Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.-- Proverbs 3:5-6 (NLT)
I just don't know what's going on here. I don't understand why this is happening. What have we done to deserve this? What could possibly have brought this on? I just don't understand!
I feel pretty safe in saying that almost every person in this wide world has stated words to this effect, uttering them from the darkness of our anguish and despair. "How could this possibly be happening?!", we scream, perhaps silently, perhaps to the wind and rain that hides our tears. Even when we know from the very heart of our faith that Satan has brought this evil event about, not God, we turn to God in our sorrow and seek the answer to that toughest of questions: "Why?"
Solomon, son of David, is portrayed as being exceedingly wise. As King of Israel, he has great wealth and power, but it is his wisdom for which he is best known far and wide, so much so that even the Queen of Sheba visited and brought gifts just for the opportunity of meeting this most wise man. Solomon, like so many prominent figures in the Bible, was not without his faults and his sin ultimately led to the rending of the united kingdom of Israel into two: the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Long before then, though, Solomon realized the tremendous task ahead of him, the daunting responsibility of ruling over all the children of Israel, so he prayed to God and asked for discernment. "'And here I am in the midst of your own chosen people, a nation so great and numerous they cannot be counted! Give me an understanding heart so that I can govern your people well and know the difference between right and wrong. For who by himself is able to govern this great people of yours?'” (1 Kings 3:8-9 NLT) In response to this plea for help, one that acknowledges humility from arguably the wealthiest and most powerful man in the land, we are told that "The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for wisdom." (1 Kings 3:10 NLT), and so granted the request.
Yet even Solomon, perhaps because of his God-given wisdom, recognized that we cannot depend solely upon our own understanding. One aspect of this is that there are certain things in this life that we simply will not be able to understand, certain events will occur that just make no sense. Some people will seem to reap undeserved rewards while others will suffer needlessly, or so it would seem to us. Crises will come when least expected, as will signs of grace and kindness from strangers. It quite easily may be that most of what goes on in this life will lie well beyond our ability to grasp and understand. Solomon says that's OK, don't depend on being able to understand. But he also warns us not to even try. He not only tells us we will not be able to comprehend the true meaning behind most of what goes on around us, he tells he we should not even try. Instead, we are to trust in God, assured that He knows the meaning behind every event that occurs. We are to turn to God in prayer and ask what He would have us do, how we should respond to whatever happens. And when we do so, He will show us the path to take. How? Jesus explains: "When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.'" (John 8:11-13 NIV)
Depending on where you are in your life, that "explanation" may be either confusing or an oversimplification. If you are not sure about this man named Jesus, and certainly not ready to call Him God, then saying that by following Jesus we can find how God would have us react to a given situation might easily come across as being overly simple-minded, an easy way out of explaining a great mystery. Or it might simply confuse you, especially if you question the existence of God in the first place. In that case, this could be considered a circular argument with no true answer. At the other extreme, if you are firmly on the path Jesus laid for us, then you realize that the best way to discern what God would have you do is by prayerfully studying that very path and how Jesus prepared it for us. Since most of us are probably somewhere in the middle, we can strive to determine God's will for us by carefully reading the Bible to see how others have responded when life overtook them.
Take Paul, for instance. Saul was a Pharisee, and a great persecutor of the early church. He sought out Christians and hauled them off to be tried, many to be put to death. Then Jesus came to him on the road to Damascus and turned his life completely around, even gave him a new name. From that point on, Paul began a life of suffering. He was scorned, shipwrecked, beaten, imprisoned, and finally executed, all because of his belief in Jesus Christ. Apparently, Paul could have avoided most, if not all, of this pain had he simply rejected Jesus as the Messiah, the Risen Savior. Instead, he praised God at every turn, even thanking him for the suffering he endured. The best example of this is given in Paul's second letter to the church in Corinth: "To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:7-10 NIV) There's one clue to know God's response to our seeking His will: when we are weak, He is strong. His loving grace is all we need to get us through this life and on to the rewards of the next. When we are suffering, the power and might of Jesus Christ are resting upon us, protecting us, strengthening us. Paul relates this as a seeming contradiction, yet when we are at our weakest point, that is when God is with us the most, and that is when we are strongest.
