Tag Faith

The Desires He Delights to Give

Todd R 1 Comment

Does God give us what we desire, or does He decide what we desire?  Some of my earliest prayers I remember (I was probably about 6) are ones asking to wake up the next day with my room full of all the toys I wanted.  Naturally, I never woke up to a room full of toys.  God probably knew I would only ask for more, and if I kept up that attitude toward prayer, there would never be enough.  That doesn’t mean I only prayed that prayer once…I learn slowly, but He is patient.

This sort of prayer isn’t limited to minor things like toys, nor do I think it is unusual.  While his mother was suffering from cancer, a nine-year-old C.S. Lewis prayed earnestly for her to be healed.  When she wasn’t, and cancer took her from him, his faith was shaken for years.

In my case, in later life, after understanding Christianity somewhat better, one of the first Bible verses I set out to memorize was Psalm 37:4, which says:

“Delight yourself in the LORD,
       and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

But I still wondered: are the desires what He gives us, or is the fulfillment of desires what He gives us?  I now believe it is both.  In the times I genuinely seek Him, I find that He molds my desires, so they become more aligned with His character.  I also find that He directs those desires toward what will fulfill them.  While that fulfillment is not always immediate, I learn to trust from what He does fulfill that all will be made right in eternity, and I also learn patience and peace.

When we truly delight in Him, we end up finding out that what we desire is righteousness; we also find out that He provides all the righteousness we desire and need.  We find those desires fulfilling rather than frustrating, we find that fulfillment durable rather than fleeting, and therefore find ourselves content rather than anxious.

However, we don’t always delight in Him, or seek to desire what He desires, and we find ourselves conflicted and unfulfilled.  Reflecting on his prayers for his mother’s healing, C.S. Lewis later wrote what he had wrong:

“I had approached God, or my idea of God, without love, without awe, even without fear. He was, in my mental picture of this miracle, to appear neither as Savior nor as Judge, but merely as a magician; and when He had done what was required of Him I supposed He would simply – well, go away.”[1]

Elsewhere Lewis wrote: “God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.”  By experiencing disappointment and death in this world, perhaps He is teaching us that death and disappointment are all that this world has to offer.  Sometimes this is the only way to get us to let go of the world and embrace eternity with Him, even while we sojourn here. Sometimes He lets us down easy when the toys do not appear; sometimes He lets us experience significant pain.  All in His wisdom.

Therefore, since He is both Savior and Judge, as well as all-wise:

“Commit your way to the LORD;
         trust in him, and he will act.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
         and your justice as the noonday.” – Psalm 37:5-6

Keep Driving Toward Morning, dear fellow travelers, and today, pray we will find our delight in Him.

[Version 1.0 of this was posted 4/19/22]

[1] Lewis, C.S.  Surprised by Joy (1955).  P. 21

A Psalm of God’s Strength and Power

Todd R 3 Comments

The Bible software I use (Accordance) has the ability to highlight text, but so far I’ve only used it once, for Psalm 21.  In just 13 verses, David wrote “you” or “your” 25 times, referring to God as the source of his success and blessings, past, present, and future.  The short 13 verses of Psalm 21 provide a plethora of praises we can offer to confess that God is powerful, faithful and just.  Here is the entire Psalm, and I’ve bolded all the “you”s and “your”s, which I highlighted in Accordance:

“To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

O LORD, in your strength the king rejoices,
            and in your salvation how greatly he exults!
You have given him his heart’s desire
            and have not withheld the request of his lips. Selah
For you meet him with rich blessings;
            you set a crown of fine gold upon his head.
He asked life of you; you gave it to him,
            length of days forever and ever.
His glory is great through your salvation;
            splendor and majesty you bestow on him.
For you make him most blessed forever;
            you make him glad with the joy of your presence.
For the king trusts in the LORD,
            and through the steadfast love of the Most High he shall not be moved.

Your hand will find out all your enemies;
            your right hand will find out those who hate you.
You will make them as a blazing oven
            when you appear.
The LORD will swallow them up in his wrath,
            and fire will consume them.
You will destroy their descendants from the earth,
            and their offspring from among the children of man.
Though they plan evil against you,
            though they devise mischief, they will not succeed.
For you will put them to flight;
            you will aim at their faces with your bows.

