Tag: trusting god

Living Into a New Story (Deuteronomy 5:22-33)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
Moses, by Rae Chichilnitsky

“These are the commandments the Lord gave to all of you when you were gathered at the mountain. When he spoke with a mighty voice from the fire and from the thick clouds, he gave these commandments and no others. Then he wrote them on two stone tablets and gave them to me.

“When the whole mountain was on fire and you heard the voice from the darkness, your leaders and the chiefs of your tribes came to me and said, ‘The Lord our God showed us his greatness and his glory when we heard him speak from the fire! Today we have seen that it is possible for people to continue to live, even though God has spoken to them. But why should we risk death again? That terrible fire will destroy us. We are sure to die if we hear the Lord our God speak again. Has any human being ever lived after hearing the living God speak from a fire? Go back, Moses, and listen to everything that the Lord our God says. Then return and tell us what he said to you. We will listen and obey.’

“When the Lord heard this, he said to me, ‘I have heard what these people said, and they are right. If only they would always feel this way! If only they would always honor me and obey all my commands, so that everything would go well with them and their descendants forever. Go and tell them to return to their tents. But you, Moses, stay here with me, and I will give you all my laws and commands. Teach them to the people, so that they will obey them in the land that I am giving them.’

“People of Israel, be sure that you do everything that the Lord your God has commanded you. Do not disobey any of his laws. Obey them all, so that everything will go well with you and so that you will continue to live in the land that you are going to occupy. (Good News Translation)

The people were at the cusp of entering the Promised Land. They had experienced four hundred years of slavery; deliverance from Egyptian bondage; and forty years of wandering around the desert with no permanent home. Now, Moses gathers everyone together and restates God’s Law for a new generation about to realize God’s promise.

In today’s Old Testament lesson, Moses recalls his experience of receiving the two stone tablets, known to many as the Ten Commandments. Moses does this because he does not want this new generation of Israelites to be like their parents and grandparents – who experienced a failure of faith, resulting in their sojourn in the wilderness.

Obedience to God and all of God’s commands is central to a life of faith.

For that obedience to happen, all obstacles must be removed so that we can have an unhindered path in living the way we want to live. The Israelites were in slavery four hundred years. They needed a new story, which meant changing the old one. The people could participate with God by doing the following:

  1. Accept their wounded past of slavery. We cannot let something go and die without acknowledging it and having full acceptance that it happened.
  2. Don’t accept the limitations others put on us. The Israelites were slaves for so long that the Egyptians would have liked them to believe that’s all they could ever be. But the reality is that they are the people of God, meant for infinitely more than bondage.
  3. Trust the process of moving out of one story and into another. And it will take time. Forty years of wandering the desert helped the people wrap their minds and hearts around new possibilities.
  4. Take charge of your life by being a full participant in what the Lord is doing. Acting apart from God is pride. Failing to act is a lack of faith. But a divine/human participation knows what God does and what human responsibility is.
  5. Embrace all the emotions that go with what’s happening. Old ways often die hard. It didn’t take long after leaving Egypt for the people to long for the garlic and leeks of their former life. Holding and sitting with our feelings is an important piece of embracing a new story.
  6. Pay attention to constructing a soul which can serve you for a lifetime by taking initiative and action, reflecting on experiences, and living the insights gained.
  7. Discover new sources of growth and development for your new story and the next chapter of life. The same sources and resources which got you to this point may not be the same ones that will carry you on.

Moving through this liminal space enables us to obey God in new and fresh ways for the future. Obedience itself is not the hard thing; its ensuring a solid theological ground to stand on that is free of spiritual impediments that can hinder our faith.

Spiritual growth implies movement and change. This is necessary in order for the strengthening of faith. In allowing God’s commands and God’s sovereignty to have their way within us, we purposely engraft what’s needed for a lifetime of faith, hope, and love.

Glorious and sovereign God, give us your Spirit, so that we will be wise in how we live our lives. Help us to know you better through all of the experiences and learning we acquire in this life.

May our minds be opened to see your light, so that you will know the hope to which you have called us; and how rich are the wonderful blessings you promise us.

Grant us your strength so that we might remove every obstacle to faith. That spiritual power working in us is the same as the mighty strength which you used when raising Christ from death and exalting him above all things. Amen.

Change and Stress (Acts 27:1-12)

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

When it was decided that we would sail for Italy, Paul and some other prisoners were handed over to a centurion named Julius, who belonged to the Imperial Regiment. We boarded a ship from Adramyttium about to sail for ports along the coast of the province of Asia, and we put out to sea. Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica, was with us.

