Give us this day, our daily bread…”-Matthew 6:11.

The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still. Exodus 14:14

Jesus replied: “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matt 22: 37 39       

When Left to Ourselves

Our God created us to live with others
Knowing we aren’t at our best when alone.
Left to ourselves, we will seek shelter
But together we pursue a real home.
Mankind was made with a need for comfort
And to respond to a warm, healing touch.
But in surviving on this fallen planet
We’ve learned it can be dangerous to trust.

Our God is a God of comfort
Who never punishes us by giving pain.
But if we cannot trust in His goodness
The goodness He gives is in vain.
For we must be willing to give all to God
Depending only on what He provides.
If we seek first the Lord and His promises 
His provisions will allow us to thrive.

Still, the pain can crash in like a tsunami
That draws us out to sea far from shore.
Where it leaves us alone treading water
Wondering if we can take any more.
When barely afloat in grief and mourning,
When we are dealt a hand of staggering loss,
When we believe we can’t tolerate more pain,
It is then we should turn to the cross.

Yes, Jesus was sent by God to redeem us.
But remember His sacrifice was His own will.
He loved us enough to die for us willingly
 And we can believe that He loves us still. 
On the cross, Jesus won our forgiveness; 
On the cross, His perfect love was given to us; 
On the cross, He declared His work finished;
By the finished work of the cross, we are enough.
©Linda Troxell July 4, 2022

The Gospel of Self reliance

Recently, I’ve noticed that I keep trying harder and harder to do what God wants me to do so I can please Him.  But somehow, no matter how hard I try, I never feel I’ve done enough. And I find myself constantly apologizing to God about what I haven’t done, although I’m not sure what that is.

It’s all absurd, of course, I know it is. Just as I know that my salvation has never depended on what I do. Just as I am fully aware that God loves me at this moment as much as He ever has and as much as He ever will. I know these things, they are the exact message of the Good News, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet, I still try too hard. Why? 

I’ve come to the conclusion that I keep trying when it is unnecessary because I have not yet had the epiphany of God’s unconditional love. I fully understand the facts of the Gospel, and  intellectually I even understand its message. But, without the epiphany, I cannot internalize the message and make it part of my world view or my view of myself .

Epiphany is a term I use to describe moments of sudden revelation in which a flash of intuition brings new clarity to something I thought I completely understood.  It allows information I fully understand intellectually, to be fully revealed in my heart as well. Until then, the information cannot be internalized and become a force to foster a change in my view of myself or of the world.  

Changing the way we see ourselves and our world does not happen by chance. The epiphany that changes us is supernatural. When it is time for us to know and when it is time for us to change, the Holy Spirit moves in us allowing us to see with new eyes. 

When the Spirit moves we experience an epiphany; a sudden revelation from God allowing us to use our new eyes to transform our minds to His will. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of Your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.- Romans 12:2 Without this extraordinary event, no matter how many times we’ve heard something or how well we know it intellectually, it cannot be a force for change.

It stands to reason, then, that it is difficult, if not impossible to receive the full blessing of the Gospel of Jesus, until we wholly understand its meaning and its message in a way that allows for a change in our basic view of Jesus Himself. 

Surely, I am not alone in my inability to fully understand the message and the meaning of the Gospel. So, then, I am also not alone in being unable to receive its full blessing. This is not something I am just assuming, let me explain.

If everyone but me, or even if more people than not, fully understood the meaning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then most people would have received its full blessing. And if almost everyone on earth had fully received that blessing we would live in a much kinder world in which everyone is able to feel unconditionally loved just for who they are.

But as I look around myself at a world in chaos what I see is people laboring under the weight of the constant need to achieve and to protect themselves. And I cannot escape seeing the many forms of unwellness born of that weight. Just as important, is what I do not see as I look around. I do not see many people who know how to relax, secure in the belief that God will provide. 

The message of the Gospel is that we can, and we are meant to live in a world where we can depend wholly on God for everything we need in life. The Lord’s Prayer says “Give us this day, our daily bread…”-Matthew 6:11. It does not say, “When We’ve come to the end of ourselves and have done everything we know how to do to please God, give us our daily bread.” 

No, the Gospel tells us that we are to depend on God for all of our provision. And when we do, He will give us what we need. The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still. Exodus 14:14.  He may not give it to us in the way we wanted Him to. But then, God never promised to give us whatever we want. He promises to provide for us. And He does, if we allow Him to.

Relying solely on God for our provision means giving up all of the meaningless activity born of anxiety, fear, and doubt. If we cannot let go of that activity, then we have not internalized the message of the Gospel and allowed it to change our world view or our view of ourselves; we have not had the epiphany. And without the epiphany, we probably don’t believe that God answers our prayers.

