But If Not . . .

This year, a new song was released by MercyMe titled “Even If.” If you haven’t heard it yet, I’d encourage you to look it up. Premised upon the truth that God is our only hope no matter whether or not He intervenes in our lives in the ways we would like Him to, the lyrics allude to Daniel 3, which tells of three Jewish exiles who stood (literally) firm in their faith in the face of tremendous pressure to bow down and worship something other than God.

When faced with being thrown in a burning furnace as punishment for their disobedience to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego delivered a powerful response to Nebuchadnezzar’s question, “And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?” (Daniel 3:15b, ESV).

They replied, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up” (Daniel 3:16b-18, ESV, emphasis added).

But if not

Those are three words heavy with meaning. At first, the phrase seems contradictory because it comes right after the three men state with conviction that God will deliver them. If they’re so sure God is coming to their rescue, then why even consider the possibility that He won’t?

I think the posture these men take shows us the complexity of faith. They are 100% convinced that God is able to save them from the fire. Yet they are also thoroughly aware of the fact that it is God’s prerogative to do so—or not to do so—and they believe that God is the only one worthy of worship whether He saves them or not.

At first glance, this posture seems like an easy one to hold. Sure, we can say we believe God is all-powerful. And sure, we can agree that God is the only One truly deserving of worship. We can even acknowledge that God in His sovereignty gets to call the shots.

But what happens when, in His wisdom, His sovereignty involves not saving us from danger or taking away our pain? Are we still able to maintain our belief that He is able? If God had not rescued the Jewish men from their fiery grave, would their fellow Jews still have been convinced that God could have saved them?

Let’s make this a little more personal. When we pray and pray for God to heal a loved one, bodily, on this earth, and they die instead, do we still trust that He could have? When our hearts are wounded or thoroughly broken, and the pain remains for years and years, do we still believe that God could have and still can heal our wounds? When we are afflicted with recurring temptation and God refrains from hindering the enemy that tempts us, are we still convinced that He is more powerful than they?

Here our faith is put to the test, because if we believe that He can heal any illness, bind up any wound, deliver from temptation, then the question becomes, “Why doesn’t He?” And that is one of the most difficult questions to live with, because no matter how hard we try, we will not be able to fathom the infinite depths of the wisdom of God—which means the answer is, “We just don’t know.”

Sometimes in His grace, He gives us a glimpse, a “perhaps” moment where we can hazard a guess at what a small part of His purposes might be. But we will never truly know the full counsel of God’s understanding. So we are left to trust that His revelations about Himself are true—that He is just; He is love; He is truth; He is compassionate; He is not altogether like us (i.e. He is in a class all His own); He is all-knowing; and He is all-wise.

And when we are confronted with the magnitude of His power and the unfathomableness of His wisdom, we can’t help but stand in humility and awe. When we reach that point, we are able to embody the complexity of a faith fully convinced that God is able, even when He doesn’t answer our prayers in the way we were hoping. We can be confident that just because He doesn’t, doesn’t mean He can’t, and we can trust that if and when He doesn’t, it’s for a good and perfect reason—one that might involve pain and suffering but one that fits perfectly into His sovereign will.

Living out this complex faith is not the easiest thing in the world. In fact, it’s incredibly difficult. But praise God that He is also able to grant us the faith we need. So with the man in Jesus’ day who cried, “I believe; help my unbelief!” we can be honest with God who already knows our heart and our weakness (Mark 9:24b, ESV). We can tell Him when we are struggling in our faith and beseech Him to give us more.

And in our moments of doubt, we can preach to ourselves the truth of God’s Word and declare with the apostle Paul in Romans 11:33-36 (ESV), “Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

For who has known the mind of the Lord,

                or who has been his counselor?

                Or who has given a gift to him

                                that he might be repaid?

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.”

Photo credit: Keri-Lynn Paulson. Used with permission.

Family History and Faith

There are certain portions of the Bible that have a reputation for being a drudgery to read. Perhaps most commonly referred to in these terms is Leviticus, but a close second, based on my experience, is the genealogies.

