through the insanity of the divorce process with all the ensuing emotions.  We can't fix all those things either.  

Sunday at church we sang a song I had not heard before, which included the encouragement that God has never allowed us to walk alone, and he never will.  So I invite you, no matter what your situation in life as you read this, to take time to read once again for yourself the passage above from Matthew, reading it with an awareness that Jesus is speaking in it to you.

Trusting God, Part 2

TRUST REVISITED

So I have had several communications since the last blog, to which my wife attached a picture of a bridge in the fog.  I have added a second variation of the same picture for this blog, and want to add some thoughts from my various conversations on the topic of trust, using this picture as the doorway into understanding trust in God, especially when things are hard (as they so often are during divorce and the aftermath).

Take a few moments to really look at the picture.  Let it represent your life…with you standing on the verge of the next step, the next shore…regardless of what has brought you to the point that you are now leaving the familiar shore for another.  

Trust in God is a lot like that image, and a lot like the picture in the bridge.  Bear with me as I share some of my reflections.  First, and most noticeable, is that the opposite side of the bridge cannot be seen.  Where the bridge might end up, and the length of the span to be crossed to reach that end are clouded with fog.  Isn’t life like that much of the time?  The old saying, “if you knew then what you know now” attests to that very fact.  We can’t really see the future clearly.  We make our best guess, we try to make the right and the best decisions, to follow our dreams, but the certainty isn’t always there.  All too often, the future is obscured in a kind of fog.  Trust is stepping out onto the bridge anyway.  It is taking the chance, journeying into the unknown, making the beginning even if we can’t see the end.  When God has called us to step forward, we don’t always know where the road will lead, we simply know who our traveling companion and guide is…and that is enough.  I am reminded of Abraham, who was called by God to go out to a land, “that I will show you.”  He didn’t know where he was going, only that it was time to go.  (See Genesis 12:1 and following.)

Trust is NOT stepping out blindly into nothing.  As in the picture of the bridge, when we turned our car onto it, while we could not see the far end, we could see the near side.  We could see that THIS part of the bridge was apparently solid, it was well built and maintained, other cars were successfully traversing it, and that it was headed the general direction we were wanting to go.  God often doesn’t show us everything, only enough to get us going, enough to give us the assurance to try, and the example of those who have gone before.  Only as we step into what we CAN see are we able to then see the next step.  To be able to see the other side, one literally has to launch into the unknown, the unseen, to discover that which awaits us in the future.  (Abraham also fits this, but I think of Peter in Acts 10 and Paul in Acts 16.)

Trust requires us to believe in something outside of ourselves.   I did not make that bridge.  I don’t know what gage of steel or iron was used, or which of the two it is.  I don’t know who designed the supports, determined the stresses and torques, or placed the foundations in the water.  To cross that bridge means trusting in something besides myself, that other people and things can be trusted, and to take the chance that they are not.  I can trust the example of others who crossed before, I can trust the signs (and the people who made them) that indicate it is a structure that can bear the weight I bring to it and that it leads to where I want to be.  But I would never make it if I only trusted myself.  If that were the case, I would have to go out and check every girder, calculate every engineering formula used, measure each span, tighten every nut and test every weld, scuba down to check the pilings, disassemble and reassemble my vehicle…in other words, I would have to do everything for myself, even those things at which I am NOT an expert.  God asks us to trust his expertise as well.

Trust means that there is a goal, and I follow the map.  According to the map, that bridge would take me from Newport, Oregon, where we were, across to the other shore where we would be able to follow highway 101 on down the Oregon coast.  According to the map.  I didn’t write the map.  But the map was the guide that promised I could get to the desired destination by crossing that bridge.  Want to guess what the trustworthy map is we can turn to in our journey of life?  I think there is no map so trustworthy in life as the map of the Bible to help us get to the best destinations in our lives, and to the ultimate destination on the heavenly shore as well.  

Most of all, trust means action.  It would have done me no good to sit where we had taken the pictures, “trusting” that it would get me on down the coast…I would have still been in Newport.  Believing the bridge leads there is not the same as acting in faith or trust by driving out onto the bridge.  It would never get me anywhere until I put the car in drive and begin the journey.  The life of faith is the same way.  Believing it is important, or believing that Christ can forgive our sin and help us find a better life accomplishes nothing.  Unless, of course, it is a belief that is acted upon with trust and faith by stepping out with our lives onto the road that God has waiting for us.

