Some people can make us feel good. They attract us. Like a sunflower in a sunny field, we long to face the source that keeps us satisfied and meets our needs.
But we tend to worship what we think we need—whether it’s God, money, or even people. And whom we worship, we will also obey.
That’s why worshipping people—or using them to get what we think we need—can leave us enslaved to them.
God offers a better alternative.
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Too often, fear keeps us from enjoying what God has promised. We want so badly to have faith in what the Lord says. But fear of what we see seems more compelling than mere words. Gideon knew that.
(Photo: Ein Harod (Gideon’s Spring). Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)
Gideon longed to believe God. But the enemy army before him was enormous. What he saw seemed far more compelling than what God had promised him.
We face the same odds today. And the solution is the same.
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I have discovered that the most difficult battles in life simply mirror Jesus’ struggle in Gethsemane. His words to the Father remain the most challenging words we could utter:
Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done. —Luke 22:42
(Photo: Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus surrendered His will. Courtesy of Pictorial Library of Bible Lands.)
Surrendering your will to God in difficult times is often harder than the trial itself.
Our greatest challenges come not from those circumstances that press in upon us, but from the internal struggle to surrender our will to God. We enter Gethsemane daily and have to drag my will to the Father in prayer.
Here’s how.
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We come to the line every day. It’s a border. Fear keeps us from stepping over it. What we see feels more compelling than what God has said. Kadesh Barnea was such a place.
(Photo: Kadesh Barnea. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)
Two decisions at Kadesh Barnea determined the future. Twice God’s people stood on the edge of their future. The first time, the Hebrews made the decision; the second time, Moses did. Nobody made an announcement of what would happen at Kadesh.
No one knew how significant the transition would be.
As you face the day before you, you have the same two decisions to make.
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Sometimes it seems the Lord leads us into a life that can’t possibly be His will. What started with such promise has become such a challenge. It’s tough to know what to do next.
(Photo by Photodune)
What do you do when the life God has promised you looks nothing like the life God has given you?
God had promised a son to Sarai and her husband, Abram. Yet at the same time, God prevented conception. This is the will of God?
What God said is a lesson we need to hear.
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Sometimes it seems no one understands what we’re going through. When people fail us, or forget us, or even betray us, we’re left alone in the ashes of a reality we never expected or wanted.
(Photo courtesy of Unsplash.com)
In those intense moments of loneliness, confusion, and pain, we ask God for one thing more than anything else. Relief from suffering.
But when relief is denied, we begin the difficult journey of resisting the notion that God is a cruel sovereign who toys with our lives. After all, He could stop it all in moment. After everything else but God gets stripped away from our lives, we begin realize that the Lord may want to give us something more—and much greater—than relief.
In those moments, God becomes more real to us than we ever would have known any other way.
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We are afraid sometimes, because we think we know what will happen. But the real source of our real fears isn’t in what we see—but in what we don’t see.
(Photo: Mahanaim and fords of Jabbok. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)
Our spiritual lives hold the solution to our fears. That’s what happened with Jacob.
Returning to the land of Canaan forced Jacob to face a problem he had run from 20 years earlier—his deception of his brother Esau. As he approached the border of Canaan, angels of God came to meet him.
The presence of the angels gives us a critical reminder during our times of fear.
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Have you noticed how often we tend to interpret our faith as we want it to be, rather than as God reveals it to be? I think of it this way. We have adopted the lifestyle of a tourist who only wants to see the highlights of the city.
(Photo: courtesy of Oomph)
Forget all the back alleys of New York. Show me Times Square. Let’s just jump to the Empire State Building. We focus on how the Christian life “ought” to be. (As if the tough parts are electives.)
A broad chasm stretches between the God we want and the God who is. Between the life we want and the life God wants for us.
As tough as it sounds, the only way to bridge this gap is the cross.
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We tend to expect God to act in ways we can understand. We work, and so God provides money. We pray, and so God answers prayer. We do this, and so God does that. In other words, we see God as the effect and ourselves as the cause.
(Photo courtesy of Unsplash)
Life is all about God responding, it seems, and if we do nothing, neither will God.
This isn’t true, obviously. But it’s how we feel.
So, what if we’re in a situation where we can do nothing? What happens when we can no longer be the cause?
When God demands from you something impossible?
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My favorite New Years Eve happened before the infamous Y2K. I pulled a practical joke that made the people in my grandmother’s house believe their fears about the future were true.
(Picture: By Flickr user: 29cm CC-BY-SA-2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
My relatives had gathered to watch the televised countdown at New York City’s Times Square. Midnight hit America first on the east coast, so all eyes waited to see what would happen at midnight.
While no one was looking, I snuck outside and found the breaker box to my grandmother’s house.
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