Having just returned from the four-day National Genealogical Society’s annual Family History Conference, I’ve had genealogy on the brain lately, so I thought now would be a good time to share why my love for genealogy in general and some of my favorite attributes of God find their intersection in the genealogies of Scripture.

From an early age, my interest in genealogy has been strong. My mother has always told the story of my writing “Wow!” in Matthew 1, the chapter that contains a genealogy of Jesus. My memories of doing this are very faint, so I decided to dig my childhood Bible out of my closet. Sure enough, at the end of Matthew 1:17 (NIV), which reads, “Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah,” I had written with a green pen, “WOW!!”

Perhaps my enthrallment with tracing my own (and others’) family history can find its initial root in my fascination with this one chapter, which, in only sixteen verses, connects Jesus all the way back to Abraham (a span of around 2,000 years) using individual names. Whatever the case, I began researching my own family’s story sometime around 2003, and as discovery after discovery has been made, I’ve been amazed time and time again at the grace of God.

You see, the genealogies in the Bible might seem like dull lists of unpronounceable names, but in reality they contain so many clues to God’s character. So when I trace my family’s history or read the Bible’s genealogies, I am reminded of so many truths. Here are just a few:

1) God knows our names.

What we have in Matthew 1 is a microcosm of humanity. There are people named about whom we know a great deal (e.g. Isaac, Jacob, and Solomon), but there are also people who don’t show up anywhere else in Scripture, like Azor and his grandson Achim. There are those who were kings (e.g. David, Hezekiah), those who were nomads (e.g. Abraham), and those whose occupation is unknown (e.g. Matthan, Abiud). And each one of them is listed by name.

God could have had Matthew write only verse 17, summarizing the fact that there were fourteen generations each from Abraham to David, from David to the exile, and from the exile to Jesus, but instead He listed each individual by name. Of course, it would be presumptuous at best for me to say why God decided to include this information, but what I can say is that these verses remind me that no matter who we are, how well known we are during our lives, or how quickly we are forgotten after our deaths, God knows our names—and not just our names, but every detail about us, inside and out.

2) God is sovereign.

Have you ever thought about all the singular moments that had to line up just right for you even to exist? Take my 3x-great-grandfather Vasa B. Jones, for instance. A husband and father by the 1860s, he enlisted in the Union army during the Civil War, was soon-after captured by the Confederates, and spent the rest of the war being transported from one prison camp to another. But he survived and returned home to father another child--my 2x great-grandfather, Martin Luther Jones. If Vasa had perished, I wouldn’t be here.

Then there’s the fact that my great-grandfather, Bert Smith, almost moved his family to Australia for a job. Key word: almost. Instead, he moved them to Madison, West Virginia, where his daughter (my grandmother) would go on to meet her future husband (my grandfather and the grandson of the above-mentioned M. L. Jones). Again, if the Smiths had moved to Australia, I wouldn’t be here.

Stories like this remind me that God is completely in control. We exist when we exist where we exist because of Him. The biblical genealogies remind us of this as well. David could have been killed by Saul. Isaac could have been a lifelong bachelor. Zerubbabel could have perished in his return journey from exile. But instead, God preserved each of their lives long enough for a new generation to be brought forth, and through them He carried out His plan to send His Son into the world, which brings me to another point--

3) God is faithful.

Closely related to God’s sovereignty is His faithfulness. He is a God of His word. The names of Abraham and David by themselves don’t tell us much, but when we learn the life stories of each of these men, we see how God made promises to each of them having to do with their descendants (and one Descendant in particular). The genealogy of Jesus shows us God’s faithfulness in keeping His promises.

4) God is gracious.

Many people embark upon genealogical endeavors in the hopes of finding some illustrious or royal ancestry, but, more often than not, unearthed instead are individuals of a more scandalous nature--not that royalty are immune from scandal by any means. In my case, the scandal comes into play again during the Civil War with my cousin’s discovery that one of our civilian, Confederate-sympathizing, West Virginia ancestors, Henry Kuhl, was made an example of by the Union military court and hanged for murdering a lad who was supposedly a Union soldier.

Judged an accomplice in the act was Henry’s son Conrad, but since witnesses testified that Conrad played a part in the crime only because he was afraid of his father, he was given a lighter sentence--hard labor for the duration of the war instead of hanging. Like Vasa, Conrad survived. But unlike Vasa, he was not yet married at the time of his imprisonment. The fact that he wasn’t hanged along with his father but rather lived to marry and have my great-great-grandmother is another reminder of God’s sovereignty, but the stain of murder in my line is also a reminder of God’s grace.

This grace is all the more evident in the genealogy of Jesus where we see people with all sorts of baggage--Jacob, Rahab, Solomon, just to name a few. Even the conceptions resulting from sinful acts of Tamar and David were redeemed by God’s grace not only in producing life but in including that life in the lineage of the God-man. In actuality, there is not one blameless person in Jesus’s line except for him. And yet God gave each of them the blessing of being part of the means by which God would save the world.

Our genealogical heritage might not involve something as significant as God becoming flesh, but nonetheless there are evidences of God’s grace in our lives every day. Our sin does not have to define us, and while it can and often does affect our descendants, it does not have to define them either. God’s mercies are new every morning, for every individual, through every generation. He is greater than we and greater than our sin. And thank God, He is gracious.

So the next time you come upon the genealogies while you’re reading through the Bible, take a moment to ponder what they reveal about God. And as you learn more and more about your own family’s story, look for the glimpses of God’s omniscience, sovereignty, faithfulness, and grace. You just might fall in love with family history, or even better, with God Himself.

 

                  Vasa B. Jones                             Bert Smith                                   Henry Kuhl*

*Henry Kuhl Photo Credit: Lila Powers, "To Make an Example of Them," Orlando, West Virginia, June 18, 2011 (http://orlandostonesoup.blogspot.com/2011/06/to-make-example-of-them.html : accessed March 3, 2021).

The Revealer

Two weeks ago, we looked at an all-important question, introducing the topic with a glimpse at how driven we humans are by questions. Of the the six well-known questions of “who, what, when, where, why, and how,” I’d venture a guess that the most frequently asked question—by children and adults alike—is “Why?” and more specifically, “Why did this happen?”

It’s a question that, again, I’d venture to guess almost every person has asked at one time or another. And most of the time, it’s in the context of wanting to know why something that we perceive as bad has transpired.

For Christians and non-Christians alike, this “why” is often directed at God. After all, who better to ask why something occurred than the One who is omniscient? But usually, we are not granted an answer in the way we would like.

I don’t know about you, but God generally doesn’t spell out to me His reasons for planning or allowing things to happen in my life. Sometimes, I can look back and surmise that a certain outcome or effect I have observed might have been part of God’s reasoning, but even then it is always cushioned with the word “perhaps.”

Is it wrong of us to ask why things happen? I don’t think so. But I do think that we can get ourselves into trouble when we think we deserve an answer.

News Flash: God does not owe us explanations for anything. We are not entitled to have our questions answered by the Creator of the universe.

That might rub us the wrong way, because we tend to think pretty highly of ourselves, but recognizing that truth makes the next news flash all the more amazing:

News Flash #2: God has already revealed answers to many of our questions, asked and unasked.

Have you ever noticed how many times in Scripture the words “so that” show up? It’s a lot. And every time you see those two little words, you’ll find an explanation of the reason something happened, the purpose for it, the “why.”

There are other instances in the Bible, too, where God does spell out to people what He’s doing. For instance, in 2 Samuel 7, God reveals to David through Nathan the prophet that his descendants would reign forever (i.e. that the Promised One would come through David’s line). And David, upon learning this, praises the Lord, saying, “For the sake of your word and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made it known to your servant” (2 Samuel 7:21, NIV).

Did you catch that? Not only was God doing something, but He was making it known.

This verse got me thinking—look at what else God has made known to us! A year ago this week, I wrote a post exploring some of the biggest things He has revealed (His standards, our need for a Savior, and how we can be saved). These are all articulated in His Word, which as a whole is a marvelous communication of who God is, what He’s like, and what He desires, but He has filled His Word with countless other revelations, too!

