When It Seems Like God Lied

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

There are many promises throughout the Bible.

The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. (Deuteronomy 31:8)

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11) 

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)

In our best moments, these verses likely come as a source of deep comfort. When we’re in the middle of difficult times though, having these verses offered as solutions to our problems can be frustrating or even annoying. Does losing a job seem like a plan to prosper us? Do illnesses, failed classes, divorces, cruel bosses, or financial ruin seem like giving us a hope and a future? There are times when God’s promises feel more like lies than truth.

Photo Credit: Chelsea Francis

Isaiah was the prophet who spoke to King Ahaz when his country of Judah was in a messy situation, being attacked by various kingdoms. But instead of listening to Isaiah’s words from God and trusting God to provide, he took matters into his own hands. Ahaz used money set aside apart for God to strike a deal with another nation, even though he had specifically been told not to. His disobedience and lack of trust put in motion the events that would eventually lead to the nation of Judah being exiled. 

It’s easy to scoff at King Ahaz for not believing God would come through, but one of the things that’s difficult for me about the Bible is that all the stories are so close together. We read the story of Isaiah prophesying to King Ahaz about a baby who will set everything right, and we flip a few hundred pages later and read the story of the baby’s arrival. What we miss is all those years in between, when the world seemed to be crumbling and God seemed to be silent. Anyone who originally heard the prophecy, or heard about it from a family member or friend, was long dead by the time the prophecy was fulfilled. Entire generations lived and died in the 700 years between when Isaiah foretold the baby's coming and when the baby was actually born.

But just because the people couldn’t see it doesn’t mean God wasn’t working.

In the Christmas story we find the hope of God’s kept promises, despite what we may be seeing or feeling in our own lives right now. We might feel forsaken, or like God’s plans are actually harming us, or that he’s completely ignoring the desires of our heart despite our delighting in him. There is nothing easy or simple about feeling that way, and we don’t have to pretend like we’re not--God is big enough to handle our frustrations and angst about what’s happening in our lives. At the same time, we can trust his promises. They may not come true in any way we can see today or tomorrow or thirty years from now, but his vision extends far beyond the span of our lives. Henri Nouwen once wrote, “Hope is trusting that something will be fulfilled, but fulfilled according the promises and not just according to our wishes. Hope is always open-ended.” 

The same God who sent his own son as the fulfillment of a 700-year-old promise is working now to fulfill the promises he’s made to us in his word. While not a traditional Christmas song, the words to Elevation Worship’s “Your Promises” are so fitting:

Doesn’t matter what I feelDoesn’t matter what I seeMy hope will always beIn your promises to me

In whatever situations we find ourselves in this Christmas season, may the story of God’s kept promises provide hope we can cling to when we need it most, and eyes to see the ways he is already at work. 

[Brianna DeWitt is a Christmas enthusiast. She believes in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She writes about faith, growing up, and whatever else pops into her head on her own blog, and tweets (largely about food) at @bwitt722.]

It's Not About You

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

As we near the holidays, our minds often turn to giving. We have our list of people and ideas of what kinds of gifts to buy for them, and we also likely think about charitable giving as well. Any organization we’ve given to at any point in our lives seems to come out of the woodwork seeking those year-end donations to help them reach their goal. In addition to financial gifts, we may also spend time serving meals or collecting items for people who don’t have the same resources we do. Too often though, this mindset gets siloed into November and December and largely ignored the rest of the year.

Photo Credit: Karl Fredrickson

It’s easy to make excuses about why we don’t serve. One guy who had some pretty great excuses to not serve is David. In the story we read in 1 Samuel 18:1-11, he had already been anointed the next king over Israel and was a praised war hero who had slain the giant Goliath. Now he was just biding his time until King Saul abdicated or passed away and David could assume the throne. But instead of spending all his time on military missions continuing to build his prowess, or boasting to all the people in the town about how great he was, David spent time playing his lyre for King Saul. As thanks, King Saul, overcome by an evil spirit, tried to pin David to the wall with a spear. Instead of leaving immediately though, David continued to play, giving King Saul the chance to try to kill him a second time (and failing again). David knew something very important about service: It wasn’t about him. Already he had seen God prepare him with the skills he needed to defeat Goliath, and David continued to trust and serve God in his role in Saul’s household as a lyre player.

When we’re firmly rooted in God and seeking to love him well in all we do, service should be a natural outflow of that desire. But it gets complicated in the demands and busyness of everyday life. Work, friends, kids, hobbies, spouses, exercise, school, and so many other good, honorable ways to spend our time and energy can easily feel like they’re taking all of our time and energy. Serving can seem like just one more thing to add to the never-ending list of what we should be doing, which can lead to guilt if we’re not doing it.

As we saw in the story of David though, it wasn’t fun or convenient for him to be serving King Saul. The uncomfortable truth is that God isn’t interested in our comfort. He wants our love, devotion, and yes, sacrifice--and sacrifice will sometimes hurt. If we approach serving by always trying to wedge it into our lives in the spare bits of time here and there, maybe we need to ask ourselves if it’s really service at all, or simply something we’re doing to make ourselves feel better. Our acts of service aren’t just for the people we serve (though they may benefit); service is a thank you note to God for what he’s done.

Fortunately, there are many ways we can serve. We can serve by changing how we go through our everyday lives, adjusting our perspective so we see ways to serve not as burdens but as opportunities to put hands and feet on our thankfulness. But serving might also look like adding things to our everyday lives. Opportunities to serve our neighbors and community abound, and many places are in need of dedicated people willing to serve well, whether it’s at a church or another organization. Our motivations might not always start out perfectly pure, but we can trust that God will use what we’re offering and transform us in the process as well. How would our service change if, as we do it, we thought of each action as adding another word to a thank you note to God? Thanks for the skills we can use to serve others, thanks for the financial resources we can give away, thanks for the people we serve and the people we serve with?

[Brianna DeWitt believes in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She writes about faith, growing up, and whatever else pops into her head on her own blog, and tweets (largely about food) at @bwitt722.]

Election Day

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

Election Day.

It has been difficult, during this election season, to resist the vitriol that assaults us daily in the media, at school, at work, and for some of us, even in our own homes. While we cycle every four years through the snide political comments, fallacious arguments, contentious debates, and those cheesy political ads which always show one candidate in black and white with a sinister voice-over and then the other, vibrantly colored, making impossible promises, this year’s presidential campaign season was more burdensome and more wearying than previous seasons in my (relatively short) memory. A friend of mine posted a meme earlier today that simply stated, “It’s election day, and I’m worried that someone will win.” Elsewhere, another friend posted, “One person wins. Everyone else loses.” This echoes the sentiments I’ve heard from many people.

One unfortunate result of this and most presidential election cycles is that issues of policy become issues of ethics, which is then used to justify attacks on other people’s morality and humanity. Even Christians, aware of their own brokenness, have attacked other believers for their “sinful” views. I’ve heard a lot of jokes about people unfriending family members on facebook, but this is actually happening and if it’s a joke, it’s not a very funny one, is it?

We heard an interesting take on the familiar story of David and Goliath this past Sunday at Encounter. It wasn’t the usual, “mighty Goliath felled by a stone from tiny, adolescent boy-David,” but rather it was a story about the years of training and preparation that allowed David to defeat the giant. There were two crucial forms of preparation that David undertook: the practical, physical training that allowed him to sling a rock, accurately, from any reasonable distance, whether standing still or on the run, and the spiritual training that changed David’s perspective on earthly challenges.

The physical training regimen that David undertook has become more widely known since the publication of Malcolm Gladwell’s (2013) NYT bestseller, David and Goliath. Gladwell takes great pains to explain the defensive training that shepherds would undertake, and indeed, in 1 Samuel 17, David tells the army that as a well-trained shepherd, he has already killed bears and lions. But David’s spiritual training is often ignored in such retellings. Certainly, as a devoted Jewish child, David had spent years outside communing with God, learning to trust God’s provision of safety. When David arrived at the battlefield, he was prepared physically to fell any creature, and prepared spiritually to expect God, the God of the angel armies, to make plain the way forward.

There’s been a lot of talk among Christians about the realm of earthly leaders as distinct from God’s sovereignty over all of creation, and certainly there is some truth to that division. But we also know that God works through people. People like us. In the past, when faced with unsavory political realities, when faced with evil and destructive policies, when faced with impoverishment and murder and injustice at the hands of political oppressors, God’s people have risen to subvert evil, to block evil by overwhelming it with good. Christians have done this  by providing safe passage to the oppressed. By digging wells. By funding small businesses in developing countries. By deploying into foreign lands as missionaries or in the military. By doing the work that Jesus called us to do.

Jesus didn’t tell us to use his name to justify adherence to a single political party. He didn’t give us permission to use his name to advance any kingdom other than God’s. He didn’t tell us to serve the strong, the capable, or the found; but rather, our task is to serve the least, the lost, and the weak. The mission of God rises above the best and the worst political rhetoric, above political division, and certainly God’s mission reigns supreme over our commitments to any earthly politician or political platform.