Of course the surest way for us to see what Jesus thinks we should do when circumstances overtake us is to study the lessons He taught in the form of parables. The Parable of the Weeds, as related in Matthew 13:24-30, is not just about agriculture or gardening. It tells us what we can look forward to later on. Consider a follower of Christ to be the wheat in the story. The weeds represent those who do not believe, and those who follow Satan. They grow together, alongside each other. At times, it may even look like the weeds are getting more than their share of the riches of the field. But in the end, after the harvest, the wheat is taken into the Master's barn while the weeds are collected, tied into bundles, and burned. That serves as a vivid picture of what awaits us in heaven, or in the lake of fire. So even though it can at times appear that those who break all the rules, who ridicule God, or who pretend to believe in Christ yet act in ways contrary to how Christ would have us act may be getting the better things in life, their gain is short-lived and their penalty is eternal life in torment and agony. But those who truly believe and follow Christ in their belief will be safe and secure for eternity, sharing a home with God.
Consider the short Parable of the Hidden Treasure in the field, and its twin, the Parable of the Pearl. In both cases, a man found a treasure of immense, incomparable worth. So great and wonderful was the treasure, he went and sold everything he had just so he could purchase it and make it his own. The treasure is heaven, an eternity with God. Jesus wants you to know that your reward for believing in Him and following Him will be so great, you should be willing to give up anything and everything in this life in order to secure it. If you must suffer for your belief, it will well be worth the cost. Sell everything you own? Once a rich man approached Jesus, asking what he could do to gain eternal life. He told Jesus he had always followed all the laws of Moses and believed in God. Jesus responded that there was one thing the man lacked, one thing he needed. He must sell all he owns and give it to the poor, then "take up the cross, and follow Me." (Mark 10:17-22) No matter how great we may think the cost is in this life to take up the cross and follow Jesus, the reward for doing so is beyond our wildest imaginings.
Or the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, as recorded in Matthew 18:21-35. The servant owes the king a large sum of money. He begs for more time, promising to pay the king back. The king, in his mercy and compassion, forgives the servant his debt, wiping the slate clean. On his way out, the servant comes across another servant who owes him some small sum. He demands payment. When the second man falls at the first's feet, begging for more time and promising to repay, the first servant is unforgiving and will hear none of it. He has the second man thrown into prison until he can pay. Others witnessed this little episode and reported it to their king, knowing how merciful he had treated the first servant. Upon hearing this story, the king raged at the one whose debt he had forgiven, wondering why he had not forgiven the small debt owned him. In his anger, he had the man turned over to the jailers to be tortured until he repaid his own debt. With this little tale, Jesus tells us that when we are wronged, we should forgive those who have harmed us, just as our Master and King forgives us. If we fail to follow this example, we can expect to pay a much higher price later.
Or look to the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), that teaches us, among other things, to accept others with open arms when they return to us, no matter what they may have done to us before, just as our Father accepts us with open arms even though we have sinned against him. Or the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), that instructs us to help those in need and to not judge others because of their race or background or heritage or for any outward reason, but to look to their heart and their belief. Or think of what Jesus said at the big party the Pharisee put on and invited Jesus to attend (Luke 14:1-24). Noting people maneuvering for the best seats, He cautioned them to take those further back and the less comfortable seats, so that they not be asked to move by the Lord of the house unless it be to a better place. He also suggested the host not just invite those who would return the favor by inviting him to their feasts, but to also invite those who could never repay. This is a picture of us, of how we can never repay God for the invitation to heaven He offers. It is only through His love and grace and mercy that we may enter His gates. Jesus paid the price for us that we could never be able to pay.
As a final lesson, consider the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16). The landowner needed men to work in his vineyard. He went out early in the morning and hired some, offering one denarius for the day's labors. Three other times during the day, including up to the eleventh hour, or near the end of the work day with but one hour to go, he went out and hired more hands, offering each the same wage of one denarius. When the day was finally done and it came time to pay, those hired first noticed that the landowner paid the last people hired, those who worked merely an hour, the same wage they were being paid! They were upset that they had worked all day for one denarius while others only worked an hour. The landowner replied that he had paid them what he promised, the rate they had agreed to work for. What he paid the other workers was no one's business but his own. Jesus summed this story up by saying, "So the last will be first, and the first will be last." (Matthew 20:16 (NIV)). But there's more to this message, and it is of critical importance that we understand it. Jesus is saying that no matter when in our lives we come to recognize Him as the Son of God and our Redeemer, no matter how late in life we come to believe in Him, we will receive the same gift of salvation and eternal life as everyone else who believes. If we have doubted for so long, if we have questioned whether God exists or that Jesus is His Son, once we accept that Truth we are assured of our promised wage. Heaven is ours.
Please do not ever forget that good works, and good intentions, alone will not give us a pass into heaven. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6 (NKJV)) Jesus paid the price of admission for us. All we need do is believe in Him. But we show our belief by our acts, our deeds. We admit our belief by following His example. We learn to do so by studying His word and how He and those close to Him reacted to events in their lives. Thank God for His wonderful Word, our users manual for those things in life we simply cannot understand.
Amen.
I feel pretty safe in saying that almost every person in this wide world has stated words to this effect, uttering them from the darkness of our anguish and despair. "How could this possibly be happening?!", we scream, perhaps silently, perhaps to the wind and rain that hides our tears. Even when we know from the very heart of our faith that Satan has brought this evil event about, not God, we turn to God in our sorrow and seek the answer to that toughest of questions: "Why?"
Solomon, son of David, is portrayed as being exceedingly wise. As King of Israel, he has great wealth and power, but it is his wisdom for which he is best known far and wide, so much so that even the Queen of Sheba visited and brought gifts just for the opportunity of meeting this most wise man. Solomon, like so many prominent figures in the Bible, was not without his faults and his sin ultimately led to the rending of the united kingdom of Israel into two: the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Long before then, though, Solomon realized the tremendous task ahead of him, the daunting responsibility of ruling over all the children of Israel, so he prayed to God and asked for discernment. "'And here I am in the midst of your own chosen people, a nation so great and numerous they cannot be counted! Give me an understanding heart so that I can govern your people well and know the difference between right and wrong. For who by himself is able to govern this great people of yours?'” (1 Kings 3:8-9 NLT) In response to this plea for help, one that acknowledges humility from arguably the wealthiest and most powerful man in the land, we are told that "The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for wisdom." (1 Kings 3:10 NLT), and so granted the request.
Yet even Solomon, perhaps because of his God-given wisdom, recognized that we cannot depend solely upon our own understanding. One aspect of this is that there are certain things in this life that we simply will not be able to understand, certain events will occur that just make no sense. Some people will seem to reap undeserved rewards while others will suffer needlessly, or so it would seem to us. Crises will come when least expected, as will signs of grace and kindness from strangers. It quite easily may be that most of what goes on in this life will lie well beyond our ability to grasp and understand. Solomon says that's OK, don't depend on being able to understand. But he also warns us not to even try. He not only tells us we will not be able to comprehend the true meaning behind most of what goes on around us, he tells he we should not even try. Instead, we are to trust in God, assured that He knows the meaning behind every event that occurs. We are to turn to God in prayer and ask what He would have us do, how we should respond to whatever happens. And when we do so, He will show us the path to take. How? Jesus explains: "When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.'" (John 8:11-13 NIV)
Depending on where you are in your life, that "explanation" may be either confusing or an oversimplification. If you are not sure about this man named Jesus, and certainly not ready to call Him God, then saying that by following Jesus we can find how God would have us react to a given situation might easily come across as being overly simple-minded, an easy way out of explaining a great mystery. Or it might simply confuse you, especially if you question the existence of God in the first place. In that case, this could be considered a circular argument with no true answer. At the other extreme, if you are firmly on the path Jesus laid for us, then you realize that the best way to discern what God would have you do is by prayerfully studying that very path and how Jesus prepared it for us. Since most of us are probably somewhere in the middle, we can strive to determine God's will for us by carefully reading the Bible to see how others have responded when life overtook them.
Take Paul, for instance. Saul was a Pharisee, and a great persecutor of the early church. He sought out Christians and hauled them off to be tried, many to be put to death. Then Jesus came to him on the road to Damascus and turned his life completely around, even gave him a new name. From that point on, Paul began a life of suffering. He was scorned, shipwrecked, beaten, imprisoned, and finally executed, all because of his belief in Jesus Christ. Apparently, Paul could have avoided most, if not all, of this pain had he simply rejected Jesus as the Messiah, the Risen Savior. Instead, he praised God at every turn, even thanking him for the suffering he endured. The best example of this is given in Paul's second letter to the church in Corinth: "To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:7-10 NIV) There's one clue to know God's response to our seeking His will: when we are weak, He is strong. His loving grace is all we need to get us through this life and on to the rewards of the next. When we are suffering, the power and might of Jesus Christ are resting upon us, protecting us, strengthening us. Paul relates this as a seeming contradiction, yet when we are at our weakest point, that is when God is with us the most, and that is when we are strongest.
Of course the surest way for us to see what Jesus thinks we should do when circumstances overtake us is to study the lessons He taught in the form of parables. The Parable of the Weeds, as related in Matthew 13:24-30, is not just about agriculture or gardening. It tells us what we can look forward to later on. Consider a follower of Christ to be the wheat in the story. The weeds represent those who do not believe, and those who follow Satan. They grow together, alongside each other. At times, it may even look like the weeds are getting more than their share of the riches of the field. But in the end, after the harvest, the wheat is taken into the Master's barn while the weeds are collected, tied into bundles, and burned. That serves as a vivid picture of what awaits us in heaven, or in the lake of fire. So even though it can at times appear that those who break all the rules, who ridicule God, or who pretend to believe in Christ yet act in ways contrary to how Christ would have us act may be getting the better things in life, their gain is short-lived and their penalty is eternal life in torment and agony. But those who truly believe and follow Christ in their belief will be safe and secure for eternity, sharing a home with God.