And as if that weren’t enough, the Bible (a.k.a “special revelation”) is not the only thing God has revealed to us. He has also given us the ability to discover truths about the way His creation operates. He has designed us to be able to solve problems and has made many answers available for us to seek out. Just think of all the scientific laws of nature He has allowed us to uncover. Think of the inquiries into the past in the fields of archaeology and history He has permitted to be successful. Think of the discoveries in anatomy and medicine He has enabled.

And we were not owed any of it. What a gracious God He is!

So the next time we start to get a chip on our shoulder from feeling as if God isn’t giving us the answers we think we deserve, let’s stop a moment and remember who we really are and who He really is. Let’s decide to praise Him for being infinitely more wise than we will ever be. And instead of complaining about what He hasn’t revealed to us, why don’t we choose to marvel at what He has?

One All-Important Question, Two Life-Changing Responses

Our lives revolve around questions. Spending thirty minutes with a toddler is enough to remind us of this reality. Questions from the mouths of children are so frequent that rattling off one after another has become stereotypical of our younger counterparts, but, if we’re honest, we have to acknowledge that as we grow older we hardly ease up on the question-formulating.

Maybe we don’t express our questions as frequently as we did when absolutely everything was new and unknown, but certainly we still have questions. How can I get this to work? How long will it take me to do such-and-such? Where is that? Who knew? When was such-and-such invented? Why didn’t so-and-so respond the way I thought they would? What happened? Who should I talk to about this problem? Why did this happen?

But of all the questions that run through our minds on a daily basis, there is one question that is of supreme importance. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s the most important question we could ever ask, because its ramifications for our lives are of the most profound nature.

Literally it is a very simple question—just three or four words, and short ones at that. But conceptually it’s loaded—and massively so. Furthermore, it happens to be one that we can find in Scripture. So let’s take a look . . .

Exodus 5 picks up the history of the Israelites at the point when they are on the cusp of deliverance from four hundred years of bondage to the Egyptians. Moses, a Hebrew who was raised by Egyptian royalty and fled the nation after committing murder, has just met with God in the wilderness and has been given the task of returning to Egypt to go before Pharaoh and demand the Israelites’ release.

Accompanied by his brother Aaron, he does just that, as we see in Exodus 5:1 when he says, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness’” (ESV). Pharaoh’s response to this command is to ask a question—you guessed it—the most important question of all: “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go?”

Who is the LORD?

Pharaoh isn’t the only one to ask this question, though. Fast-forward a millennium and a half or so, and we arrive in Luke during Jesus’ time on earth. Jesus, being the human that He was, was taking a snooze in a boat that was transporting Him and His disciples across a lake. Meanwhile, a storm developed with high-speed winds creating fierce waves that began filling the boat. Fearing for their lives, they woke Jesus with exclamations of impending doom. So Jesus, being the God that He was, ordered the wind and waves to settle down, and they did, causing the disciples to say in fear and amazement, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?” (Luke 8:22-25, ESV).

Who is this?

In both of these instances, the question was the same, but the responses differ, as do the postures from which the question was asked. See, Pharaoh had already decided the answer to this question in his heart before he voiced it out loud. His tone was akin to that of Goliath’s, who scoffed at David, “Am I dog, that you come at me with sticks?”  (1 Samuel 17:43, ESV). As far as Pharaoh was concerned, God was not someone who had any authority over him—or any right to presume authority over him. Pharaoh had decided that this Yahweh was not worthy of obedience or even of respect. He was not important enough to be considered.

The disciples, however, demonstrated more genuine curiosity and awe in their asking. They recognized that Jesus was someone who had authority over creation itself, and as their story continues to unfold in the gospels, we see them arrive at the conclusion that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the Son of God (see Matthew 16:15-16).  They decided that this Jesus was deserving of worship and worthy of their very lives. 

Now, another millennium later, we are faced with the same question. Who is God? And who is Jesus? God has graciously spelled out the answer to this question in Scripture, but it is up to us to determine whether or not we believe the answer to be true—and to realize how our answers affect our lives.

Do we believe that “He is the King of glory” (Psalm 24:8)? If we do, then we honor Him.