Be exalted, O LORD, in your strength!
            We will sing and praise your power.”

What statements did you focus on while reading this?  Did you take the time to think about all 25 “you” statements (and the rest of the Psalm)?  Read it again.

The first section in this Psalm describes how our God is “faithful” in some ways, and the second describes “just.”  The first may come easier, with David giving God credit for all of his strength and success, but the middle section on justice may come across as harsh and harder to swallow.  However, it reminds us that only He knows for sure who His (and our) enemies are.  “Your hand will find out all your enemies.”  Only He determines the fates of others, including some who look like enemies now, but will come to faith in Him later.  With any enemy we can “wait upon the Lord”, as David often urges us, knowing God will either save them, or their plans will come to ruin by His design.

Yet, for those in Christ, “he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  Therefore, we echo David:

“Be exalted, O LORD, in your strength!
            We will sing and praise your power.”

David’s Spiritual Battle with Goliath

Todd R 1 Comment

David’s defeat of Goliath is such a popular story that it has become a cliché.  For example, unbalanced games in sports where one team is much better than the other are referred to as “David vs. Goliath.”  In these cases, the storyline is about whether a seemingly physically inferior opponent can beat a physically superior one.  However, this misses the point of the story – that it was a spiritual battle.

On one side of the battle, we have false gods.  After David decided to fight and was approaching Goliath, 1 Samuel 17:43 says: “And the Philistine [Goliath] said to David, ‘Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?’ And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.”  But even though Goliath invoked his gods in curses, he was counting on his size and strength advantage to win the battle.  He was not actually relying on “gods,” and did not expect to win “by his gods”, but by the god of worldly strength and dominance.

Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash

On the other hand, David was clear that this was a battle between true and false gods.  In 1 Samuel 17:26, David says “What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?” and also in verse 37 David says “The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”  David was actually trusting in and relying on his God for victory, unlike Goliath who just used his gods’ names in vain.  David knew his relative physical weakness against Goliath was not relevant.

So, to Goliath the battle was David vs. Goliath, but to David it was the true God vs. false gods.  And that’s why David won. David wanted to beat Goliath so “that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD’S, and he will give you into our hand.” (verse 47)

People also curse us by their gods when we refuse to live by those gods’ standards.  These may be gods of wealth or convenience or rebellion, and many of our spiritual battles are against this world’s gods.

Does it sometimes seem foolish not to make choices based only on what’s best financially?  Is it sometimes inconvenient to worship?  Is it sometimes inconvenient to love our families, congregations, and neighbors?  Is it tempting sometimes to sin “only once” or if we think nobody will find out?

These are battles we all face, but we’re not going to win by doing better by the world’s gods’ standards, but by relying on the true God.  So, a question for us is: do we see these challenges as spiritual battles between true and false gods?  Or do we invoke God in name only like Goliath did, and then rely on our own strength?

The key to the battle between David and Goliath is that David won because 1) he knew his God is real, and 2) because he actually relied on Him.  We can win the same way and overcome the giants that seek to overthrow us.

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” – Ephesians 6:12

The Lord is Not Looking For “The Good Face”

Todd R 1 Comment

One of my favorite books is Moneyball, which is about Billy Beane’s career as General Manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball team in the late 1990s and early 2000s.  Beane ran a winning team on a shoestring budget by pioneering the use of precise measurement, data, and analytics, in contrast to sometimes-arbitrary eyewitness reports from talent scouts.  Author Michael Lewis notes that in the late 1990s, “Some of the scouts still believed they could tell by the structure of a young man’s face not only his character but his future in pro ball. They had a phrase they used: ‘the Good Face.’”[1]  Billy Beane himself had “the Good Face” when he was a prospect and yet had a mediocre career as a player; therefore, his own career arc suggested that there might be a better way to find good players.