Consider the short Parable of the Hidden Treasure in the field, and its twin, the Parable of the Pearl. In both cases, a man found a treasure of immense, incomparable worth. So great and wonderful was the treasure, he went and sold everything he had just so he could purchase it and make it his own. The treasure is heaven, an eternity with God. Jesus wants you to know that your reward for believing in Him and following Him will be so great, you should be willing to give up anything and everything in this life in order to secure it. If you must suffer for your belief, it will well be worth the cost. Sell everything you own? Once a rich man approached Jesus, asking what he could do to gain eternal life. He told Jesus he had always followed all the laws of Moses and believed in God. Jesus responded that there was one thing the man lacked, one thing he needed. He must sell all he owns and give it to the poor, then "take up the cross, and follow Me." (Mark 10:17-22) No matter how great we may think the cost is in this life to take up the cross and follow Jesus, the reward for doing so is beyond our wildest imaginings.
Or the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, as recorded in Matthew 18:21-35. The servant owes the king a large sum of money. He begs for more time, promising to pay the king back. The king, in his mercy and compassion, forgives the servant his debt, wiping the slate clean. On his way out, the servant comes across another servant who owes him some small sum. He demands payment. When the second man falls at the first's feet, begging for more time and promising to repay, the first servant is unforgiving and will hear none of it. He has the second man thrown into prison until he can pay. Others witnessed this little episode and reported it to their king, knowing how merciful he had treated the first servant. Upon hearing this story, the king raged at the one whose debt he had forgiven, wondering why he had not forgiven the small debt owned him. In his anger, he had the man turned over to the jailers to be tortured until he repaid his own debt. With this little tale, Jesus tells us that when we are wronged, we should forgive those who have harmed us, just as our Master and King forgives us. If we fail to follow this example, we can expect to pay a much higher price later.
Or look to the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), that teaches us, among other things, to accept others with open arms when they return to us, no matter what they may have done to us before, just as our Father accepts us with open arms even though we have sinned against him. Or the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), that instructs us to help those in need and to not judge others because of their race or background or heritage or for any outward reason, but to look to their heart and their belief. Or think of what Jesus said at the big party the Pharisee put on and invited Jesus to attend (Luke 14:1-24). Noting people maneuvering for the best seats, He cautioned them to take those further back and the less comfortable seats, so that they not be asked to move by the Lord of the house unless it be to a better place. He also suggested the host not just invite those who would return the favor by inviting him to their feasts, but to also invite those who could never repay. This is a picture of us, of how we can never repay God for the invitation to heaven He offers. It is only through His love and grace and mercy that we may enter His gates. Jesus paid the price for us that we could never be able to pay.
As a final lesson, consider the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16). The landowner needed men to work in his vineyard. He went out early in the morning and hired some, offering one denarius for the day's labors. Three other times during the day, including up to the eleventh hour, or near the end of the work day with but one hour to go, he went out and hired more hands, offering each the same wage of one denarius. When the day was finally done and it came time to pay, those hired first noticed that the landowner paid the last people hired, those who worked merely an hour, the same wage they were being paid! They were upset that they had worked all day for one denarius while others only worked an hour. The landowner replied that he had paid them what he promised, the rate they had agreed to work for. What he paid the other workers was no one's business but his own. Jesus summed this story up by saying, "So the last will be first, and the first will be last." (Matthew 20:16 (NIV)). But there's more to this message, and it is of critical importance that we understand it. Jesus is saying that no matter when in our lives we come to recognize Him as the Son of God and our Redeemer, no matter how late in life we come to believe in Him, we will receive the same gift of salvation and eternal life as everyone else who believes. If we have doubted for so long, if we have questioned whether God exists or that Jesus is His Son, once we accept that Truth we are assured of our promised wage. Heaven is ours.
Please do not ever forget that good works, and good intentions, alone will not give us a pass into heaven. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6 (NKJV)) Jesus paid the price of admission for us. All we need do is believe in Him. But we show our belief by our acts, our deeds. We admit our belief by following His example. We learn to do so by studying His word and how He and those close to Him reacted to events in their lives. Thank God for His wonderful Word, our users manual for those things in life we simply cannot understand.
Amen.