The next day we landed at Sidon; and Julius, in kindness to Paul, allowed him to go to his friends so they might provide for his needs. From there we put out to sea again and passed to the lee of Cyprus because the winds were against us. When we had sailed across the open sea off the coast of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we landed at Myra in Lycia. There the centurion found an Alexandrian ship sailing for Italy and put us on board. We made slow headway for many days and had difficulty arriving off Cnidus. When the wind did not allow us to hold our course, we sailed to the lee of Crete, opposite Salmone. We moved along the coast with difficulty and came to a place called Fair Havens, near the town of Lasea.

Much time had been lost, and sailing had already become dangerous because by now it was after the Day of Atonement. So Paul warned them, “Men, I can see that our voyage is going to be disastrous and bring great loss to ship and cargo, and to our own lives also.” But the centurion, instead of listening to what Paul said, followed the advice of the pilot and of the owner of the ship. Since the harbor was unsuitable to winter in, the majority decided that we should sail on, hoping to reach Phoenix and winter there. This was a harbor in Crete, facing both southwest and northwest. (New International Version)

Change is an emotionally charged word. For some, change is longed for. Those with adverse circumstances and difficult situations may look for change, and even for a miracle to turn their life around. Others want nothing to do with change; they’ve had a bad experience with it. Their fortunes were good, until something changed. And now they’re stressed out.

The majority of us have some sort of love/hate relationship with change – which is why there are people who look askance on Christianity and raise their eyebrow in skepticism toward Christians or religious folk in general. At the heart of Christianity is change, and change can be quite threatening toward a lot of people.

The Apostle Paul perhaps knew about change better than any Christian in history. He went from resisting change with violence, to embracing change so wholeheartedly that he became a victim of other’s violence. We meet him in today’s New Testament lesson as a prisoner being shipped from Palestine to Rome.

Paul’s message, at its core, is the good news of transformation because of Christ’ crucifixion and resurrection. It’s a message of radical and joyous change, of new life. And it’s also a scandalous message which impacts the surrounding culture.

Wherever the gospel of Jesus Christ went, people responded, and it influenced society to a significant degree. Throughout the Acts of the Apostles, political authorities, religious leaders, and cultural elites felt powerful shifts in their societies. Yes, a few became Christians themselves, but most resisted the change, and in some cases, in their irritated stress response, retaliated against believers.

The message of Christianity doesn’t yield to political forces that attempt to domesticate God; and that reality put many believers in the crosshairs of those forces.

Paul’s ability to keep up his witness to Christ, even while held prisoner under powerful Roman authority, comes from a theology that God is above all earthly rule and can make a way where there seems to be no way. In other words, no matter whether human institutions, empires, and structures either acquiesce or oppose the gospel makes no difference; God is able to bend any system and authority for divine purposes.

And this is precisely why the Apostle Paul appears calm, non-anxious, and able to encourage others in the center of a storm in which everyone might lose their lives. Put simply: Paul trusted God.

Yes, we have unwanted circumstances. Yet, if we are able to entrust ourselves to a good God (which may sound trite and easy, yet is anything but that) then we find that we’re also able to have a radical acceptance of the situation we’re presently in.

Faith and trust help us to accept difficult changes and respond to stress with resilience because faith is attentive to the following:

  • Knowing change is coming. Throughout the New Testament we are told that adversity and suffering are an integral part of the Christian life. Paul wasn’t caught by surprise with a storm. In his life, he expected the difficulties to come.

You have seen me experience physical abuse and ordeals in places such as Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. I put up with all sorts of abuse, and the Lord rescued me from it all! In fact, anyone who wants to live a holy life in Christ Jesus will be harassed. (2 Timothy 3:11-12, CEB)

  • Paying attention to the feelings of self and others. Emotions are not a necessary evil. They play a very important role in helping us come to grips with what’s happening. Paul acknowledged the emotions of everyone on the ship, as well as his own. And this became the pathway to both acceptance and encouragement.

There’s a season for everything
    and a time for every matter under the heavens…

a time for crying and a time for laughing,
    a time for mourning and a time for dancing. (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4, CEB)

  • Becoming resilient. The ability to adapt, to find ways of surviving and thriving, is buoyed by a robust faith which can see with spiritual eyes and make decisions of faith, hope, and love.

“When I was born into this world,
    I was naked and had nothing.
When I die and leave this world,
    I will be naked and have nothing.
The Lord gives,
    and the Lord takes away.
Praise the name of the Lord!” (Job 1:21, ERV)

Stress and change can be hard and overwhelming. Yet, at the same time, it can be an opportunity to put faith into practice and be a blessing to the world.

