Granted In What He Ordaineth

Today in church we sang the hymn “Praise to the Lord,” one of my all time faves.

I was struck all over again by the line: “Hast thou not seen, how all thy needest hath been, granted in what He ordaineth?”

I have always loved this line (and, in fact, any well-said thoughts about the planned-ness of our lives by God), but I think I was particularly receptive to this thought right now, because I am currently job hunting, in a very bad job market, within an especially difficult field. Job hunting is incredibly frustrating, but somehow it tends to be more demoralizing than other types of needs. Not having a job tends to grate at people’s spirits, self-confidence, and morale in a particularly acute way – more so than other seasons of want. Personally, I think this special difficulty comes from the sense of purpose and “mattering” that we get from our jobs – and that we then miss during joblessness.

What struck me about this line today was the choice of the word “ordain,” which is used rather than the word “sent.” I tend think that God sends me what I need, in response to needs that arise. That hard times come up, and that He assumes the same defensive posture that I do and responds to my needs with His resources. The choice of the word “ordain” in this line reminded me that this is a picture of my response to my problems, not His. He is not surprised by my new problem, and so He does not need to come up with a plan to respond to it. For Him, the timeline has already been laid out. In fact, the map of my life was drawn up during those first days of creation. The same time He was coming up with the long-term plans for our world, the plan of my life was part of that planning meeting, on the same table as the big sheets where He drew the maps of stars and oceans. So in fact, God is not walking my life step by step the way I am, reacting and readjusting to things as they come up. When he was drawing up the plans for the road my life would take, the problem I’m facing was chosen purposefully, specifically, and loving as something to include, and the corresponding answer to it was included at the proper time with equal purpose. I tend to live each day brand-new, autonomous, with each new problem a ground-breaking development that requires assimilation and readjusting. I defend against problems – I readjust as my life-plan shifts and quakes to accommodate new developments. God does not feel that way about my circumstances. All I need has been granted in what He ordained – meaning set up from the start. Which means my problems are also planned form the start. We are walking a set course, which I realize is paradoxically impacted and defined by our choices, but that does not diminish the reality that God not only knew about my problem (for me right now, joblessness), He picked it and planned it for right now. it is just as much for my good as the solution will be, which will also come in its own right, already-chosen time. For me right now, God chose joblessness and plugged it into my life timeline for right now, on purpose. God is not scrambling to readjust because I am.

Working For It

When Jesus said, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst" (John 6:35), He wasn't talking about food and water; He was addressing emptiness—the want and discontentment—that we so naturally have in our hearts. I believe this is one of the biggest ways that salvation is intended to impact our lives on earth. So many of salvation's blessings will come after death, but this one is one of the great gifts that He wants to give us through salvation in this life. He wants to give us victory over the never-ending chase for making ourselves happy. He wants to let us rest from that. I fully believe in a salvation that I didn’t contribute anything to, aside from the request I made for it. I didn’t do anything to get it, I didn’t first muster any amount of goodness or strength or righteousness up from inside. I just asked, and I got it. No contribution. No effort. No mustering. I wonder if we were intended to view spiritual gifts in the same way. They are called spiritual gifts, after all. For some reason, I have no trouble viewing salvation that way, but when it comes to a need in my life for more contentment, or faith, or courage, or gentleness, or patience, I feel like I do need God’s help, but on some level, I need to get to work digging around inside to find some untapped well of all those good things and do a better job of accessing it. Or maybe, I feel like those things are underdeveloped, weak muscles that I need to get busy exercising. And to some degree, that may be true, because I do believe that God lets us go through hardship so that our spirits and behaviors can be purified and cultivated. However, mustering up the strength to start being more content or patient or something seems to be the place I start. I wonder if Jesus intended us to ask for those spiritual gifts the same way that we asked for salvation – contributing nothing and asking with simple faith for free gifts. Philippians 4:6 tells us not to be anxious about anything. We aren’t supposed to act like we aren’t bothered or stoically ignore pain – we are allowed to address the troublesome issue, but we’re told to replace our anxious worrying with prayer. I wonder if using prayer as replacement behavior for patterns of anxiety is exactly the same thing Jesus would like for us to do as we cultivate spiritual gifts. When I see my own need for contentment or gentleness or faith, I often respond with attempts to dig deep and fake it til I make it, and start building those things up myself. Maybe I need to replace my very American bootstrap up-pulling with prayerful asking. I think Jesus might prefer that I expectantly but simply ask him for the spiritual things I need, just the way I did with my salvation – with no contribution or personal effort. We so often have no because we ask not, and I think I might ask not because I think I’m supposed to log the hours of spiritual workout. I wonder if I stay spiritually hungry when I didn’t have to, because I think my dad will be more proud of me if I’ve worked hard and scavenged for my own nutrients, when really, all he wanted was for me to come home and ask for some dinner. I wonder if I live off of spiritual nuts and berries in the forest, when I had a full dinner of Bread right there. We have been offered full provision as a gift. I believe that pertains to the process of getting into the Family, AND of becoming a more fully functioning member. Do we ask for spiritual growth and giftedness with the same attitude of helplessness we had when we asked for salvation?

Thankfulness

From Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

Based on 1 Cor 10:10, Heb 12:28-29 “Let thankfulness temper all your thoughts. A thankful mind-set keeps you in touch with ME. I hate it when My children grumble, casually despising My sovereignty. Thankfulness is a safeguard against this deadly sin. Furthermore, a grateful attitude becomes a grid through which you perceive life. Gratitude enables you to see the Light of My Presence shinning on all your circumstances. Cultivate a thankful heart, for this glorifies Me and fills you with Joy.”

Harmless Sins

Last night, Coleton taught on sin at our youth group. My small group girls wanted to talk all about it. They were nobly trying to defend God when He tells us not to do things, rightly noting that He is not just trying to steal all the fun and never let us do anything. A big part of what they talked about was the consequences of our sin and how God is actually trying to protect us from those negative repercussions when He tells us not to sin. Right they are. They listed liver disease when you drink. Loss of respect when you lie. Loss of family trust when you sneak out. Hurting other people when you gossip. Etc. it was very important to them to identify consequences for the sins that God tells us to avoid. My impression was that, in their minds, they wanted to justify this behavior on His part.

I happen to think this plan is a pretty good one. If the identification of consequences helps you to see some loving logic behind God’s commands as a measure of keeping from resenting Him or the Christian walk in your own heart, then I think that’s a pretty fine plan. The problem is, what about those sins that don’t have readily identifiable consequences? Sins that, if you look, really don’t impact anyone or make that much difference at the moment? A lie that you can tell won’t hurt anybody and will just help you out? A bit of gossip that will be a great dinner party anecdote, that really isn’t that big a deal? A little bit of harmless manipulation that helps you get your own way and really does no damage? Do sins like this exist? I really think so. So how do we make sense of God’s commands to avoid sins when we CAN’T see the reason behind it, because it really doesn’t do that much damage?

I think the answer is that one of the reasons God asks us to avoid sin (in my opinion, maybe the biggest reason) is that each sin is not autonomous. It does not exist in a vacuum so that it has no impact if it doesn’t do any immediate harm. Each small, simple, harmless sin is, in fact, a small step, a tiny contribution, into the mix of who we are. Lie doesn’t have to hurt someone or us for it to be hurtful. It has inherent (if immediately invisible) consequences because it takes us one more tiny lie towards being someone who generally uses lies to deal and to cope. Even if we can’t see any other effects of our sins, they are contributions to patterns. Every decision is one more drop in the bucket of who I am generally becoming. Every small instance of lying or telling the truth – even if it didn’t matter at the time – made a small contribution to shaping the long-term answer to this: when pushed, am I someone who lies when in a tight spot? Every small instance of either gossiping or staying quiet – even if it didn’t ever hurt anyone – made a small contribution to shaping the long-term answer to this: am I someone who uses my mouth or bless or to curse? Every time we let ourselves smile too sweetly at a cute man in public when our spouse bugged us – even if it never came of anything at all – made a small contribution to shaping the long-term answer to this: when my marriage isn’t perfect, do I consider turning to someone else? Each little thing matters, not because we are perfection-demanding legalists serving a black-and-white God, but because each little choice is one pebble into what will one day be a huge hill of our own character. One drop into a cup of what will one day fill up and be a cup full of who we actually are. This is why sin does not have to have immediate consequences to be dangerous, and why God needs no immediate circumstantial evidence to justify His commands that we avoid these things. We want better days for ourselves. He wants a better life.