David faced an opponent who came with force, with intimidation, with insults day and night. Goliath spewed hatred, and divided the people of God. David’s victory over Goliath was not established that day in the valley, when the rock sank into the giant’s forehead and God’s people drove the enemy back to the sea. And no moral victory or defeat will be established tonight when the next president’s name is announced. David’s victory was earned long before he faced Goliath, during the many seasons and years on the mountainside and in the pastures where he talked with God, day and night, while protecting his father’s sheep. While the media will discuss the results of today’s election in terms of victory and defeat, in fact it’s neither. The rhetoric and attitudes of the past several months will continue to plague us, and the slow work of political change will not change the sovereignty of Christ.

God’s command is to love others, seek their justice, and walk humbly as demonstrated by Christ himself. In Psalm 23, when David writes about walking through the darkest valley, maybe he was thinking about facing Goliath, but maybe he was also thinking about other times when he faced the insulters, the dividers, and the intimidators. And rather than deepening division, David unified others under the law of God, which commands us to cultivate honesty, integrity, and service in ourselves and others. Responding to every Goliath in this way, with God’s law on our hearts, is the first step towards political and social restoration.

[Kristin vanEyk loves Encounter Church and hopes that you have found a community at Encounter as well. You can find out more about what Kristin is up to here.]

An Unbearable Wait

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

This December, I will be finished with my undergraduate career. I will turn in my last final, pack up my apartment into my little rusty car, and say far too many bittersweet goodbyes. Then I'll drive my little rusty car to the east side of the state and...

I'll wait. 

I'll wait to hear back from potential employers in hopes of an interview. I'll wait to see if I got into any of the graduate programs that I applied for. I'll wait for the next chapter of my life to begin, and I can guarantee that I won't be waiting patiently.

We've all experienced those bizarre transitionary periods that seem pointless and unproductive. Sometimes we're lucky enough to be waiting for some tangible, distant hope that we can see and touch. Other times, however, we're just waiting for a sign—any sign—of clarity about what our next move should be. Regardless, we tend to assume that all of this waiting time is just wasted time. We pace back and forth with impatience as the clock seems to tick incessantly on the wall.   

Photo credit: Tristan Colangelo.

The waiting is taxing, and we are so preoccupied with our future that we neglect our present. Our impatience is a broken record: “When X happens, I will finally be Y.” When I am admitted into that graduate program, I will be intelligent. When I get that job promotion, I will be successful at last. When I meet the perfect man or woman, I will finally be happy. This dichotomous mindset blinds us to how God is transforming us right now, in this very moment.  

In the first book of Samuel, God instructs Samuel to go to Bethlehem and seek out a man named Jesse. One of Jesse's sons was to be the new king of Israel, and Samuel was to find him and anoint him. God cautions Samuel not to be biased towards the stronger and more charismatic of Jesse's sons (1 Samuel 16:7).

God's focus is on the potential of our hearts instead of how we outwardly appear. Perhaps Jesse's bigger and stronger sons seemed to be better candidates for the role of king, but God doesn't simply choose us for tasks—God grows us.  

Jesse presented seven of his sons before Samuel, but Samuel said that God had not chosen any of them, asking if Jesse had any more sons.

“There is still the youngest,” Jesse answered. “He is tending the sheep.”

Samuel said, “Send for him. We will not sit down until he arrives.”

1 Samuel 16:11

     

At this point, Jesse and his seven other sons knew what was happening. David, the smallest and youngest, was to be the new king of Israel. After all, it was cultural custom to remain standing until royalty arrived.

It probably took some time for David to be located out in the fields, and still some time more for him to go to Samuel and his family. We can safely assume that Jesse and his sons were waiting around for a decent amount of time, but why is this so important? God knew that they needed time for their hearts to be prepared. Undoubtedly, the brothers were shocked, possibly hurt, and probably very jealous. By the time David arrived, their hearts would be humbled and receptive to the will of God.  

In the time-crunch grind of our daily lives, being receptive to God is exceedingly difficult. We have been conditioned to cringe from pausing and to grow restless while waiting. We just want to plunge into the next task at hand; we want to cannonball straight to grad school, or start at that new job, or just hurry up and be the new king of Israel already.

David was approximately ten years old when God chose him, and David did not become Israel's king until he was around thirty. Twenty years was a long time to wait, certainly, but it also was a long time to learn, to mature, and to grow.

Photo credit: annamae22

Hopefully, I won't have to wait around two decades to begin this new and exciting stage of my life, but even so, I will strive to leave the timing up to God so I can be shaped accordingly.

On the surface, the waiting is tedious and uneventful.

Meanwhile, there are subtle shifts in the crevices of our hearts: Seeds blossom. Roots take hold.The wider they spread, the taller we grow.

[Abby Hocking is a senior at Calvin College, where she studies psychology and writing. She is employed at Pine Rest Christian Mental Services and plans to become a therapist. Abby is a proud literature nerd, running addict, and puppy enthusiast. She thanks God daily for her wonderful family, her loving friends, and for Twenty One Pilots.]