Tag: trust

Faith Helps Us Take the Long View of Life (Hebrews 11:23-28)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
Moses is saved from the water by Pharaoh’s daughter, by Marc Chagall, 1966

It was by faith that Moses’ parents hid him for three months when he was born. They saw that God had given them an unusual child, and they were not afraid to disobey the king’s command.

It was by faith that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to share the oppression of God’s people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin. He thought it was better to suffer for the sake of Christ than to own the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to his great reward. It was by faith that Moses left the land of Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger. He kept right on going because he kept his eyes on the one who is invisible. It was by faith that Moses commanded the people of Israel to keep the Passover and to sprinkle blood on the doorposts so that the angel of death would not kill their firstborn sons. (New Living Translation)

Sometimes we can’t see beyond the end of our nose. We get lost in the here-and-now worries of the moment. We need a better view.

Taking a long view of life happens whenever we place our faith in permanent and ultimate realities, and not merely live by what feels good or drives our anxiety in the temporal moment.

To have faith is to possess an indefatigable and unflagging trust in someone’s ability to achieve a desired outcome. The author of Hebrews describes it this way:

No one can please God without faith, for whoever comes to God must have faith that God exists and rewards those who seek him.

Hebrews 11:6, GNT

Faith looks ahead and sees as clearly as whatever is right now in front of your face. People of faith have the ability to take the long view of life, knowing that God has their backs. The mature person of faith can set aside temporary pleasure to attain a future hope. 

Moses, held up by the writer of Hebrews as an example of such faith, refused to identify himself as the daughter of Pharaoh. He chose to be mistreated in solidarity with his fellow Israelites, instead of having a good time with his high position in the most powerful empire of its day. Moses knew that the treasures of Egypt were not as wonderful as what he would receive from suffering for the sake of Messiah, and he looked forward to his reward.

It’s an understatement to say that our contemporary society embraces instant gratification. We want to feel good, and we want it now. Impulse control may just be one of the best life skills that kids (and adults!) need to learn in society. And one of the most effective ways to distract ourselves from a tempting pleasure we don’t want to indulge, is by focusing on another pleasure.

For the Christian who desires to follow Jesus in all things, looking ahead to better days is a confidence booster, namely because Jesus is better and superior to all things. This isn’t some wistful fanciful notion of positive thinking; this faith is based in the person and work of Christ. Spiritual endurance and perseverance through difficulty will have a reward – and it will be shared along with all of God’s people. 

But if we only consider today and what’s in it for me right now, there are scant resources for responding to the temptations and fluctuations of life. We must put some planning and energy into clarifying and embracing our most cherished values. Then, those values shall inform everything we do, or not do. In the scope of eternity, suffering a bit now is nothing compared to what Christ has yet in store for his people.

Deferred gratification causes us to live differently. In a twist of irony, folks who orient themselves toward the unseen world to come are able to effectively impact and change the visible world they currently reside within – whereas those who focus solely on this present world find themselves falling woefully short with their truncated view of life. We need the wisdom which faith provides us:

We are always confident, because we know that while we are living in the body, we are away from our home with the Lord. We live by faith and not by sight. We are confident, and we would prefer to leave the body and to be at home with the Lord. So, our goal is to be acceptable to him, whether we are at home or away from home. We all must appear before Christ in court so that each person can be paid back for the things that were done while in the body, whether they were good or bad. (2 Corinthians 5:6-10, CEB)

Future hope, fueled by faith, gives shape to how we live today. It enables us to live in solidarity with those who suffer and are mistreated. It ennobles us to live above short-sighted desires and act on behalf of the common good of all persons in the here-and-now.

Lord God Almighty, the One who is and was and is to come, may we, along with your servant Moses, see the plight of all those who suffer in our midst. Give us courage and compassion to live in solidarity with the poor, the oppressed, the forgotten, and all who live with misfortune and misery. May our hearts, burning with love, bear the burdens of all in our care. And may our loving example ignite the hearts of others to accompany the vulnerable in their affliction. We ask this in the gracious name of Jesus through the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen.

Some Well-Ordered Wisdom (Psalm 37:1-17)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

Don’t be worried on account of the wicked;
    don’t be jealous of those who do wrong.
They will soon disappear like grass that dries up;
    they will die like plants that wither.