My guess is that there are more folks who think God doesn’t answer their prayers than are willing to say so. We don’t think He answers our prayers because we don’t see the manifestation of what we prayed for. Those of us who don’t feel our prayers are being answered, need to reconsider what an answered prayer really is. 

If we don’t see what we pray for manifested, it doesn’t mean God isn’t answering our prayers? Prayer is not a wish list for God. He does not give us everything we ask for; likely not even most of what we ask for. Why? Because we don’t understand what’s good for us. So, we pray for things that are not in our best interest, often asking for things that God knows would be harmful..

Let’s look at it like a parent would. Imagine your son has been begging for a pet. He has a  birthday coming and you think he is old enough now to take care of a pet. You’re thinking of perhaps getting him a cat or dog for his birthday. So, you ask your son what kind of pet he wants. He looks at you, excitement in his eyes, and  he says he wants a baby cougar. 

Are you going to give your child what he asks for? Of course not. You aren’t going to give your child a dangerous animal for a pet, no matter how happy it might make him. Right?

Think about this in terms of believing God isn’t answering our prayers. It’s more than likely, that while God has not given you a baby cougar, He has probably provided for you. Do you have shelter from the elements, food to sustain you, a means of support, and a means of transportation? Perhaps you are among the most fortunate for whom He has provided a sound and healthy body. Have you thanked God for those things lately?— I mean beyond the throw away Christian platitudes we engage in rotely —-

So often God’s answers to our prayers go unnoticed simply because His answer was not what we wanted, asked for, and expected. But it was what we needed. Part of learning to depend wholly on God is learning to trust Him to do what’s best for us.

That kind of trust requires strong faith. So, if we want to learn to trust God we will need to strengthen our faith. Faith is a gift God gave to us so that we could trust Him. But faith is not static. It is alive, it ebbs and flows, grows and shrinks according to our thoughts. We received faith by grace, but it’s our job to guard it, nurture it, and strengthen it. Because it is our faith alone that allows us to trust God to make all of the decisions in our lives, and it is our faith alone that allows us to trust the decisions He makes. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9.

Strong faith is also essential for our participation in God’s New Covenant, the good news that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This new and final covenant reconciles man to God for the last time. And Jesus, by His death, became the bridge necessary for reconciliation.  

When Jesus hung on the cross He wasn’t just passively waiting to die. He was hard at work making us holy. As He prepared to die, He took our sins in His own body, and in exchange He gave us His righteousness. This exchange allows the Father to see only the perfection of His Son when He looks at us. It is because of that exchange we can be accepted by the Father and adopted into His family. 

When Jesus shouted out from the cross, “It is finished.” He was telling the Father that His work of reconciling God with His people was complete. It is only by the finished work of the cross we are able to be accepted by God as holy. And it is only the holiness we received from Jesus that allows God to embrace us and adopt us into His family as co-heirs with Jesus. 

In the New Covenant, God promises man He will forgive sin and restore communion with those whose hearts believe that His Son lived a sinless life, died on the cross for our sins, and rose from the grave to defeat death. That’s quite a story. Not everyone who says they believe it actually believe at the heart level, the level that can be a force for change in our lives.

I believe the ability to make changes in accordance with God’s will is an important marker of our Christian walk. There are three important changes that God asks of us that can be measures of our progress. That is to love God above all else, love our neighbors as ourselves, and trust in God for our provision. Jesus replied: “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matt 22: 37 39       

These are all pretty self-explanatory. And to some degree they all begin when we take Jesus as our savior and receive the Holy Spirit. But God wants more than some degree. So, these are things we must work on through faith and with the help of the Holy Spirit. 

They can all be difficult to learn. But if they weren’t difficult, Jesus would not have had to die. The hardest of all, may be depending on God for all of our provision.  “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”-Proverbs 3:5-6   

It may seem odd that something that sounds so peaceful could be so difficult to put into practice. But there is a lot that goes into it. We’ve already talked about the strength of faith needed to depend wholly on God. In addition, it is a practice we are unfamiliar with. Modeling is a powerful tool of learning. And most of us have never seen what this dependence looks like on a day to day basis in real life. 

And then, there are those of us born in North America who were raised with a reverence for self sufficiency. The United States is a fervently individualistic culture believing that the individual’s rights and needs take precedence over the needs and the rights of the group. A lifetime in the most individualistic culture on earth has given us an aversion to dependence. Americans take care of themselves and expect others to do the same.

In American culture, loving our neighbors and praying for our enemies is practically unheard of. And depending on God for all or our provisions, seems unwise, and impossible.  We have very little practice putting others first and certainly we’ve had few models for it. Even putting God above ourselves is a difficult concept to actually put into practice. We are prototypical adherents to the gospel of self-reliance, descendents of those rugged individuals who tamed the wild frontier.  