Assist us, Lord, in living hopefully into the future. In the face of change, help us to set unnecessary fears aside and to recognize our potential for creative response. Help us to develop a reasonable optimism and to guard against our own defensiveness. Be with us as we remember and celebrate former times, and keep us from unreasonable yearning for them, which takes us from the work you have set before us in our time. All this we ask in the name of your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Listen To Lady Wisdom (Proverbs 3:13-18)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
Tree of Life, by Margarita Kriebitzsch, 2013

You’re blessed when you meet Lady Wisdom,
    when you make friends with Madame Insight.
She’s worth far more than money in the bank;
    her friendship is better than a big salary.
Her value exceeds all the trappings of wealth;
    nothing you could wish for holds a candle to her.
With one hand she gives long life,
    with the other she confers recognition.
Her manner is beautiful,
    her life wonderfully complete.
She’s the very Tree of Life to those who embrace her.
    Hold her tight—and be blessed! (The Message)

I like it that the author chose to personify wisdom as a woman. Maybe that’s because I have a wife and three daughters. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that they, along with most of the women in my life, seem to have an almost mysterious quality of insight and understanding which transcends my very cerebral and logical approaches to life.

What I’m trying to say is that wisdom isn’t measured with a one-dimensional test of a person’s mental reasoning powers, but also requires emotional intelligence, social intelligence, interpersonal and relational intelligence, and spiritual intelligence, just to name a few.

And Lady Wisdom has it all. She’s the perfect combination of all the intelligent factors which make for a complete, fulfilling, and good life.

Everyone desires a good life. Nobody wakes up in the morning, sits on the edge of the bed, and thinks to themselves, “I really hope to have a bad day today!” A person might get up on the wrong side of the bed and grump their way through the first hours of the day, but no one makes a conscious decision to deliberately have a disappointing life. 

Indeed, we all want a good life. Students go to school hoping to have a good experience. Marriages begin with the hope of having a good life together. New employees start with the wish that there will be satisfaction in doing a job well done. Parents dream of their kids growing up to have a good life. 

We want the kind of life that brings contentment, joy, and happiness. So, how does it come?

A good life comes through embracing Lady Wisdom. And she has always been there, as the very Tree of Life:

“I was there when God set the heavens in place,
    when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,
when he established the clouds above
    and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,
when he gave the sea its boundary
    so the waters would not overstep his command,
and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.
    Then I was constantly at his side.” (Proverbs 8:27-30, NIV)

A good life has a basic respect and honor for God at the heart of it. Lady Wisdom understands this, first hand. She knows we are prone to being afraid. So, she assures us that the pursuit of true wisdom is worth it. With Lady Wisdom at our side, we have calm and confidence; we know when to take risks and when to be patient.

Most of all, our insecurities and anxieties begin to melt away as we connect with the image of God within us. Trust bubbles up from the depths of our soul, and we are no longer afraid of the unknown and what may happen to us.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Proverbs 9:10, NIV

The fear of the Lord means to honor and obey God, to be loyal and submissive. We know there is a good God from which our own good lives derive.

In a state of trust, of calm and confidence, we are able to listen and hear Lady Wisdom’s sage instruction. So, if you want to live a good life – and not just survive but thrive – then we must adopt a posture of listening.

The prerequisite to any semblance of a good life is to have a teachable spirit, to give focused attention to Wisdom. A fool is a fool, first and foremost, because he does not listen. Instead, he is negative, complains, and spews advice based in partial information.

But the person who hugs Lady Wisdom and does not let go, has learned to be attentive to the voice of God.

Continual fear of people is a death-dealing practice. But the person who fears God by listening to wise counsel discovers a life-giving practice that will serve them well for a lifetime. 

The teachable spirit bends the ear to hear good advice. Such a wise spirit inclines toward acquiring knowledge and learning the skillset needed to live a spiritually abundant life.

For the Christian, therefore, we cannot learn if do not read. The Bible is a book. If the Bible was a car, I would tell us all to learn to be mechanics; if it were a fish or a deer, I would tell us all to learn the best ways to hunt and fish; or if it was a store, I would encourage us to learn about being good shoppers and consumers. 

Yet, the Bible is a book. So, we must read it, memorize it, meditate on it, and learn from it. Becoming familiar with the contents of Holy Scripture, and immersing ourselves in it’s wisdom, will mold us in the ways of humility and form us spiritually for a lifetime of peace, love, and joy. 

