I've Been Thinking About This…

We want so much in life, but what is it that we’re actually choosing for ourselves? Do we really understand the difference between ‘want’ and ‘need’? More than that, do we understand what we really need?

Found this clip about what we’ve already got as Christians:

I think that just about says it all…

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God’s plan is always the best – but it feels as if sometimes we’ve got to get pushed through a fence before we’re on the right track.

Abram was called by God into a new direction (Gen 12:1-4). At 75 – at a time when most of us are long settled down into retirement – he was called from a comfortable path living in his father’s house to a completely new land. By the end of his life, Abram would agree that God’s plan for him was great (Gen 24:1). But in order to get there, Abram had to get pushed through a fence to get to the other side.

Jacob was a momma’s boy – preferred to cook and stay with the tents rather than go out to hunt (Gen 25:28-29). He conned his brother Esau out of the birthright, then stole Esau’s blessing (Gen 27). He ran away and walked a very different path from the one he started out on, but he had to get pushed through the fence to get to the real blessing.

Joseph was daddy’s favorite and knew it. He had a good life, although he was a spoiled show-off who ratted on his brothers at every possible opportunity (Gen 37:2-3) – so much so that they hated him to the point of deciding to murder him. Through the fence, his path had him sold into slavery down in Egypt, where in one step he moved from being an imprisoned slave to the top man in the country. When he got to the end of his life he thought God’s plan was great (Gen 50:20). But what a fence he was pushed through!

Moses was brought up like a prince (Ex 2:10) – the best education, the best food, the best of everything. His path took a sudden turn at 40 when he killed a man and ran away (Ex 2:12-15); then another swerve when he encountered God in the wilderness (Ex 3). At the end of his life he would say that God’s plan was the best, but it was a strange path to get there – through the fence.

Rahab was on a foul path – she started out as a prostitute in a terrible culture, and was desperate to leave it – when she risked everything to help the Israelite spies (Josh 2:1-6). She didn’t have to be pushed through a fence – she ran at it full speed, head first! Her old path should have led to her death as a citizen of Jericho (Josh 6:21), or death for being a prostitute; instead, her new path led her to redemption, marriage, wealth and inclusion into the blood-line that resulted in the birth of David and ultimately the Messiah (Matt 1:5).

Ruth thought she was on a pretty good path, marrying a man from Israel – until he died, along with his brother and his father. Then she could have stayed safe with her own people, but instead traveled back to Israel with her mother-in-law (Ruth 1:16), both of them hopeless widows … and on the other side of that fence married Rahab’s son Boaz.

Ruth’s great-grandson David was a shepherd who started on a quiet life in the fields until God pushed him through some fences – the fight with Goliath (1 Sam 17:50); the subsequent flight from an increasingly insane Saul (starts at 1 Sam 18:8) – until Saul’s death and events subsequent to that redirected his path into the palace.

Over in the New Testament, James and John had a fairly steady life as fishermen; then, like the other disciples, they met Jesus and everything changed. Pushed through the fence (of leaving their livelihood – Matt 4:21-22), they began following Jesus round the country and eventually across the world.

Paul had a wonderful path ahead of him as a highly-educated Pharisee who was also a Roman citizen; brilliant connections and prospects. Then he was pushed through the fence on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3ff). He traveled throughout the Mediterranean basin; founded church after church; wrote a third of the New Testament. He was also beaten, stoned, imprisoned, shipwrecked, left for dead, hated, opposed at every turn. He would say that it was a great path to be on (Acts 20:24).

Time and again, when God gets hold of people in the Bible, they encounter this pattern to their lives: they start out walking along one path, then they encounter God and suddenly there’s a right-turn into and straight through a fence and onto a new and improved path – one that they would never have considered (or even thought possible) before that encounter. And not just in the Bible – God works that way today as well. Moving toward the fence is probably the scariest thing in life, but upon breaking through you find the fence was really there to pen you in; you’ve broken out of the boundary that was containing you. That’s the thing – there’s a great life that God wants to give us over there, far better than the one we’ve got right now – and usually (perhaps ALWAYS) He has to force us to take the gift. Sort of “Break us to make us” kind of thing.

Oh, that we could all know that Divine push straight through the fence.