The myth of the old West, John Wayne, cowboy independence has shaped our world view and self view for better or worse. For better, the idea of men and women who were independent, adventurous, and strong enough to travel over 2,000 dangerous miles on horseback or by covered wagon, is inspiring. It conjures a person who needs and depends on no one. 

For worse, it conjures a person who needs and depends on no one. Someone who is so independent, they may be too uninvolved with others to develop and nurture compassion, mercy, and even love itself. The individualism of such a culture supports the notion that being dependent is taboo. Making it difficult to understand that depending on God is something that wants and demands of us.

Once we get past the issue of dependence, what does it look like to depend on God for everything? What, exactly, do we do day to day? When we wake up in the morning after we have prayed to God for guidance, what do we do next? Surely we don’t just hang around waiting for God to tell us what to do? Of course, that would be absurd. 

None of us knows what it looks like to wholly depend on God. We haven’t experienced it, or seen it in action. We’ve read about it in the Bible. The Israelites were solely dependent on God to get them out of Egypt and through the desert. It may be an understatement to say that didn’t go well. So, how do we learn to do this thing so foreign to us?

I hope you weren’t waiting for me to answer that question. Because I don’t know the answer. I only know what I’m trying to do by trial and error. And TRYING and ERROR are the operative words in that sentence. Of course, I do all of the things I’ve always done to do to stay connected to God. I read and study the Bible, pray, go to church, go to small groups or Bible study and spend time with other Christians. 

I’ve increased the time I spend speaking with other Christians to share my thoughts and understanding of all things about faith. And I listen more, and more intently when they share their thoughts with me. And I seek out Christians whom I know are farther along their walk with Christ to be my wise counsel.

In my recent quest to really understand this idea, I’ve been trying some new things as well.  I’ve been trying to slow down a few times throughout the day, and spend some time just sitting quietly to allow God to speak to me. I do the same every time I pray. I provide space for Him to speak to me by sitting quietly for a few minutes after the Amen. I simply try to empty my mind of everything but listening for Him. I’ve had to start planning my prayer time so I know I won’t be rushed or interrupted.

And recently, I’ve begun to keep a pad and pen beside me during my prayers. As I’m sitting quietly and providing space for God to speak to me, if there are any particularly strong or persistent thoughts, I jot down the topics. Later, I explore them more closely to determine if they came from my never still mind or from God. That’s my strategy for what it’s worth.

Finally, among the most important things I think we all need to learn as we seek to increase our dependence on God, is how to nurture our faith and our trust in Him. Without strong faith and solid trust, the rest will not really mean anything. In that effort, I pray and ask God for direction before making any important decisions. And then I pay attention to all of the ways I know God communicates with me to “hear” His answer. 

God speaks to me through my friends, through what I read, what I watch on TV, and what I see online. Also through random encounters and most especially coincidences. But if I don’t pay close attention to what goes on in my day, to the things I hear, the things I see, the things I think, and what others say to me or around me, I will miss God’s voice. 

I had to learn how God speaks to me by paying close attention to everything in my environment. And I found it was important to make it a habit to have God in my conscious mind in some way during all my waking hours.The way God speaks to you may be very different from how He speaks to you, or anyone else. If you don’t know how He speaks to you, start right now to find out. For how can we ever depend on God for our provision if we can’t hear what He is saying to us? 

Let’s Pray:

Lord, we all want to do the things that please You. We want that not because we are concerned about Your wrath or we think You might punish us. No, we want to do the things that please You because we love You, Lord. And because we have so much gratitude for Your love and how You have never given up on us. You know that we have a really difficult time understanding how to rely on You for all of our provision. Sure, Lord, other things You ask might be difficult but at least we know what behaviors we need to put into place to accomplish them. But we don’t know what it looks like to depend wholly on You. So, Lord, we are asking that You speak to each of us and tell us what it means to depend on You for all of our provision in an operational, and everyday behavioral sense. What do we do? How do we know Your will? We need direction in order to do this thing we both want us to do. So, Lord, please speak to us in a way that we will hear You and understand You; help us to do this thing that will make You happy and will make our lives more fulfilling. We ask this in the holy name of Jesus, Amen.

Points for Pondering and for Prayer
Or
Perhaps for Putting Pen to Paper

1.Do you think you fully understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ?   1a. If you do, write it out in a way that others would understand, whether or not they are believers. 

2. Have you experienced what I describe here as an epiphany about something you thought you fully understood?    2a. If you have, write a few lines about how you understood this thing before and after the epiphany.  

3. If you have never had an epiphany,  are there things concerning God about which you would like to have an epiphany?  3a. If there are, list them and then begin to pray for God to give you the epiphanies you desire.