Maybe you aren’t a tree hugger. But I encourage you to become one. Embracing Lady Wisdom is the surest way to avoiding unnecessary problems and finding purpose in life. Indeed, because she is good, we become good.

Today, God of Wisdom, let me experience your good and gracious heart. Draw me into your very being, into the core of your love for me, others, and the world. Give me a glimpse of others from your good, right, and just perspective, in loving them, forgiving them, and delighting in the way they give glory to God through their very existence. Help me to discern out of that place of deep affection for humanity, that I, too, might be a useful conduit of your love in the world. Amen.

Make Wise Choices (Proverbs 3:5-12)

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

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Never rely on what you think you know. Remember the Lord in everything you do, and he will show you the right way. 

Never let yourself think that you are wiser than you are; simply obey the Lord and refuse to do wrong. If you do, it will be like good medicine, healing your wounds and easing your pains. 

Honor the Lord by making him an offering from the best of all that your land produces. If you do, your barns will be filled with grain, and you will have too much wine to store it all.

My child, when the Lord corrects you, pay close attention and take it as a warning. The Lord corrects those he loves, as parents correct a child of whom they are proud. (Good News Translation)

“The choice to make good choices is the best choice you can choose. Fail to make that choice and on most choices you will lose.”

Ryan Lilly

The biblical book of Proverbs is a collection of short pithy statements based in experiential truth. That is, they are wisdom sayings.

Wisdom is a gradual accumulation of understanding, over time, with a combination of observation and practice.

The Teacher (the Collector of the proverbs) highlights the wisdom needed to navigate life. It’s a bit like learning the basic laws of the universe, such as respecting the force of gravity by not walking off the roof of your house.

Wisdom observes and pays attention; then applies the understanding gained to reality.

Failing to cultivate a wise life (foolishness) creates all kinds of problems.

Notice the realities we need to respect in our Old Testament lesson for today: God, God’s guidance, God’s honor, God’s discipline.

And then notice the verbs which tell us how to respond wisely: trust, remember, obey, honor, pay close attention. Submitting to reality, respecting others, and accepting situations as they are, and not as we want them to be, is evidence of a sage life.

In contrast to the sage response, foolish reactions are made up of pride, avarice, and hate.

Both wisdom and foolishness are evidenced by their outcomes.

The wise person, having been taught a respect for God and the ways of grace, will most likely have the experience of receiving guidance, health, abundance, and love. Conversely, the fool who ignores divine counsel will probably experience misplaced trust, health issues, short-sighted financial decisions, and cruddy attitudes.

“You can’t choose your potential, but you can choose to fulfill it.”

Theodore Roosevelt

All things being equal, the wise person who deliberately and carefully applies knowledge and understanding to life will have an abundant spirit full of satisfaction – whereas the fool who improvises everything will struggle to live in a small world of holistic poverty and want.

The gist of today’s verses is that one cannot live as an island. We all need to practice consultation and collaboration to achieve a good life. Instruction and correction are necessary to obtain the good life. To spurn both divine and human connections in favor of radical personal independence is plain old foolish; it leads to a lousy life.

In short, the fool incessantly airs opinions with useless sophistry to an empty room; and, the sage is an observant student to universal rhythms and has learned the timing of proper words and of silence.

I am going to state this all in a different way: Relying on God and others through making and keeping promises to one another is the basis of a solid community and a gratifying personal life. Relying merely on one’s self is a one-way road to spiritual pain and emotional damage, not to mention physical illness and financial scarcity.

Fools always think they know best. Sages always know better than that.

The collection of Proverbs we have in the biblical canon is a presentation, a dialectic, a contrast and a setting forth of two ways of approaching how to live in the world:

  • foolishness or wisdom
  • independence or interdependence
  • cognitive pride or mental humility
  • negligence of evidence-based research or consultation through books, literature, and reading
  • exploitation of resources or submission to the natural laws and rhythms of the land
  • holding-on with clenched fists or generosity with open hands
  • Grinch-like attitudes or God-like dispositions
  • incessant criticism or heartfelt tribute
  • blaming or recognizing other’s contributions
  • shame or vulnerability
  • bitterness or forgiveness
  • resistance to correction or acceptance of discipline
  • hate or love
  • judgment or grace

There is always a fork in the road. And standing at those intersections of life, we must choose whether to take the difficult path of wisdom, or amble down the broad highway of foolishness.

The two paths will lead to either life or death, joy or despair, hope or disappointment, faith or fear.

How will you choose? Which way will you go?

Choose wisely, my friend.

Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.