Relationship with God

No Strings Attached Faith

1 Comment / Overcoming, Relationship with God /

One of the marks of the Christian life is a no strings attached faith! I am using the phrase “no strings attached” to describe an attitude of faith in which we yield full control to God in matters that concern us. Ultimately every transaction with God must always be based on our trusting Him to be who He says He is and to do what He promises He will do. Faith therefore should enable us to release our control of things in order to let Him have control. If we are going to live by faith, then as the old saying goes, we must “let go and let God!”

Interestingly the etymology of the “no strings attached” idiom has its root in Jewish culture. In ancient times legal documents were written on parchment with strings attached that were used to tie them shut when they were rolled up. When a document was delivered the transaction was not completed until the delivering party had released it and the strings binding it. For instance, according to the Babylonian Talmud, if a man delivered a bill of divorce but held on to the document’s string the transaction was invalid because at any moment he might snatch it back.

Jesus is our model of living a life of no strings attached faith. The culmination of His yielded life to the control of His Father was in the Garden of Gethsemane when He prayed “not my will, but thine be done.” (Luke 22:42) And He encouraged all His followers to do the same when He taught us to pray “thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)

Being a person of faith requires continually choosing to commit things to the will of God – to release things to His control with no strings attached. Unfortunately that is not always easy to do. Although we want to trust God and commit to the Lord Jesus full control of our lives, there are some strings we tend to grip very tightly. They are usually attached to things we love, hate to give up or still feel we need to have some say and control over. Those things to which we want to hold strings of control tend to be many and varied. They can range from material possessions, people and relationships to preferences, worries and dreams.

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Putting Life in Perspective

2 Comments / Growth & Development, Holy Spirit Aha's, Life Balance, Relationship with God /

I don’t know how many times I have heard people marvel at how they got to where they are, relating how one thing led to another and they “just ended up” in a given life’s work, irrespective of some intentional concerted effort on their part. As a result it can be difficult, even in looking back, to connect the dots and discover some over arching theme that ties everything together.

This verse offers a hopeful perspective in terms of ascribing meaning and purpose to the seemingly haphazard unfolding of our lives. It conveys that there is a creator God, personally interested and actively engaged in arranging the pieces of our lives into a masterful work of art. The Greek word translated as masterpiece here is poiema (poy’-ay-mah) from which we get our English word poem.

What this verse says in effect is that God takes everyone who has entered into a faith relationship with Him through His Son Christ Jesus and crafts an artistic composition from the experiences of their lives. Because of each person’s uniqueness that poiema composition and its resultant message can be as diverse as any creative form, be it poetry, prose, music or the visual arts.

What then is the poiema of your life? What sense have you made of your meaning and purpose? Ironically our own poiemas are not always readily discernible because we are too close to them. It is like trying to see the forest for the trees. Usually it requires an outside perspective and help from God to fully comprehend, accept and appreciate our poiema.

Sometimes we want to make something of our life that is different from what God is intending to make of it. When our poiema is different than Gods we can become frustrated and discouraged because things are not turning out the way we planned. That is why we need a revelation of God’s poiema. Poiemas are more caught than taught. When we finally see it, sometimes we need to wrestle with it for a while to come to a point of yielding our poiema to His and finding a place of acceptance, appreciation and full cooperation with His poiema.

I can fully identify with the poiema struggles of which I write. Although many unregenerate dreams and plans I had as a young man went by the wayside when God intervened in my life, the ensuing years left me at times wondering what if. What if I had pursued such and such a job or moved to such and such a place? You know how that scenario goes, it leads to a poiema crisis and prescription for internal strife and confusion.

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2 Principles of Guidance by Signs

2 Comments / Answers to Prayer!, Prayer, Relationship with God /

The digital clock read 3:33 – my first conscious thought upon waking in the middle of the night. Could it be a sign from God of His comforting presence and the promise of His faithfulness in the face of anxiety I had been battling? The three white luminescent “3’s” offered me a glimmer of hope in the darkened room reminding me of the Trinity.

God speaks in multifarious ways. Would it not seem plausible to think that in response to heartfelt prayers, especially in times of desperation, He would use even this simplest of signs to underscore that He hears and cares. That is how I chose to interpret my waking at exactly 3:33.

The preceding day, the first of a three day conference for which I was supplying the audience response system technology had been a stressful one. To complicate matters, during the opening meeting that evening my computer, for which the operation of the system depends, began to malfunction. We were able to salvage the session but afterward to my consternation were unable to identify the cause of the computer glitch. When I turned in later that night my heart was deeply troubled. With the prospect of two intense days before me with an unreliable computer and the responsibility of supplying the voting needs of over 400 delegates I was in a frenzy. Faith, like my sleep, was hard to come by as I tossed and turned and tried to pray for wisdom and a measure of peace.