Reliance on “The Good Face” isn’t just a baseball phenomenon.  Many politicians, celebrities, businesspeople, news personalities, and others succeed by having “The Good Face,” but the Bible warns us not to rely on “The Good Face.”  One such warning is the story of King Saul, who was “a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he.  From his shoulders upward he was taller than any of the people.”[2]

Samuel, the LORD’s prophet, was impressed by Saul and was led to anoint him Israel’s king.  However, when Samuel called the people together to announce Saul’s rule, something strange happened: “So they inquired again of the LORD, ‘Is there a man still to come?’ and the LORD said, ‘Behold, he has hidden himself among the baggage.’”[3]  Saul should have responded “Here am I”, but instead shamefully hid.  Being so large, it must have taken some effort to find a place to hide, but he managed it in an attempt to avoid God’s call.  This became a pattern with Saul, because when Israel’s army was challenged by the giant Goliath, “Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.”[4]  Saul, while having “The Good Face,” was unwilling to trust God when He called.  He was faithless and a coward.  Perhaps “tall, dark, and handsome” but not useful to God, and not a good leader for God’s people.

When looking for Saul’s successor, Samuel, as God’s talent scout, almost repeated the mistake of picking “The Good Face.”  Samuel was to pick as king one of the sons of Jesse, and he wanted to pick Eliab after he “looked on” him.  “But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”[5]  After this warning, David, the youngest son of Jesse, is chosen as the next king.  David also had many admirable qualities, being not only handsome, but also “skillful in playing [the lyre], a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence,” but most importantly, others reported that “the LORD is with him”[6] and it was true.  David knew that everything that really mattered about him came from God (see Psalm 139:13-16 for example) and he could only succeed by relying on Him.  If God called, he would come, and if the world challenged God, David would defend Him.  David slew Goliath without hesitation.

Today, the power of Christ living through us is what matters, not having “The Good Face.”  Therefore, be concerned about having “The Good Heart.”  Be not concerned about whether you are photogenic, or handsome, or tall, or well-dressed, or anything else the world may value.  According to the prophet Isaiah, even Jesus didn’t have “The Good Face”: “He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him.” – Isaiah 53:2b

When God calls, come, and you will have “The Good Heart.”  When you fail, God, whose heart is perfect, will create in you a new clean heart[7], as David learned time and time again.

“Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.  But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” – Matthew 6:31-33

[1] Lewis, Michael.  Moneyball (2003).  P. 7.
[2] 1 Samuel 9:2
[3] 1 Samuel 10:22
[4] 1 Samuel 17:11
[5] 1 Samuel 16:7
[6] 1 Samuel 16:18
[7] Psalm 51:10

“If Necessary”

Todd R 1 Comment

All Christians face trials for following Jesus.  These can range from being disregarded or ignored, all the way to physical persecution and even death.  In the face of these trials, Christians can feel targeted or that their trials are unfair.  However, Peter assures us that all the trials we face for Jesus have a purpose.

In 1 Peter 1:6-7, he wrote: “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Note the words “if necessary.”  Those words beg the question of what is necessary and who decides that it is necessary?  Do we get to pick and choose our own trials, or would probably choose to avoid them altogether?  Should we trust ourselves to choose wisely?  If we chose for ourselves, we might pick only trials we’ve already overcome or ones we are sure we can handle, but as Warren Wiersbe wrote: “We must not think that because we have overcome one kind of trial that we will automatically ‘win them all.’ Trials are varied, and God matches the trial to our strengths and needs.”[1]

Fortunately for all of us, God is the one who decides if, when, and why trials are “necessary.”  He decides whether we have trials, and only He knows all of the flaws in our faith and the best way for us to overcome them and grow in faith.  He ensures we face only “necessary” trials that test the “genuineness” of our faith and turn it into something “more precious than gold.”  These trials expose our impurities so that they may be removed.  Because of the words “if necessary,” we can rejoice in our salvation even when going through trials of all kinds.  They aren’t random or meaningless.

Therefore, we can rejoice even in our trials knowing they will “result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”  Any time we feel “grieved by various trials” we know they are temporary, and they serve God’s purpose for us.

Amen.

[1] Wiersbe, Warren.  Be Hopeful (1 Peter) (1982).  P. 35.