A delicate balance

Standout Verse - Proverbs 16:1
We can make our own plans, but the LORD gives the right answer.

How often do we hear it said, “It’s all in God’s hands,” or “I’m simply trusting / leaving it to God”? And how often is that an excuse to not plan and to avoid work? An excuse to avoid working out a vision preferring to believe that directions will simply fall from the sky into our laps? It avoids us getting it wrong and gives us someone else to blame when solutions do not suddenly appear. This laziness is bad enough, but then we occasionally use verses such as this one to justify our actions. We ask, “If God will give us the answer, why make plans?” We claim a false scriptural mandate to ease our consciences. But when we do this we manipulate meaning so that we can discover what we always hoped to find.
You see, there is nothing in this verse that tells us that God will give us a plan. There is nothing here to say that if we put ourselves onto a holy-autopilot things will just happen as they were always meant to. There is no “Commit a task fully to the Lord and no effort will be required from you”. What there is is an expression of a delicate balance. We are to work and we are to listen.
We are to make plans. More than one. It is not for us to construct a scheme and then inform God that this is how He is to act; nor are we to shoehorn him into our plot. We are to make plans, using our imagination to create a spread of different ways forward and then look to God to discern which (in any so far) fits His will. We plan and then God answers.

So where is this delicate balance? It is in a partnership between our efforts and God’s control.

Lord, give me more creativity that I may better see the paths that lie ahead; give me also more stillness that I may better hear which path you call me from. Then together, may we plant my feet on the right way.

Super Christians, Schmuper Christians

With apologies to the original author:

Alone and disillusioned from pretending I was free,
Powerless to change my life, to leave this misery.
But then I think about him, of his love, how can it be
That he would die and rise again and choose to live in me.

To be filled with his own presence and peace I do not know:
Bound by pain and sorrow I bow before his throne.
I find what I am seeking and I know that I am free
for I can do all things he asks by his power at work in me.

Christ in me, the hope of Glory:
Christ in me, the mystery:
Christ in me, God’s greatest story.

Brought to life at Calvary,
He’s my joy eternally
(Through his grace this I can see).
All because of Christ in me.

Why must we all be super-Christians ... why can't we admit to struggling? The message of the gospel is not so feeble that it withers in the face of reality!
Why do we not have the courage to sing “Bound by pain and sorrow I bow before his throne”? Why in our hymnary are we always “Unbound”? Sure, we leave with freedom, but do we always come that way? I don’t.

Lord, teach us honesty in worship.

I must see what it cost Him

Standout Verses – John 13:1,4,5,8a
[Jesus] had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end. So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.
“No,” Peter protested, “you will never ever wash my feet!”

And I protest too. But at least Peter had the excuse of not having read the passage many times before and having heard sermons on it and read theological treatise explaining it. For him this was new and unfamiliar: it would be uncomfortable and I understand that reaction. For me it is uncomfortable to read this and imagine Jesus wrapping a towel around his waist and walk up to my feet, but for different reasons. I feel that I would sully him; tarnish his deity by him having to come into contact with me, for I know where those feet have been today … the paths I trod in my actions and my words and my thoughts. These feet are dirty and Jesus should only bend down to cleaner feet than these, for he deserves the best and that is not what I can offer today; not what I can offer most days. Sometimes I can only offer my worst … it is the best that I can do and it is the reality of me. If he comes near my feet then the water would be stinkin’ and the towel would be boggin’. Jesus would be covered in filth, in my filth, and that is uncomfortable to me.

Notes from the NLT Life Application Study Bible (Jn 13:1):

Jesus knew he would be betrayed by one of his disciples, denied by another, and deserted by all of them for a time. Still he “loved them to the very end.” God knows us completely … He knows the sins we have committed and the ones we will yet commit. Still he loves us. How do you respond to that kind of love?

I respond with disbelief and choked back tears and they switch about. Love like this … forgiveness like this ... is beyond my grasp. Grace is more than I can comprehend.
Still he loves us.
Still he loves me.
Of course … Of course. The only feet worth cleaning are the dirty ones.

Standout Verse – John 13:8b
Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me.”

The cost of forgiveness is not one sided, for I must pay a cost too. I must see what it cost Him.

Psalm 119:4-8
Lord,

You have charged me
to keep your commandments carefully.
Oh, that my actions would consistently
reflect your decrees!
Then I will not be ashamed
when I compare my life with your commands.
As I learn your righteous regulations,
I will thank you by living as I should!
I will obey your decrees.
Please don’t give up on me!

Amen.

Bible Reading and Blogging

Why did I stop?

Romans 7:14b,15
The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.


mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa