We aren't promised an easy life as Christians. We know that. There are all sorts of verses that tell us that. The one verse that seems most clear to me is John 16:33 where Jesus says to his disciples:
"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
We can't deny that we are guaranteed tribulations in this world. Things are going to be hard--I don't deny that. But I think I've always assumed that there would be SOME THINGS that wouldn't be hard.
One such thing that I assumed wouldn't make my life difficult, that would be straight forward and rewarding, was evangelism. I don't know why in America I thought this would be the thing that wouldn't be hard. But the conversation in my mind literally went, "Sure, people will persecute you for being a Christian, and not sinning will be difficult sometimes, and maybe you won't be a part of some sort of in crowd, but God wants you to evangelize, so that will never be a thorn in your side."
Clearly this perspective came from an ignorance of the Bible, or perhaps some sort of wishful thinking and idealism that I was magically impervious to the struggles of the great men of the Bible. Two occasions that specifically come to mind that prove how wrong I really was are Ezekiel and the 70.
In Ezekiel 2 and 3 God tells Ezekiel that preaching to the Israelites will be like having thorns all over him and sitting on scorpions. To top it off, in 3:7 He tells Ezekiel outright that the Israelites aren't even going to listen to what he has to say. Evangelism wasn't going to be easy for Ezekiel, but God told him to go and to speak.
In Luke 10, Jesus sends 70 (72?) of his followers out to preach the gospel. He says that He is sending them out as lambs among wolves. And then he gives them specific instructions for what to do when people inevitably do not receive their message. Evangelism wasn't going to be easy for the 70, but God told them to go and to speak.
Maybe I was the only crazy person that had this idea that evangelism wouldn't hurt. Maybe I was alone in the view that even if people rejected the gospel (which I know is a constant reality), it wouldn't be so bad for me as a teacher. But if I wasn't alone in that, if you also thought evangelism wasn't one of those trying aspects of the Christian life, you can take comfort along with me by looking back once again to John 16:33.
"I
have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the
world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the
world.”
Our Lord and Savior has overcome the world. It's going to be okay, and it's going to be worth it. It's going to be hard, and people will reject the gospel which was so graciously given to mankind, and maybe they will reject you, or treat you badly, or you will feel badly because people you try to teach don't believe...but it will be worth it. Christ has overcome the world.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Being Prepared
I realized today that I didn't post this week, and that I really didn't have an idea for a new post, but that today was in fact the last day of the week. I knew I had to think of something because I told myself that I would post on here every week in 2014 and so far I have. I can't stop now.
So here I was, racking my brain about what I could possibly talk about. I thought about just posting some verses (which would certainly be beneficial), and then I thought of resurrecting one of my less inspired ideas, and then I came up with the idea that I'm going to share with you now.
Maybe you guessed from the title that I will be very ironically talking about preparedness.
I heard a very insightful sermon recently about the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25. After Jesus concludes the story he admonishes his listeners to "Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour." (I'm realizing now that I'm probably just going to plagiarize this sermon right now, so just know that these thoughts are not unique to me)
There are lots of things that we cannot anticipate the time of with any real certainty. Both good things and bad things are going to happen to us with virtually no forewarning. But we can't just let life happen to us. We need to turn good things that happen to us into opportunities for personal growth, and bad things into opportunities to rely more fully on God. The only way to ensure that we use our experiences to their maximum benefit is to be prepared to handle them.
We aren't capable of magically preparing ourselves. That makes me sad because I like to think that I control things and that I can fix them and make them happen and really impact situations. Then again I can take comfort in the fact that God can prepare us for life's challenges through his Word. My best planning outside of his word won't help me handle the highs and lows of life effectively.
So really this post is for the unprepared me more than it is for you. I was really discouraged for a large portion of this week because of things I couldn't control that I wanted to control, but instead of relying on God and going to his word for support, or even thinking diligently about the things I knew from his word that would prepare me for these specific scenarios, I just stayed discouraged. So, when it became the end of the week, I was not prepared with tons of spiritual thoughts I had been thinking during the week because I spent most of it not preparing to be prepared, or perhaps suffering the consequences of being prepared. At the very least I did not spend enough time in the Word this week, which is the key to preparedness for life's situations.
I've been much less discouraged the past couple of days (thanks to some very reliable and encouraging friends, and prayer) but I know I can definitely do a better job letting God prepare me for the situations in my life.
He's here for us and his word is here for us. We cannot forget to utilize those resources.
So here I was, racking my brain about what I could possibly talk about. I thought about just posting some verses (which would certainly be beneficial), and then I thought of resurrecting one of my less inspired ideas, and then I came up with the idea that I'm going to share with you now.
Maybe you guessed from the title that I will be very ironically talking about preparedness.
I heard a very insightful sermon recently about the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25. After Jesus concludes the story he admonishes his listeners to "Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour." (I'm realizing now that I'm probably just going to plagiarize this sermon right now, so just know that these thoughts are not unique to me)
There are lots of things that we cannot anticipate the time of with any real certainty. Both good things and bad things are going to happen to us with virtually no forewarning. But we can't just let life happen to us. We need to turn good things that happen to us into opportunities for personal growth, and bad things into opportunities to rely more fully on God. The only way to ensure that we use our experiences to their maximum benefit is to be prepared to handle them.
We aren't capable of magically preparing ourselves. That makes me sad because I like to think that I control things and that I can fix them and make them happen and really impact situations. Then again I can take comfort in the fact that God can prepare us for life's challenges through his Word. My best planning outside of his word won't help me handle the highs and lows of life effectively.
So really this post is for the unprepared me more than it is for you. I was really discouraged for a large portion of this week because of things I couldn't control that I wanted to control, but instead of relying on God and going to his word for support, or even thinking diligently about the things I knew from his word that would prepare me for these specific scenarios, I just stayed discouraged. So, when it became the end of the week, I was not prepared with tons of spiritual thoughts I had been thinking during the week because I spent most of it not preparing to be prepared, or perhaps suffering the consequences of being prepared. At the very least I did not spend enough time in the Word this week, which is the key to preparedness for life's situations.
I've been much less discouraged the past couple of days (thanks to some very reliable and encouraging friends, and prayer) but I know I can definitely do a better job letting God prepare me for the situations in my life.
He's here for us and his word is here for us. We cannot forget to utilize those resources.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Run.
What should we do about temptation to sin? That should be a big question in the minds of Christian people. How do we respond when we are confronted with the wrong choice, when we are encouraged to make the wrong choice? We have to have answers for those questions.
When I was thinking about writing this post about how to handle temptations, I immediately thought of Joseph and Potiphar's Wife. He literally flees from the temptation to sin, which is the point I wanted to drive at. But, as I read the story again, something stood out to me that is an equally important way to approach temptation.
Genesis 39:6b-12
Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. And after a time his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master's wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her.
But one day, when he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house was there in the house, she caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house.
What I didn't notice before that I noticed on this reading was that Joseph didn't just immediately run away from the problem that was facing him. Potiphar's wife tried to entice him day after day, but his first response wasn't to run. His first response was to refuse her and proclaim his faith. "I can't sin against God this way." He likely had to say these words over and over again to her, having to convince himself to continually deny her, even though she tempted him. I wouldn't claim to know that this was indeed a true temptation for Joseph, except from the evidence we see in the rest of this story.
After he diligently and dutifully spent days and days relying on God and his affirmation of his own faith to resist temptation, the day came when she caught him, tempted him, and he ran away. If he had no desire to sin in this scenario he could have just continued to tell her no. But instead he ran, leaving his responsibilities and his position so that he wouldn't sin.
I think the dual nature of Joseph's approach to this temptation (resisting while remaining/fleeing) can tell us lots of good things.
There should be no length we are unwilling to go to to stop from sinning. Period. If we can resist temptation easily through faith and will-power--great. But if not, let's do whatever we need to do to cut sin out of our lives.
When I was thinking about writing this post about how to handle temptations, I immediately thought of Joseph and Potiphar's Wife. He literally flees from the temptation to sin, which is the point I wanted to drive at. But, as I read the story again, something stood out to me that is an equally important way to approach temptation.
Genesis 39:6b-12
Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. And after a time his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master's wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her.
But one day, when he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house was there in the house, she caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house.
What I didn't notice before that I noticed on this reading was that Joseph didn't just immediately run away from the problem that was facing him. Potiphar's wife tried to entice him day after day, but his first response wasn't to run. His first response was to refuse her and proclaim his faith. "I can't sin against God this way." He likely had to say these words over and over again to her, having to convince himself to continually deny her, even though she tempted him. I wouldn't claim to know that this was indeed a true temptation for Joseph, except from the evidence we see in the rest of this story.
After he diligently and dutifully spent days and days relying on God and his affirmation of his own faith to resist temptation, the day came when she caught him, tempted him, and he ran away. If he had no desire to sin in this scenario he could have just continued to tell her no. But instead he ran, leaving his responsibilities and his position so that he wouldn't sin.
I think the dual nature of Joseph's approach to this temptation (resisting while remaining/fleeing) can tell us lots of good things.
- People of faith will be tempted.
- Strong faith will help us through temptations, but it won't make us magically impervious to them or incapable of succumbing to them.
- Reminding ourselves why we shouldn't sin can help us resist temptation.
- Running from the source of our temptation doesn't always have to be our first response (Although I would never lessen the power or importance of verses 2 Timothy 2:22 or 1 Corinthians 6:18. I would say present resistance is a form of fleeing)
- We can teach others about God even when we are tempted (Joseph taught Potiphar's wife about serving God amidst this temptation)
- It's better to run than to give in.
There should be no length we are unwilling to go to to stop from sinning. Period. If we can resist temptation easily through faith and will-power--great. But if not, let's do whatever we need to do to cut sin out of our lives.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
He Set Eternity in our Hearts
Sorry this post is coming so late in the week. For some reason I really had trouble coming up with something to talk about, especially amidst the busyness of lectures, etc.
I decided to talk about something that came up more than once in my week in really subtle ways, but that I think is really interesting and important. Admittedly, I need to think a lot more about this complex subject.
Ecclesiastes 3:10-11
"I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end."
Think about that while I tell you these two stories from my week:
One.
I'm very blessed to be able to have lots of conversations about God with people who don't necessarily believe in him or care about what he has to say. In my field, almost everyone is an atheist, but they are generally very interested in my alternative perspective. Recently, during one of these conversations, a colleague of mine asked me a question that she feared was too personal. "Do you really, actually, deep down inside, feel that there is something more?"
That was a weird question for me. People don't usually approach my faith in terms of my feelings about it. I don't usually approach my faith in terms of my feelings about it. But then I realized that the answer to her question was "Absolutely yes, I know there is something more. I can feel it inside of me." I really don't think I had ever said that to a person before, because I focus a lot on intellectually coming to God. But I realized as I answered her, that another way that I believe in God is because I know in my heart that he is the explanation for things. I'm the kind of person who likes to know things only with my brain, but there is something to be said for feeling in your heart that there is something more to life than what you can come up with in your own brain.
After all, that's exactly the premise of Ecc 3:11. God set eternity in our hearts, not so that we can understand all of the things that God has done or what God understands, but so we can understand that there is something more. Like I said, I need to think about that verse and what it means more, but there seemed to be a strong correlation between what my colleague was referencing in my "gut feelings" and the idea of God "setting eternity in our hearts." Whether or not she believed in something more, she was willing to recognize that my belief (especially in life after death) would be something that stemmed at least in part from an internal instinct of some sort.
Now for story number two. This isn't really my story as much as the other one was. I started watching this documentary called "Surviving Progress" on Netflix. I've been busy, so I've only watched about 15 minutes of it. During this fifteen minutes, a evolutionary scientist (I think that was his title) was explaining the differences and similarities between chimps and humans. The major difference he brought out was that when something doesn't work how it is supposed to for a chimp, they just keep trying to do whatever it is and they don't understand why it doesn't work. Alternatively, if something doesn't work in the way that a human expects it to based on prior knowledge, they look for an unobservable factor that could be causing this different outcome.