Wanfering In Bitterness

“I have wandered in bitterness until all seasons have become as one. And that is a season of vengeance.”

While this quote is of the humble origins of the 70’s slasher flick Silent Night, Bloody Night, I think the idea is well worth considering.

Unfortunately, vengeance doesn't have to be a crazy psycho on a revenge quest, but maybe just consistent, purposeful, bitchyness (sorry) or meanness or snubbing directed at those difficult people for us. The season imagery gives the idea that that kind of mean-hearted living isn't about specific instances or people, but gets in the air around us like cold or hot. And once bitterness turns into vengeance, it's much harder to get rid of. Bitterness is saddening and ugly, but vengeance is mean and destructive (maybe especially to the vengeful one). I guess that's why God wants to do it for us... "Vengeance is mine...."

The idea of wandering around in bitterness suggests the idea of aimlessness, which is, in fact, exactly what bitterness often is. The irony is that we can tend to think that bitterness is a goal and that it gives us some purpose, like sticking it to that person who doesn’t deserve to be forgiven. We think tat staying bitter will punish that person or nurse a wound or promote some kind of justice. But really, there is nothing of bitterness that is goal or solution-focused. We think that our long-term anger is a bullet that cuts, but our image is wrong because it is much more like smoke in the air of our own room than the bullet in the chest of the person we hate that we imagine it is. Bitterness and the vengefulness that it leads may destroy that person we want them to (if we’re lucky) but they do much more to pollute us.

Delight Yourself In the LORD

Psalm 37:4 says this: Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.

This has, at times, confused me, because it seems like a promise that is simply not always the case. I know plenty of people who love the Lord, and yet the things they desperately needed or wanted just did not come true. Why would God say this - that is we take delight in Him and love Him, we'll get the things we want? Why would He go about promising this kind of near-prosperity gospel when in fact "taking up our cross" to follow Him often includes often includes a hard bout of internal wrestling when we are denied the those desires of our hearts.

Recently, however, I was thinking about this verse when I felt the Lord tell me something about it. I think the truer message of this verse is this: if we actually learn to delight in the Lord, if we actually learn to live lives that find Him and His ways delightful, then the desires of our hearts will change into the things that He does give anyway. Rather than letting delight in the Lord become a form of payment with which we try to purchase the things we want, delighting in Him changes us into people who desire the things He gives. He doesn't start giving, we start learning to truly yearn for the right things. This doesn't mean that we will never want specific things in our lives or that, if we do want worldly things, somehow we haven't arrived yet at the platform of actually loving Him. But I do think that it means that the end-of-the-day things we want the most are the things of Heaven that actually matter.

For me, C.S. Lewis put this idea the best, as he always, always does."It is quite useless knocking at the door of heaven for earthly comfort; it's not the sort of comfort they supply there."

I often find myself frustrated with God because I feel like He promised to give me the things I desire and yet, sometimes, they just aren't there. But I think the thing that needs to change is not God's business of giving. He was giving, quite literally, before we were born. He is always, unrelentingly, in the business of giving. We just haven't learned to want the right things. Delighting ourselves in the Lord is not the way to make Him give the things we want, but the way to learn how to want the things He gives.