Trust in the Lord and do good;
    live in the land and be safe.
Seek your happiness in the Lord,
    and he will give you your heart’s desire.

Give yourself to the Lord;
    trust in him, and he will help you;
he will make your righteousness shine like the noonday sun.

Be patient and wait for the Lord to act;
    don’t be worried about those who prosper
    or those who succeed in their evil plans.

Don’t give in to worry or anger;
    it only leads to trouble.
Those who trust in the Lord will possess the land,
    but the wicked will be driven out.

Soon the wicked will disappear;
    you may look for them, but you won’t find them;
but the humble will possess the land
    and enjoy prosperity and peace.

The wicked plot against good people
    and glare at them with hate.
But the Lord laughs at wicked people,
    because he knows they will soon be destroyed.

The wicked draw their swords and bend their bows
    to kill the poor and needy,
    to slaughter those who do what is right;
but they will be killed by their own swords,
    and their bows will be smashed.

The little that a good person owns
    is worth more than the wealth of all the wicked,
because the Lord will take away the strength of the wicked,
    but protect those who are good. (Good News Translation)

Today’s Psalm feels as if it could be in the book of Proverbs; it’s chocked full of wisdom sayings. And wisdom is most definitely something you, me, and the entire world needs. Indeed, we have enough fools around us running their mouths with a bunch of gobbledygook that’s nonsensical and meaningless.

We need helpful language and well-ordered words which reflect our ordered creation.

The underlying assumption of all biblical wisdom literature is that our world has been created by God with a material and moral order built into it.

That means that to buck this order is stupid and foolish. Somebody who walks off the roof of their house because they don’t believe in gravity will experience the harsh reality of that belief. Likewise, anyone who walks any old way they want in this world, without regard to the divine force operating within it, is going to experience a broken spirit.

Our human well-being depends on knowing the ordered creation we inhabit. There are social expectations which need to be realized in order to conform and be in sync with the natural (and supernatural!) universal rhythms all around us. Those expectations are framed for us as wisdom sayings.

Our actions and inactions have consequences. It’s our task to gain experiential knowledge as we move about this earth and interact with others. Notice I did not say we need to be perfect. No, instead, we are continually in a mode of improvement – seeking and learning to be better and do better.

And one of the things we all must discover is that our own personal actions and attitudes effects the entire surrounding community.

Biblical wisdom literature communicates how we receive blessing and how we hold onto it. True wisdom is to live in a responsible awareness of both Creator and creation – and then to make appropriate choices which will bless God and others.

So, in our Psalm for today, we have some wise choices to make that put us in the groove of how things are ordered and established:

  • Don’t worry about the evil simpletons around you. Why? Because in the Lord’s well-ordered world, the wicked cannot and will not survive; their end is certain, just as sure as death and taxes.

Those who are evil—
they are like straw
    blown by the wind.
Sinners won’t have an excuse
    on the day of judgment,
and they won’t have a place
    with the people of God.
The Lord protects everyone
    who follows him,
but the wicked follow a road
    that leads to ruin. (Psalm 1:4-6, CEV)

  • Trust the Lord. Everything changes. Everyone is fickle. Why trust? Because God, unlike everything and everyone else, is consistent, stable, and always true to character.

Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
    don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;
    he’s the one who will keep you on track. (Proverbs 3:5-6, MSG)

  • Be patient and wait on the Lord. Why? Because God is good, all the time, and has only good plans in mind for you and me. We short circuit what God is doing whenever we fail to have patience.

Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. (James 5:7-8, NIV)

The best things in life are internal, not external. One’s inner well-being, peace of mind, emotional awareness, and spiritual health are worth infinitely more than any title, position, wealth, or delusions of control.

A well-ordered life comes from tapping into the divine resources available to us.

Grant us patience, O Lord, to follow the road you have taken. Let our confidence not rest in our own understanding but in your guiding hand; let our desires not be for our own comfort, but for the joy of your kingdom; for your cross is our hope and our joy now and unto the day of eternity. Amen.

