One of my personal “mantras” (if you will), partly because it was one of the first Bible verses I ever memorized is this:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6) (probably paraphrasing several versions)
I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the years, particularly since I am kind of a “brainy” guy and tend to try to “figure things out” in my own head a lot. Thus, I am challenged to lean MORE on God’s infinite wisdom, than on my own puny understanding, even in things where I think I “know something” (like software engineering, where I have spent over 40 years of my life perfecting my craft). I cannot count the number of times where I was stuck up against a wall with a programming problem, and I had to (often after hours or even days of struggling [in my own understanding] to figure it out) step back, bow my head and invoke James 1:5, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally… and it shall be given him.” Only to find that indeed wisdom will be given and the problem is solved within minutes (even seconds, sometimes as little as a split second later).
Which leads me to the point of this rant, in that I see a WHOLE LOT of people (not just myself), leaning on our own understanding A LOT, and especially religious people, of both/all political persuasions, who think we know everything and are quite qualified, even required, to make sure everyone else knows what we know and agrees with our point-of-view. And particularly when they disagree with my own point-of-view, I find myself bristling at the perceived superiority and lack of sympathy with my own carefully crafted viewpoint.
Not fair. How come THEY get to be right, and I am wrong, especially when I myself have become convinced that my viewpoint is the correct one, and therefore theirs must be incorrect, or at least in need of modification…. ???
So, hopefully my own hypocrisy is readily discernible, but how about your own?
And therein lies the rub: we all quite easily, myself included, spot the mote in others’ eyes, and miss the beam in our own (Matthew 7:1-5).
I’ve written about this topic a bit before (see “Speaking For God“), but I felt particularly in these last few weeks about this topic, given the increasing political divide in our country, and the increasing tension, vitriol, Trump-bashing, etc. that has come to surround the current health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, that many/most of us are getting it all wrong, most/all of the time.
I want to write more about the virus situation, and I’ve started another post about it, but let me start here with a quote from my devotional reading this morning:
So … when the heat is turned up, make sure the flavor that comes out is Jesus.
Anne Graham Lotz, “Fixing My Eyes on JESUS” (April 30)
I fear that, as the “heat” of our global health / economic crisis has been turned up, as the “heat” of the “global warming” (or “climate change”) is rising, as the “heat” of our polarizing U.S. President is accelerating, that what is coming out, even of our “Christian” community, is something other than JESUS.
I have found myself having to back out of Facebook conversations because my temper was rising; that I found myself thinking “How can they think that way?”, or of wanting more to make myself heard than trying to understand the other person, and to empathize with their obvious pain. Is my own opinion (even righteously grounded) more important than the needs, pains, hurts, desires, even opinions or wants of another? Maybe. Maybe not.
I have long thought that God is right, and we’re all just guessing (Romans 3:4). But I have also long thought that God can and will make His truth known to anyone who really wants to know (see James 1 above). How many of us REALLY want to know what He thinks, or do we more want to have Him validate our own viewpoint, at the expense of everyone else’s?
I read a very interesting Scripture this morning:
The Lord enters into judgment against the elders and princes of His people,
“It is you who have devoured the vineyard;
The plunder of the poor is in your houses.
What do you mean by crushing My people
And grinding the face of the poor?”
Declares the Lord GOD of hosts.
Isaiah 3:14-15 (NASB)
I think there are many implications of these verses for today. For instance, does God really want church leaders to lord it over their congregations, in a worldly CEO model, where you have a head pastor at the top, deacons, elders and lay leaders in the middle, and the “rest” of the congregation under their care/supervision? Or are we all supposed to be brothers and sisters, each with our place in the family of God, with one Elder Brother and one Father in heaven, taking care of each other?
Do we really need to be forcing our opinions on others, all the while looking down on them for their obviously wrong ideas, being quick to speak and slow to listen? Do we bash our leaders, or do we pray for them, and weep for the state of our land, confessing and forsaking our own sins?
Or how about this: does God intend us to have all-powerful, wise and providing federal/state/local governments, controlling our every action, doling out subsidies and supplies, while taxing our every action, and regulating every aspect of our existence? Or rather a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people”, to “provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty”?
I’m just asking (myself first), because I think, biblically, God ends up giving us the kind of rulers that we REALLY want, partly so that we will come to see the difference between having God as our Father, vs. having (preferring?) men ruling over us.
So, maybe I have gone afield here. But, can you see my point? Are we REALLY living our lives, forming our viewpoints, conforming ourselves to what our private echo chambers tell us? Or are we increasingly listening to, drawing close to, and conforming ourselves to, the Word, Will, and Heart of GOD Almighty, who holds the world and everything in it in the palm of His Hand, and to whom the nations are as a drop in a bucket (Isaiah 40:15)? Am I?? Are you??
And are we coming underneath the poor and the helpless and the widows and orphans, to help them, to lift them up? Or are we lording over them, making sure they know their place, and know who their friends are?? Are our programs and promotions designed to really benefit others? Or are they designed to promote ourselves and boost our bottom lines? Do we really care if others are helped? Can we stand it if someone else becomes great at our expense? Can we humble ourselves enough to acknowledge that maybe (just maybe) we could be wrong, or that our viewpoint might need adjusting, or that we don’t know everything we should?
The New Testament book of James is really good reading, and I think I will devote this next week to a close study of it, with regard to this subject. I wanted to pull out a really pithy verse to sum things up here, but I have found, reading through this book, that the WHOLE book needs to be quoted, there are SO MANY good things he has to say.
And I have to say that our own pastor, these last few weeks, has been trying to get us to this point as well. Messages about “fixing our eyes on Jesus”, about diving into God’s Word for ourselves, about drawing close to Him in this time, about loving our neighbor as ourselves. I fall short. My time in the Word has been spotty to non-existent; my thoughts tend to be about myself and my problems (and losing my job at this time, and being a vulnerable part of the population, health-wise, can be pretty distracting), and my thoughts toward others tend to be a lot like “why are they thinking like that?”… And I can use the excuse of social-distancing to hunker down and forget about everyone else around me. Sound familiar?
Almost forgot to mention: I really started thinking about this topic more in earnest about a year ago, when I heard a wonderful speaker at our Oregon Right to Life convention named Josh Brahm (Equal Rights Institute), and then talked to him at his booth afterwards. I almost got my hackles up as he spoke, because he talked about how he consciously tries to listen more than speak, to empathize with those he meets with. And I thought, “How can he do that, when they are so obviously wrong?” … thus exposing my own biases and lack of humility, love, and empathy. The trick seems to be: wanting to love the other person more than wanting to be “right”, or “correct”; to really be like Jesus, more than being correct in my theology about Jesus. Does that make sense? It’s not that he (or I) want to compromise who God is, or what He has revealed about Himself, but that we want to really make Him known through our own thoughts and actions, MORE than we want to have the correctness of our theology known to all those who happen to hear.
So, I really need to take my own advice to heart: to lean on Jesus more, to focus on Him, trusting Him with all my heart, and leaning not unto my own understanding. Can I make sure that Jesus is living His life through me, instead of making sure that I have the correct theology about Him?
Can I get an “Amen”?!