The scientist, of course, gave no explanation as to why humans, rather than chimps, are capable of understanding that there could be invisible/unobservable things that explain life. Those are his words, not mine. He stated very plainly that humans are looking for unobservable things to explain life, not just individual events.
So here it was again, Ecclesiastes 3:11 from the mouth of a scientist. Humans are seeking explanations that go beyond our senses. What the scientist didn't say, but that I will, is that our Creator gave us that longing to help us search for him.
I don't know if there is anything that one could make of that searching, that longing, or that "gut feeling" without the Creator. If there is just nothing else--no more to this life (or beyond this life)--why is there this pervasive idea that we are looking for something that we naturally perceive inside ourselves?
(Now that I'm reading this, I'm realizing that these ideas are probably also informed in part by C.S. Lewis and his discussion of the Law of Human Nature in Mere Christianity. Regardless, I take comfort and hope in the fact that God gives us tools to help us search for him and find him. And I hope that we can all be aware of those around us who are looking and feeling so that we can help guide them to the true God.)
I decided to talk about something that came up more than once in my week in really subtle ways, but that I think is really interesting and important. Admittedly, I need to think a lot more about this complex subject.
Ecclesiastes 3:10-11
"I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end."
Think about that while I tell you these two stories from my week:
One.
I'm very blessed to be able to have lots of conversations about God with people who don't necessarily believe in him or care about what he has to say. In my field, almost everyone is an atheist, but they are generally very interested in my alternative perspective. Recently, during one of these conversations, a colleague of mine asked me a question that she feared was too personal. "Do you really, actually, deep down inside, feel that there is something more?"
That was a weird question for me. People don't usually approach my faith in terms of my feelings about it. I don't usually approach my faith in terms of my feelings about it. But then I realized that the answer to her question was "Absolutely yes, I know there is something more. I can feel it inside of me." I really don't think I had ever said that to a person before, because I focus a lot on intellectually coming to God. But I realized as I answered her, that another way that I believe in God is because I know in my heart that he is the explanation for things. I'm the kind of person who likes to know things only with my brain, but there is something to be said for feeling in your heart that there is something more to life than what you can come up with in your own brain.
After all, that's exactly the premise of Ecc 3:11. God set eternity in our hearts, not so that we can understand all of the things that God has done or what God understands, but so we can understand that there is something more. Like I said, I need to think about that verse and what it means more, but there seemed to be a strong correlation between what my colleague was referencing in my "gut feelings" and the idea of God "setting eternity in our hearts." Whether or not she believed in something more, she was willing to recognize that my belief (especially in life after death) would be something that stemmed at least in part from an internal instinct of some sort.
Now for story number two. This isn't really my story as much as the other one was. I started watching this documentary called "Surviving Progress" on Netflix. I've been busy, so I've only watched about 15 minutes of it. During this fifteen minutes, a evolutionary scientist (I think that was his title) was explaining the differences and similarities between chimps and humans. The major difference he brought out was that when something doesn't work how it is supposed to for a chimp, they just keep trying to do whatever it is and they don't understand why it doesn't work. Alternatively, if something doesn't work in the way that a human expects it to based on prior knowledge, they look for an unobservable factor that could be causing this different outcome.
The scientist, of course, gave no explanation as to why humans, rather than chimps, are capable of understanding that there could be invisible/unobservable things that explain life. Those are his words, not mine. He stated very plainly that humans are looking for unobservable things to explain life, not just individual events.
So here it was again, Ecclesiastes 3:11 from the mouth of a scientist. Humans are seeking explanations that go beyond our senses. What the scientist didn't say, but that I will, is that our Creator gave us that longing to help us search for him.
I don't know if there is anything that one could make of that searching, that longing, or that "gut feeling" without the Creator. If there is just nothing else--no more to this life (or beyond this life)--why is there this pervasive idea that we are looking for something that we naturally perceive inside ourselves?
(Now that I'm reading this, I'm realizing that these ideas are probably also informed in part by C.S. Lewis and his discussion of the Law of Human Nature in Mere Christianity. Regardless, I take comfort and hope in the fact that God gives us tools to help us search for him and find him. And I hope that we can all be aware of those around us who are looking and feeling so that we can help guide them to the true God.)
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