Do we believe that He is, “the Alpha and the Omega […] who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” Revelation 1:8)? If we do, then we worship Him—and if we do, then we can rest in the knowledge that He is in control of all things, always has been, and always will be.

Do we believe that He is the Bread of Life (John 6:35)? If we do, then our souls can be satisfied in Him.

Do we believe that He is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29)? If we do, then we can trust in Him for salvation and forgiveness.

C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity includes a paragraph that often has been summarized to say that Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. That is to say, He made specific claims about Himself, and either He was dishonest in those claims, He was crazy, or He was right. We are confronted with those claims, and we must decide what we will do with them.

Will we ignore them, living our lives for ourselves and striving in our own strength to make it through each day? Will we discount them, telling ourselves that we answer to no one or that we are here for no other reason than to be happy while we can? Or will we accept them, recognizing that God’s absolute power and holiness means we cannot stand in His presence without some outside intervention, that His perfect justice demands the penalty be paid for our grievances against Him, and that His profound mercy and unending love have provided a way for us to stand in His presence through the perfect life, substitutionary death, and victorious resurrection of the God-man, Jesus Christ?

The question, “Who is Jesus/God?” is so significant because it has both immediate implications for our daily lives and eternal implications for our souls. Our answers determine who and what we live for, what we value most, how we make each decision in our lives, and what our fate will be when we die.

Today, Jesus is essentially asking each one of us, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matt. 16:15). What will your response be?

To read the Arabic translation of this post, click here.

لقراءة الترجمة العربية لهذا المنشور إضغط هنا.

Be Slow as Molasses…to Anger

Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase “slow as molasses.” Usually, the expression is used to articulate frustration that something or someone is not moving as quickly as we would like them to. If you’ve never looked into the ironic origin of the phrase, look up the Great Molasses Flood of 1919—fascinating story. But I digress. 

In our fast-paced American culture, being slow moving is not the most admired trait. Even in the Christian life, there are many things we are to be quick to do—to listen, to love, to be kind, to pray—but there are some cases when slowness is desirable, and the one I’d like to focus on today is being angry.

Our culture is so obsessed with “being true to ourselves,” which usually involves expressing our “authentic” feelings, that we often accept anger as a good, healthy response simply because it is our most natural response. But we must be wary of looking to our current cultural context as the standard of health over and against the standard of Scripture. Take a look at Proverbs 19:11.

“Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense” (ESV).

Did you catch that? This verse tells us that being slow to become angry is an indication of having good sense and that it is actually praiseworthy not to react in anger. But wait—there’s more . . .

“Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly” (Prov. 14:29, ESV).

“A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention” (Prov. 15:18, ESV).

“Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city” (Prov. 16:32, ESV).

Yeah, but those are just descriptive verses making observations about the way things are, you might be thinking; they’re not telling me to be slow to anger. True, but James is.

“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;” (James 1:19, ESV).

Likewise, God tells us numerous times through Paul to put away anger (see Ephesians 4:31, Colossians 3:8, 1 Timothy 2:8, etc.). Okay, but if someone hurts me, I have a right to be angry. What’s the big deal about being angry when someone does me wrong?  I am so glad you asked.

There are plenty of reasons we should be wary of this vice (not to mention the mere fact that God tells us to put it away from ourselves). For starters, anger is a trap. It might feel good for a moment, and we might feel justified in embracing it, but it has a relentless grip once it takes hold of a soul, and it spawns something perhaps even more devastating: bitterness. These two feed off of each other—and off of us—souring our attitude, tainting our perspective, paralyzing our prayer life, suffocating our spirits, stifling our growth, and destroying our witness. Anger is not to be taken lightly.

The next verse in James gives another reason why we should be slow to anger: “for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20, ESV). Why do we care about producing the righteousness of God? Because as Christians, we are called to exhibit God’s righteousness in greater and greater degrees as He molds, shapes, and transforms us into the likeness of Christ (aka God). And guess what—God is slow to anger.

The verse that immediately comes to mind referencing this attribute of God is Exodus 34:17, where God is revealing and describing Himself to Moses: “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,” (ESV).