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There are two interesting verses in Luke that seem to be in complete contradiction to each other. One is:

This is Jesus speaking. He’s just cast out a demon and some of the bystanders had accused Him of having this power from the prince of demons; other wanted Him to do signs (as if casting out demons wasn’t enough!). He responds by speaking of Satan as a strong man, but of Himself as the stronger, who takes from Satan all his armor and spoil (v. 21-22). Then comes verse 23, “Whoever is not with me is against me”. Two chapters earlier the context, interestingly enough, is also the casting out of demons – the disciples saw someone else doing the exorcism, someone they didn’t recognize – and they tried to stop him. Jesus’ response is listed in verse 50:

In both verses, Jesus identifies a three-state environment – (1) the ‘withs’, (2) the ‘againsts’, and (3) the unknowns. And it seems as if in chapter 11 He says the unknowns are to be thought of as in the ‘against’ group, while in chapter 9 He says the unknown are among the ‘withs’. It seems contradictory, but here’s the key: who is it that these people are ‘with’ or ‘against’? In chapter 11 Luke is talking about Jesus on a war footing. The Son of God has no problem determining what side the unknown person is on – He knows exactly what is in each heart – their allegiance is only unknown to us. Chapter 9 speaks of the disciples in a ministry setting. They cannot be so insightful, so as a result they are to be more liberal in their estimation. If they see others appearing to do God’s work, and there is no basis for believing these others to be against God, they should let them get on with it.

These thoughts resurfaced recently when a friend showed me a site that seemed to illustrate perfectly this issue of chapter 9. It was a purportedly Christian site raging against the work others are doing in the name of Christ. It saddened me to see so much effort wasted by Christians in hating other Christians – effort that could be wonderfully effective if it were only rechanneled constructively. It connects so well to chapter 11, too – it gave me a real sense that Satan was the strong man guarding his house.

More thoughts to come…

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The number of prophets in the school that followed Elisha was growing, and the building they were living in was too small. So they decided to build another; they got Elisha’s blessing on it, and even got him to come along to the building site beside the River Jordan. They had evidently borrowed at least one axe with which they were felling trees.

I can imagine the scene – a group of men working on the building, one man with his back to the river whacking away at a tree on the river bank; he lifts the axe fast intent on the down-stroke, and the head slips off the handle and flies off into the river. It’s almost comic when he brings the haft back down without the head – but the realization that the borrowed axe is at the bottom of the Jordan is of great concern to the worker. An iron axe is precious. He rushes over to the boss to ask for direction.

Elisha throws in a stick and the iron floats to the surface!

If you were to rate all the passages in Scripture that you found strange, surely this one would rank well up on the list. It is, you might say, a ‘naked’ miracle – there’s no cover for it being coincidence or caused by any other device. You cannot explain it in terms of regular experience – it either happened, or the Bible was just plain lying. Other stories of naked miracles in the Bible come to mind – Jesus walking on water or calming the storm; Noah’s ark and the flood, healing the beggar at the Gate Beautiful, Elijah on Mt. Carmel.

And yet in one way, I find it strange that we find the passage strange.

The thing that troubles us with this passage is that natural laws are suspended – iron’s specific gravity is 7.85 (it is 7.85 times heavier than water). To make the axe float, a fundamental property of either the water or the iron (or both) has to change, or perhaps gravity in a very localized area has to reverse. There’s no question of natural solutions or coincidences here – the axe had sunk when it fell into the river; it floated when Elisha threw in the stick. And a stick does not affect iron.

Here’s what I find strange. The world is full of people who believe in God. Vast numbers of people who say they believe that (1) He created the Universe, (2) He continues to be involved with His creation, and (3) He both listens to and answers prayers. They pray for something (let’s use healing as an example) and when it happens they publicly attribute the miracle to God and are grateful. And yet many Christians and Jews look at this passage and doubt its veracity – why? Because iron doesn’t float! – that is, because the events in the story are outside the documented laws of nature. What this suggests is that for many people who call themselves Jews or Christians, their private (and carefully unspoken) assessment of the healing that they prayed for and that actually took place is that it was natural and coincidental. They think of catching a cold – not a big deal, and you’d be healed by biological process; so if the healing being prayed for is bigger, life-threatening and looks certain to be fatal, then when the healing does take place maybe God really didn’t do anything special, it’s just like having a cold. It’s easier to believe in the documented laws of nature than it is to believe in the intervention of an unseen God. Thus their prayer was motivated more by passive superstition than active faith.

Almost as if you are taking responsibility for making the person better: by your own personal power of prayer and belief you are going to pull the person into wellness. You use ‘the force’ – very Star Wars, Luke.

Or like trying to believe six impossible things before breakfast.

Been there, done that.

1. But while praying for healing is “Something You Can Do” (and when confronted by a loved one’s illness or hurt you just want to DO something), prayer is not a mantra to appease some primitive god, on the off-chance that he exists despite obvious fables and falsehoods in his holy writ. On the contrary, prayer itself is one of the biggest miracles of all! The idea that a Being of such Immensity as the One who created the universe chooses to pay attention to the needs, hurts, words and desires of a bunch of wretched, microscopic, rebellious creatures called human beings should be absolutely staggering to us.

