Friday, June 5,2020

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“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” – 2 Corinthians 12:9

I think we’ve all done it. We’re anxious about something that’s going on in life and once we’ve exhausted all other options, we reach for the Bible thinking “Maybe this thing has an answer in it.” Then without looking, we open it to a random page and point at a verse hoping that it will speak precisely about what it is we’re facing.

It’s like playing Bible roulette or using the Bible like a magic 8-ball. While that method rarely works, we are right somewhere in the Bible is the answer to what we’re facing.

Today’s verse is part of a famous section from 2 Corinthians. In this section, Paul vaguely refers to a “thorn in his flesh” that he’s prayed for God to take away from him. But rather than taking it from him, Paul says that God gave him this verse in response.

God is saying that the grace extended to followers of Jesus means that we don’t need to look ahead to tomorrow when the trial we’re facing goes away. Right now, in this moment in the middle of whatever you are facing, God’s grace is sufficient.

The famous preacher Charles Spurgeon put it this way in 1876, “ It is easy to believe in Grace for the past and the future, but to rest in it for the immediate necessity is true faith…At this moment and at all moments which shall ever occur between now and Glory, the Grace of God will be sufficient for you! This sufficiency is declared without any limiting words and, therefore, I understand the passage to mean that the Grace of our Lord Jesus is sufficient to uphold you, sufficient to strengthen you, sufficient to comfort you, sufficient to make your trouble useful to you, sufficient to enable you to triumph over it, sufficient to bring you out of it, sufficient to bring you out of 10,000 like it…”

Our instinct to go to the Bible when facing difficulty is correct. But rather than waiting until we’re out of options, we need to be reaching for the Bible each day so that we read and reread the truth’s about God’s character and the promises God has made to us. When we do that, we reflexively call to mind passages, stories, verses that are applicable to what we are dealing with. Trusting that God is present right now, trusting that will be more than enough.

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

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The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry. —Psalm 34:15

Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. —Matthew 7:7

Last night, a prayer vigil for racial justice was held in Park Ridge. Some people gathered at a social distance near Uptown to pray, and many others chose to pray from home at the same time. In the midst of confusion, anger, fear, and heartbreak, Christ-followers pray. Even as we’re also called to act, turning first to our powerful and loving God is a non-negotiable part of the Christian life. We carry the confusion, anger, fear, and heartbreak directly to God. We ask God for guidance and healing. We ask God for direction and wisdom. We ask God for courage and compassion. We remember that God is the surest source of what we, and the world, need.

In today’s passages, I am in awe of God’s responsiveness to us. God doesn’t ignore us. God isn’t too far or too busy. When we speak, God is present, God listens, and God responds. The psalmist reminds us that God’s “ears are open” to the cries of God’s people. In fact, in the rest of Psalm 34, he repeats similar words about God’s responsiveness to people. The psalmist says, “I sought the LORD, and he answered me” (v. 4), “This poor man called, and the LORD heard him” (v. 6), “those who seek the LORD lack no good thing” (v. 10), and “the righteous cry out and the LORD hears them” (v. 17). Likewise, Jesus assures his followers in the book of Matthew that when we fervently pursue God, things happen: ask and receive, search and find, knock and enter.

I have said before that when problems feel big, I feel too small to pray. And the truth is, I am very small relative to the world’s pain and injustices. That’s precisely why prayer is essential. These passages are a call not just to pray, but to persist in prayer—to keep talking to God, to keep seeking God, to keep asking God to intervene.

Monday, June 1, 2020

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“Do not tremble; do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one.” —Isaiah 44:8

Fear is a tricky concept. Depending on exactly how you use it—especially the exact word you’re using (fear, afraid, fearful, etc.) or the context in which you use it (afraid of one’s own shadow as opposed to fear of God, for example)—it can have a very different meaning and a different valence.

Whatever else we say about fear, we all recognize that, for good and bad, fear is a reality for all of us. Part of being alive is being afraid, at least some of the time. There’s no such thing as a literally fearless life.

This is probably why there’s such a strong emphasis in both the Old Testament and the New Testament on courage. Throughout history, God has told those who follow him that a healthy fear of God (meaning respect, awe, honor, recognition of power and authority) is necessary for healthy life, but that fearfulness that questions God’s goodness and providence is something to be cast out, resisted, overcome.

God is supposed to rule over us. Fear is not.

It’s normal and natural to feel fear. But when fear gets in the way of the free, joyful, hopeful, generous lives we’ve been invited into, it must be overcome. Too many of us are controlled and guided by fear.

So what do we do? The primary answer throughout Scripture, and this is the point in Isaiah 44, is that we respond to fear by looking to God, who is greater and stronger and more authoritative than anything we fear. God is greater than unemployment. God is greater than sickness. God is greater than corruption and irresponsible, self-centered leadership. God is greater than climate change and pandemic and injustice. God is greater than our regret and shame. The call is to keep our eyes on God and root our lives in his goodness and faithfulness.

And what this leads to, often, is taking courageous steps even though we still feel afraid. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is behaving with virtue and character even though we are afraid. And the thing is, the more often we do this, the more often we find that, regardless of outcome, this feels like a better way to live. The more courageously we act, the less afraid we tend to feel.

So may we all acknowledge our fears this week. But rather than allowing them to control us, may we look to God, who makes and keeps promises. And may we step forward in character, virtue, strength, and courage, living as Jesus taught us to live.