Upon further investigation, though, there are so many more references to God’s being slow to anger. Rather than spell out all of them here, I’ll just list them and let you dig into your own copy of God’s Word. Check out Numbers 14:18, Nehemiah 9:17, Psalm 86:15, Psalm 103:8, Psalm 145:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2, and Nahum 1:3.

So it’s pretty clear that being slow to anger is a good thing. But what does that look like? 
Well, I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I can tell you from experience that it’s not pretty . . .

Several years ago, the Lord led me through a period of deep emotional pain where anger and bitterness were constantly clambering at the door of my mind and heart. Some days, I gave in, but other days, by the grace of God, the greatest desire of my spirit was to resist. I kept hearing the words of my former pastor Dr. Adrian Rogers that storms and struggles in life will either make you bitter or make you better, and I was determined not to become a bitter young woman. But let me tell you, it. was. hard.

Never before had I experienced such an intense internal struggle or such a strong, almost palpable, awareness of the existence of both my flesh and the Spirit. They were warring against each other, and the battle was fierce. To many observers and companions through this particular storm, I had every reason to be angry. My hurt was incredibly real and the cause of it seemingly unjust.

But God in His abundant patience poured out His grace in my life as He took the chisel to my heart, showing me the magnitude of my own grievances against Him and the utter lack of any right whatsoever that I had to hold a grudge against others, no matter how deep and painful the wounds they inflicted.

My flesh was not a fan of that notion, wanting to cling to a sense of entitlement, curl up in a ball, and lick my wounds, but the Spirit was doing His work, fulfilling God’s promise to guide me into truth, help me in my weakness, and continue the work of shaping me into someone presentable before Himself.

You see, He had called me years earlier, when I became His child, “to put off [my] old self, which belongs to [my] former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires [e.g. those that say that being angry will make me feel better, that justifying my cause will take away the pain, that holding grudges and putting up walls around my heart will keep me safe and make me stronger], and to be renewed in the spirit of [my mind], and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24, ESV). And now He was bringing that calling to bear in my life—a calling that included being slow to anger.

Full disclosure: Was I angry at periods during that season? Yes. Did I have a right to be, by the world’s standards? Yes. Was my self-focused anger pleasing to God? No. But, praise His name, He gave me the strength to repent and resist the forces that sought to harden my heart. It was messy and exhausting, both spiritually and physically. 

In short, it was far from pretty—but it was beautiful.

Why do I share all of this? Because I’m convinced that anger and bitterness are some of the enemy’s greatest weapons, and I am just as convinced that He who is in us is greater than our enemy and his traps (1 Jn. 4:4). The same Spirit that is in me is the same Spirit that is in every child of God, and if He could help me prevail in the struggle all those years ago, He can help all of His children.

I am living proof that He is strong and faithful, for I know without a shadow of a doubt that His grace is the only way I was able to fight and prevail. Sharing this piece of my story is in no way to say, “Look at me,” but rather to say, “Look to Him!” His grace is sufficient, beloved!

Does all of this mean we should never acknowledge our anger? By no means! Does this mean we should always feel guilty when anger is our response? Not necessarily. But it does mean that anger is something we should not blindly embrace in the name of “being true to ourselves.” It does mean that we should examine our hearts, bare our souls before our Savior, and let Him point out to us when our anger is unrighteous, i.e. when it is self-serving, self-justifying, and self-focused (and no, anger over wrongs done to those we love is not always selfless).

We should fight against its chains with every ounce of our weakness and His abundant strength, because this is the fight we were purchased for. Make no mistake, it will be painful. It will involve relinquishing perceived rights. It will require letting go. But, oh friend, the prize to be gained is worth so much more than whatever you are holding onto. The joy and peace to be found in Jesus is indescribably good. The freedom to be found in handing over those burdens and chains to our resurrected Savior is matchless.

Do not be lulled into the trap of anger.  Do not be afraid of acknowledging your weakness to the One who already knows its depths. Do not hesitate to wrestle in the strength of the Spirit against the forces of evil that seek to disarm you. Trust in the Lord and His strength. Kneel in submission and prayer, and stand up to fight. Be slow to anger and quick to run to Him. Trust me, it is worth it. He is worth it.