– A Prayer of St. Augustine

Shining the Light on Fear (Psalm 27:1-6)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

The Lord is my light and my salvation.
        Should I fear anyone?
    The Lord is a fortress protecting my life.
        Should I be frightened of anything?
When evildoers come at me trying to eat me up—
    it’s they, my foes and my enemies,
    who stumble and fall!
If an army camps against me,
        my heart won’t be afraid.
    If war comes up against me,
        I will continue to trust in this:
    I have asked one thing from the Lord—
    it’s all I seek:
        to live in the Lord’s house all the days of my life,
        seeing the Lord’s beauty
        and constantly adoring his temple.
Because he will shelter me in his own dwelling
    during troubling times;
    he will hide me in a secret place in his own tent;
        he will set me up high, safe on a rock.

Now my head is higher than the enemies surrounding me,
    and I will offer sacrifices in God’s tent—
        sacrifices with shouts of joy!
    I will sing and praise the Lord. (Common English Bible)

Being afraid of the dark is a common fear. After all, whenever we cannot see anything around us, then we don’t know what’s really there – and that’s understandably frightening for most people. Typically, it’s not what we see that’s so scary; the scary stuff is what our imagination conjures up that’s out there in the dark, which we cannot see.

Kids, with their curiously active imaginations, tend to be fearful of the dark – which is why we parents, and grandparents, ensure there’s a nightlight for them so they can sleep. The light illumines their surroundings, reminding them of where they are; the light also helps them remember that we are with them.

As children of God, we need the same reminders. We must continually check-in with our internal selves, reorienting our lives around the reality that the Lord is present, that Jesus is our Immanuel, God with us.

Having the Light of the World surrounding us provides confidence that God is watching and will save us from whatever threatens our life. Indeed, being immersed in the Lord helps us snuggle down and realize our ultimate security blanket holds us tight.

Not only do we have confidence with God’s presence, but we are also fearless in the face of the most adverse and scary of circumstances. Knowing that God has our back enables us to accept, cope, and transcend overwhelming situations.

God protects because God is present.

Admittedly, we don’t have all the answers as to why the Lord sometimes seems absent in the midst of our trouble. That’s maybe because God is a Being, a Person, and not an insurance policy. Ultimately, personal presence and protection is a whole lot better than the impersonal and legal sort.

Which is why it’s important to delight in the Lord, to enjoy being in God’s house, to bask in the beauty of divine holiness, righteousness, and justice. With this as our way of life, we tend to better understand that not everything is necessarily going to go right but that the Lord is alongside us, giving strength and hope.

It’s important to note that divergent emotions can be held together. Many folks tend to believe that if there is fear within the heart, then faith, courage, and praise cannot exist. But nothing could be further from the truth.

The more likely scenario is that trying to suppress feelings of fear only results in becoming more afraid; thus, leading to forced or manufactured praise with little to no bravery behind it.

Instead, the sage thing to do is acknowledge whatever emotions bubble up for us. That is our inner spirit’s way of alerting us that we must pay attention to something. Ignoring the fear makes the monster under the bed more fearsome.

Being aware of the emotion and acknowledging it brings options and choices. Getting it out there to actually feel it means that now we can choose what we’re going to do with the emotion. Hiding the fear only gives it power; naming the fear gives us control over it.

This is one reason why I believe it is significant to read the psalms out loud; it provides more fortitude in dealing with what’s in front of us.

Holding both our fears and our faith together enables us to face our troubles with wisdom and courage. If attacked – whether it be spiritual, emotional, mental, or physical – the worst thing to do is grin and bear it or plaster a fake smile on your face.

It’s okay to be conflicted, to wonder what the heck is going on, to not know what’s up or down, to live with the seeming incongruence of emotions.

Healing comes through feeling, speaking, and acting – and not by suppressing emotions, keeping words bottled up inside, and acting as though everything is peachy keen when it isn’t. Expressing words of trust in the Lord, without having first expressed words describing our emotions, is a fool’s errand. If we trust God to answer a prayer, then we also need to trust God in hearing our real emotions.

God encourages honesty, sincerity, and feeling; the Lord disparages ingenuine offerings of praise and inauthentic gestures merely meant to fake-it-till-you-make-it. The psalmist encourages us to express all our emotions – whether “positive” or “negative” – and find the empathy, solidarity, and healing we need.

God is our light. So, let’s not keep him in the dark about our real selves.