2. On the constructive side, being confronted with these naked miracles gives us a chance to identify areas in which we are at odds with Scripture. This is a rich gift, because – as we recognize that Scripture is indeed inerrant – we are drawn inexorably to the conclusion that something must be wrong in our understanding. And what is wrong is this: that just as God can float iron, He can adjust cell chemistry in the human body, and there are no coincidences involved in the miracle; just purposeful, deliberate Divine intervention. Helping us to move from passive superstition (where we ‘invoke’ God’s impersonal help) to an active faith (where we connect with our Father) may well be why this strange miracle was brought about and this passage was placed into Holy Writ in the first place.

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Mike Kendall’s blog entry today reminded me of a thought I had years ago which I’ll drop off here:

Temptation can only occur when there is opportunity to fall, an exploitable weakness of spirit, and desire to commit. Opportunity, exploitable weakness and desire. Satan isn’t going to waste his time in convincing you to do things you know are impossible, or in fighting areas of strength; nor will he attack you in areas that you don’t care about. If it doesn’t excite you to gamble, you won’t feel the urge to do so. But if you have a hard time resisting shopping, that will be a temptation even when you have no money to spend – think ‘credit card debt’.

That being the case – and it’s a pretty obvious case, I think you’ll agree – the question that has to come up is, “How was Jesus tempted?” Perfect God and perfect man, He could have no wrong desires, so how could He ever know what mankind goes through in temptation?

The answer comes when we look at Matt 4:1-11 or Luke 4:1-13, which begin: “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” There are two things we should note in that little phrase:

• It was the choice of the Holy Spirit to lead Jesus into the wilderness. We think that God’s desire is to protect us against all problems. Wrong.  In fact, He desires to expose us to those very problems. It is only through effort and strain that we develop strength and power. He wants the best for His kingdom.
• It was the choice of the Holy Spirit that Jesus endured temptation. We think that temptation is something bad, an indication of spiritual weakness. Wrong.  In fact, temptation is an essential component to our spiritual growth. Temptation isn’t an indication of weakness – rather, the duration of temptation is an indication of strength. (Be careful with that statement. I don’t mean that a really long time of temptation means that you’re really strong. There are ways we can deliberately extend our own temptation – become our own tempter – as we play with thoughts that we ought to have turned our back on.)

The temptation of Christ didn’t happen when he was at a “spiritual high”. Step one was to go to the wilderness. Step two was to fast for nearly six weeks. And at a time when He was physically weaker than He had ever been – desperately hungry – along comes Satan.

Look at the temptations Luke lists (Matthew flips the last two):

1. Turn the stones to bread.
2. Worship me and you can have the whole world to worship you.
3. Throw yourself down to prove to the world that the angels will catch you.

Would any of these tempt you seriously? Can you turn stones to bread? Is it possible that the whole world could worship you? If you jump off a building will you be caught before you hit the ground? None of these challenges are possible (for you), so you’ve never been tempted along those lines. Again, temptation can only occur when there is opportunity to fall, an exploitable weakness of spirit, and desire to commit. But for Jesus these challenges were all possibilities: (1) He turned water into wine – He could have turned the stones into bread. (2) His mission was to “draw all men unto me.” (John 12:32) That mission would be successful if Satan didn’t try to stop it at every turn both during Jesus’ lifetime and ever since. And Jesus wouldn’t have to die on the cross to accomplish that mission. (3) Of all the people in the world, He knew with complete certainty what His mission from God was. And since the mission was not yet complete, He knew He wouldn’t die until “It is finished” (John 19:30). So if He jumped off, the angels would have to save Him (is the apparent logic) – and the world would see the miracle.

For Jesus as God, these were all possibilities and all (or at least we can see that the first two) were desires. That was the function of the wilderness temptation – to tempt in ways specific to His Godly nature. He was tempted at other times in ways peculiar to His humanity – in the garden, for instance: ‘Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” ’ (Matt 26:39 NIV)

So take heart! Even God Incarnate was tempted in ways that were specific to Him. But He stayed the course because He was stronger than the temptation. We can be too, when we draw on His strength (1 Cor 10:13)

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I’ve been thinking about something for a while now – that in the Old Testament only Messiah (or a Messiah-type) can be all three of these things – Prophet, Priest and Prince (should be King, I know, but I’ll call it Prince for alliteration’s sake). Try to be all three yourself and you’re in deep trouble. Whether it’s one of God’s ‘rules’ I don’t know, but it seems to be consistent.

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