He is worth it all.

To read the Arabic translation of this post, click here.

لقراءة الترجمة العربية لهذا المنشور إضغط هنا.

  

Lessons from Literature: Sending or Savoring? (An Old-Fashioned Girl)

Previously in the “Lessons from Literature” series, we’ve looked at a lesson to be gleaned from the characters and one provided by an author’s editorialization. This time, as we turn to Louisa May Alcott’s 1870 novel An Old-Fashioned Girl, we see a lesson that can be learned from the author’s decision-making process (into which she so conveniently happens to give her readers a glimpse).

Once again, making the point requires a spoiler, so consider yourself forewarned. Nevertheless, I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, so I’ll simply share that Polly, the female protagonist, and Tom, the male one, have spent a year apart after becoming acquainted over the course of years and secretly falling for each other. Thus, they have been tortured over the past year, thinking that their feelings were not reciprocated or, worse, were directed toward others.

Suddenly, Tom returns, and he and Polly spend the evening in the company of Tom’s family. As the evening draws to a close, Polly is standing in the dining room preparing to depart, when Tom enters and soon declares his love for her:

“Do you want to know the name of the girl I’ve loved for more than a year? Well, it’s Polly!” As he spoke Tom stretched out his arms to her with the sort of mute eloquence that cannot be resisted, and Polly went straight into them without a word. (338)

And, here, Alcott makes her decision. Instead of continuing to describe the scene in detail, she writes:

Never mind what happened for a little bit. Love scenes, if genuine, are indescribable, for to those who have enacted them, the most elaborate description seems tame, and to those who have not, the simplest picture seems overdone. So romancers had better let imagination paint for them that which is above all art and leave their lovers to themselves during the happiest minutes of their lives. (338-339)

Even during the height of the Victorian era, Alcott’s readers no doubt would have appreciated a more detailed accounting, but she decides to step back and give her characters some privacy instead. In other words, she recognized that not everything in life had to be published.

Now the most immediately apparent and directly corresponding lesson might be something along the lines of respecting the privacy of couples and not expecting them to share all the minute details about their dates, their engagement, their honeymoon, their everyday life, etc.

But the lesson that first came to mind, prompting this post, is the recognition that some things are meant to be savored, not sent.

This reality was first brought to my attention by a chapel speaker during my time in college who pointed out the effect social media has had on our ability to enjoy the moment. For example, instead of soaking in the sunset, we’re too busy trying to fit just the right portion of it in our frame for a post-worthy photo. Instead of absorbing all the sights and sounds of a celebrity encounter, we’re too busy trying to capture the person’s image to prove and/or boast that the encounter did, in fact, happen.

Ever since that day in chapel, the speaker’s message has stuck with me, because it’s so true. How often do we think in terms of social media posts, or, put another way, how often do we do things that we wouldn’t normally do just because we could post about it on social media?

Even that extreme aside, how often do we focus more on documenting moments than we do on living them? Or worse, how often do we miss the still, small whisper of God because we are consumed with snapping a photo before the moment flies by? These are penetrating questions, but ones worth wrestling with.

Don’t get me wrong, as a historian and archivist the impulse to document moments is a strong and often useful one, but I have come to realize that sometimes there is more value in absorbing the full measure of a moment than there is in rushing to document it. As Alcott so elegantly wrote, some things are “above all art,” so trying to capture them and force them into written words or a conglomeration of pixels not only is futile but also detracts from the moment’s poignancy.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that we should never record videos, post pictures, or write entries in our journals. There are certainly appropriate times to do each of these things. But sometimes we should consider what we are missing when we choose to publish instead of pause. What moments we squander when we neglect to savor them and instead send them across the web!

So let's learn a lesson from Louisa May Alcott and leave some things undescribed. Who knows what raptures await?

Citation: Alcott, Louisa May. An Old-Fashioned Girl. New York: Puffin, 2004.