Perfect Peace (Isaiah 26:1-9)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

In that day, everyone in the land of Judah will sing this song:

Our city is strong!
    We are surrounded by the walls of God’s salvation.
Open the gates to all who are righteous;
    allow the faithful to enter.
You will keep in perfect peace
    all who trust in you,
    all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
Trust in the Lord always,
    for the Lord God is the eternal Rock.
He humbles the proud
    and brings down the arrogant city.
    He brings it down to the dust.
The poor and oppressed trample it underfoot,
    and the needy walk all over it.

But for those who are righteous,
    the way is not steep and rough.
You are a God who does what is right,
    and you smooth out the path ahead of them.
Lord, we show our trust in you by obeying your laws;
    our heart’s desire is to glorify your name.
In the night I search for you;
    in the morning I earnestly seek you.
For only when you come to judge the earth
    will people learn what is right. (New Living Translation)

Peace comes through trust; faith is the smooth path to settled rest and wholeness of being.

We all, of course, want peace. Personal peace. Family peace. National peace. World peace. And yet, so many of us lack peace to the degree that we have to medicate ourselves to get any sleep.

Avoiding family seems normal, just to keep the peace. National peace almost sounds oxymoronic. World peace is merely wishful thinking for far too many people. Perhaps we are in such a befuddled conundrum because of this reason:

We already possess what we so desperately want. The search for peace is really the search within.

“I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.”

Jesus (John 14:27, NLT)

The Christian needs to understand that Jesus has left us his peace. He gave it to us. We have it. Perhaps we have misplaced it? Maybe its lost in that huge stack on the desk?  Most likely, we plain old forgot about it.

God’s peace is here with us. Right now. This very minute. We have exactly what we want.

This peace is about far more than the absence of war, conflict, and/or infighting. Perfect peace is the settled and restful calm and confidence of being with God, of an intimate union with the divine.

Peace neither occurs by happenstance nor magically appears. Peace was achieved for us; it’s a gift which needs to be unpacked, used, and enjoyed. Practices of peace and peacemaking must be acknowledged and engrafted into our lives if we are going to experience it on the daily practical level (Romans 14:13-15:7).  

Like the delivery guy who leaves a package in an odd place, we could be searching for the ongoing gift of peace somewhere on our property. It’s there – it just seems so darned elusive. Yet, peace, the perfect peace that is harmony and unity, can neither be found in perfect circumstances nor in idyllic families and faith communities. Divine peace is the security of relationship with God, smack in the middle of life’s crud.

As the divine life takes root and grows within us, our hearts are healed with that presence, and we experience peace. It’s the kind of peace which drives fear and anxiety away; the kind of peace which only comes through trusting God.

Therefore, there’s no need to try and miraculously conjure up peace with positive thoughts.

It is the glorious, gracious, and mystical union between the divine and the human which creates peace. All obstacles have been surmounted and tossed into the trash for the garbage guy to haul away. And, no, you did not accidentally throw your peace in the dumpster. There really is no need for any dumpster diving. God’s already done that work for you and me.

In such topsy-turvy times as these, I come back again and again to deep spiritual convictions which inform what I do each day. One of those underlying creeds is this:

The Lord is trustworthy, no matter whether my faith or the faith of others is small or great. It isn’t faith itself that heals, saves, or grants peace – it is God.

It isn’t about the level of faith, but about where the faith is placed.

For the Christian, faith itself doesn’t mean much if it isn’t in Jesus. If I place a large and sincere faith in an inanimate object such as money; in a position of power; or, even in my own independence, my faith isn’t worth much. 

If I have a huge faith in a doctor or a psychiatrist to heal my body or my mind, I will quickly discover there are limits to their abilities. 

If I have a confident faith that my family will meet all my needs, my faith will eventually run into failure when they let me down. 

If all my faith eggs are in the church basket, my faith will eventually face a crisis because it is a misplaced faith.  Furthermore, the answer I provide for others is not simply getting them to attend church or to adopt my moral code.

God’s love remains continually steadfast, even if my trust is fickle and inconsistent.

We know with certainty that circumstances change; everyday seems to bring new levels and permutations of unprecedented alterations to our lives – and through it all, the Lord remains as the ever-present Sovereign, responding to even the slightest mustard seed of faith.

A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition.

Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?”

His disciples said to him, “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

But he kept on looking around to see who had done it. Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. And he said to her: 

“Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.”

(Mark 5:24-34, NLT)

May your trust in the Lord open the way of perfect peace for you, now and always. Amen.