Seeing the 3:33 as a sign from God settled two critical issues for me. First I felt like God was saying “let not your heart be troubled, I have everything under control.” Peace began to permeate my soul with that thought and like a harbinger of faith began to brighten my perspective. Secondly, and this thought came with a sudden clarity, I realized the best course of action was to cease fussing over and with the ornery computer and use instead an old back-up computer I had with me. Embracing those two realizations prompted by the 3:33 sign, enabled me to approach the rest of the conference in faith, trusting that God would be faithful to His promises – and He was!

The phrase “signs and wonders” have jokingly been referred to as signs that make you wonder. Ironically that is not as far from the truth as one would think. Signs, whether of the end-time variety, that will one day emblazen the skies, or of the garden variety that could be easily missed, are things that do make us wonder about God’s intentions.

Gideon asked for a sign to confirm God’s call upon his life to lead Israel to battle against the Midianites. Although motivated by doubt and fear, Gideon was obliged by God on two successive occasions with miraculous signs that encouraged him to take bold actions that eventually led to an amazing victory with an army of just 300 men. (Judges 6:36-40) Although this story is the quintessential illustration of guidance by “putting out a fleece” some view modern day uses of Gideon-like fleece signs as a form of guidance that is too contrived if not less than.

It is my conviction that any form of guidance including fleeces, when prompted by the Holy Spirit, is a viable means for God to speak to us and direct us in His ways. We dare not put God in a box lest we limit Him nor keep God out of our box lest we limit ourselves. Signs are often more by God’s initiative than ours.

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Hope that does not disappoint

Growth & Development, Overcoming, Relationship with God /

It is a mystery how God uses suffering in our lives to make us more hopeful. You would think the opposite would happen. But Paul tells us that “suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character, hope.” (Romans 5:3-4 NIV) It’s obvious that suffering can produce perseverance, after all no pain, no gain. And if a person reacts properly to suffering it can also develop character. But what about hope? Ultimately how does suffering produce hope?

Two years ago this week, in the midst of stepping down from my role as a senior pastor and anticipating a new phase of life and livelihood I discovered a lump in my neck. That lump was like a squall appearing on the horizon that turned into a hurricane. It pummeled me for four months with visits to four physicians, two biopsies, a surgery to remove it, the discovery of thyroid cancer, another surgery to remove my thyroid, radioactive iodine treatment and a scar revision surgery.

Coinciding with all this income from a small business we run, which we were relying upon as part of my professional transition, totally disappeared as tornadic winds blew it away for five long months.

It was the perfect storm of trials in the area of career, health and finances. To be honest, I was so deluged by the winds and waves of life it felt like my little boat of faith was sinking and taking any life preserver of hope down with it.

I can vividly recall the sense of devastation as my plans and hope for the next chapter in my life were being swallowed up and the grip of the fear of death was threatening to drown everything I held dear.

The two year anniversary of the advent of the lump has given me pause. Several days ago, as I was contemplating the quality of my life and the depth of my hope before and after the storm, I could not help but give praise to God.

The Bible tells us that Abraham, in the midst of enduring a twenty five year trial, “even when there was no reason to hope, [he] kept hoping, believing that he would become the father of many nations.” (Romans 4:18) Another way of putting it is that “in hope against hope he believed.” This passage of scripture makes an important distinction between two kinds of hope – there is the hope that depends upon man and the hope that depends upon God. It is the difference between natural hope and super natural hope, temporal hope and eternal hope, human hope and God hope.

When the flame of human hope is extinguished as it was for Abraham (and category 4 and 5 storms have a way of doing that) there is an even greater more enduring hope from God that is available to sustain us. It is the kind of hope that is only produced and revealed through suffering.

This hope from God triumphs over despair because it is in God and His faithfulness, and not in ourselves or what we might dream of accomplishing.

That is a difficult and hard lesson to learn but 20/20 hindsight gives us God’s perspective on His hope-filled purposes for trials and suffering. My puny human hope and dreams sank during the perfect storm two years ago, but God supplanted it with His hope and my life is inexplicably better today because of it.

A condition I battled for years, pre thyroid cancer, was depression. It was something, only those closest to me were privy to. Most of the time it was like a dark, discouraging cloud hanging over my head, but there were a few times when it was debilitating.

One of the remarkable hope-filled things for which I praise God on this two year anniversary is that since having my thyroid removed, I have been free from depression. That marks a huge breakthrough in my life and makes all I went through more than worth it.

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