Beautiful Blessings: A Closer Look at the Beatitudes

Opening Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes (found in Matthew 5:2-12) comprise probably one of the more well-known passages of Scripture in the culture at large today. The refrains, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” “Blessed are the merciful,” and “Blessed are the peacemakers” are phrases that I would guess many people would recognize, even if they didn’t know where the phrases came from.

For Christians who have grown up in church, the Beatitudes are one of those passages that it’s easy to breeze right by, having heard them scores and scores of times. For me, they’ve always been verses that were comforting—after all, who wouldn’t want to read about blessings?—but ones that were also a little confusing.

The way I had read them (and often had heard them spoken about), made it seem like the blessings to be had were general, unspecified bits of goodness that were bestowed upon people who fit the description in the rest of the phrase—mourners who were comforted, meek who would inherit the earth, pure in heart who would see God, etc. The second Beatitude in particular, left me with questions: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (v. 4). Why would being comforted in mourning be something God would bless you for? I thought.

Ah, but then one day I had a lightbulb moment reading the verses I had read countless times before, and I realized that I had been misreading them all along. More specifically, I had been misreading one word all along, and that word made all the difference. . . .

“For” is a tricky little word in the English language. It can be both a preposition (as in, “I made this for you!”), or it can be a conjunction (as in, “She was tired, for she had not slept well the night before.”)  The latter is how we see it in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (v. 3). But even in its role as a conjunction, “for” can have various implications.

To say, “She was tired, for she had not slept well the night before,” is to say that the reason she was tired is that she hadn’t slept well. But to say, “The film was acclaimed, for it won an academy award,” is to say that the way in which the film was praised was through its being awarded an Oscar.

Prior to my lightbulb moment, I had been reading the Beatitudes according to the first implication. That is, I took “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy,” to mean that the reason the merciful will be blessed is that they will receive mercy. No wonder I was confused!

As I came to realize my error, I saw that the second part of each sentence is not telling the reason why a person will be blessed; it is explaining the manner in which the person is blessed!

So the poor in spirit are blessed in that the kingdom of heaven is theirs (v. 3).

Those who mourn are blessed with comfort (v.4).

Those who are meek are blessed with the earth as their inheritance (v.5).

Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed with satisfaction (v.6).

The merciful are blessed through being shown mercy (v.7).

The pure in heart are blessed by seeing God (v.8).

The peacemakers are blessed in that they are adopted by God (v.9).

Those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness are blessed with the kingdom of heaven (v.10).

See how a proper understanding of that one little word completely changes the meaning and significance of the passage?

Furthermore, with this understanding nailed down, we can begin to discover other truths about these blessings. First of all, they are passive. In other words, they are gifts, not something that the person receiving the gift does for himself. (Incidentally, this is another huge clue that the “for” refers to the “manner in which” instead of the “reason why.”) Comfort, satisfaction, and mercy are things that do not come from within us ourselves. Likewise, adoption and the corresponding inheritance of the earth, the kingdom of heaven and face-time with God are things that are bestowed upon us. They are gifts of grace.

Secondly, the blessings are distinctly spiritual. None of them include tangible things. So if you’re looking for something to support the prosperity gospel mindset that if you love God and do what’s right, He’ll make you—to borrow a phrase from Benjamin Franklin—“healthy, wealthy, and wise,” there’s nothing to help you here. And really, this should be no surprise, given what God tells us elsewhere in His Word. For instance, through the apostle Paul, He has told us that He “has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3, ESV, emphasis added).

Yes, every good thing we have is from God (see James 1:17), including physical comforts, but the blessings that are far more consequential and enduring are those of a spiritual nature such as conviction, forgiveness, love, mercy, peace, satisfaction, joy, and comfort, not to mention the ability to enter into the presence of God and to do so without shame.

There’s so much more that could be written about the Beatitudes—my dad once spent about ten weeks teaching through them on Sunday mornings!—like how they are structured intentionally, beginning and ending with the kingdom of heaven; how they are related to persecution; how they illustrate the progression of sanctification (i.e. growth in holiness) in the life of a Christian, and so much more.

But for now, I’ll just leave you to ponder these blessings that are yours in Christ Jesus, for they are beautiful blessings, indeed.