Finally, one of the things I like most about the picture is that nothing can be seen on the other side of the bridge.  It doesn’t mean nothing is there, it merely means that it can’t be seen from where we were.  But there is an assurance that exists beyond the bridge.  One of God’s promises in scripture is that he will never leave us, that when we give our lives to him, God will stay close by our side wherever the road may lead.  So while looking from this side of the bridge means I don’t know what is on the other side, I do know that God will be there, and that God knows what is on the other side of the bridge, and if his call is to head across the bridge, then I can move forward in trust.

Whatever the uncertainties of your life…financial fears in divorce, future relationship questions, job loss and future employment, career path changes or changes in location, changing health concerns…whatever your uncertainty, it is merely a bridge leading to the unseen future awaiting you just ahead, where God has a beautiful journey planned just for you.  In the case of the bridge, we enjoyed the beautiful scenery of the Oregon coastline.  But in the bridges of life, the journey with God carries beauty beyond the mere vistas we see with our eyes.  Bon Voyage!

Stretched by God

TRUST ME….

Ever heard words like that?  Sometimes, people who say that can be the least trustworthy people you may ever meet… like they have to convince you to trust them.  Other times, the issue is more our own, and we need to learn how to let go of control long enough to actually trust another person.  Perhaps you have gone on trust walks, or done the little trust exercise where you fall backwards trusting that the person behind you will catch you.  Those things are relevant because trust can be a difficult experience.  It is critical in a marriage, but because of the betrayals leading to and during a divorce, it can be a tough thing to be able to do if reconciliation occurs or when a divorced person remarries.  Beyond that, trust is a central key when it comes to one’s relationship with God…so much so that we regularly use the terminology of “faith” for those who are followers of Christ.  Is trust an easy issue for you?

Some people have a hard time trusting God.  In fact, I suspect most of us experience situations that stretch us, so that there are times in our lives when God allows certain extreme scenarios to arise for the purpose of teaching us how to trust.  Trust isn’t as hard as some might thing.  We do it all the time.  When we drive over a bridge, we trust the designers, the materials and the inspectors.  When we accelerate our automobiles, we trust the individuals who designed and maintained our brakes, that we will be able to slow and stop the car.  We trust the doctors who prescribe little pills, and we trust the pharmacists who bottle them for us, as well as the researchers who create them.  We trust the pilot of the airplane, the captain of the ship, the engineer on the subway train or the driver of the bus every time we step onto their vehicle.  The list is endless.  Generally speaking, that trust is well founded.   Occasionally, we find it was not.  But even so, none of us ever makes the pilot show us his license, inquire of his training and physical condition, or question his experience before we board a plane.  Even though we know there are times pilots have made mistakes.  Because we know that there are government agencies and oversight boards who do those things for us.  Trust is built into our society, from the water we drink and food we eat to the most complicated medical procedure we undergo.  And yet, all too often people struggle to truly trust  God.  Why is that?

Perhaps it is because they don’t know God well…although I have never met the person who designed the brakes on my automobile!  Perhaps it is because they don’t know the character of God…although I don’t really know too much about what kind of people are on the board of the bank where my money is held.  Perhaps it is because we cannot see God… although I have never seen the people or the process by which my medicine is created.  Perhaps it is because we don’t really like not being in control!  Perhaps.  

Many situations in life present a challenge to whether we trust God or not.  Divorce is certainly one of those, as we face an uncertain future, financial upheaval or fears of ever entering another relationship again.  For whatever area of life that trust is an issue for you, I invite you to consider the following passage from Matthew 6:25-33 (NASB):

²⁵ “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? ²⁷ And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? ²⁸ And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, ²⁹ yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! ³¹ Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ ³² For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. ³³ But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

You see, there is less in our absolute control than most of us would like to believe.  Think of that the next time you reach for a light switch that somebody else designed and made to carry electricity that somebody else generated through the wires somebody else made on the way to the light bulb somebody else designed and made that you have placed in the lamp somebody else produced.  Instead of trusting, many of us worry, often over things that are ultimately of no consequence in our lives.  In fact, God is the most trustworthy individual that has ever existed.  In the hardships of life, why are so many of us so willing to trust everything and everyone else, but hesitant to trust the God who gave us life in the first place, and whose plans for our lives are truly perfect?  I don’t know that I would claim to have the answer to why we don’t.  But even though I struggle with trust at times as much as anybody, I do believe that is MY issue, not God’s…and that life works best and hardships resolve best when I am trusting God through them.  How about you?