This time as I was reading it through I noticed in particular verse 22. “And one thing more: Prepare a guest room for me, because I hope to be restored to you in answer to your prayers.”

I’ve been thinking lately about our response to God’s faithfulness. I am often tentative in my prayers. I couch it in spiritual wrappers about the will of God being foremost. And of course it is. But sometimes it is just a plain lack of trust.

In the past few years I’ve had a few occasions where I hit on significant issues in life and was able to say with full confidence “This is God’s problem. Let’s see what he does.” This wasn’t a passive thing, sitting on my butt with my fingers crossed hoping it all works out. Rather, it was a surrender to God, confident that the outcome was in the hands of someone who is absolutely trustworthy. Paul’s instructions were to not just pray, but prepare for what God was going to do.

This is what our attitude should be when we pray. “I have given this to God, and I will prepare for his answer.” It isn’t magic, of course. God can’t be manipulated, and he isn’t at our beck and call. He’s a person, and he answers to no one. On the other hand, he absolutely loves his children, and he is absolutely trustworthy. You can bank on him keeping his promises and keeping his word to the last comma and dotted I. I have no doubt that he will do all that he has said he will do, not because he owes anything to me or to you, but because that’s the kind of person he is. He can be trusted absolutely.

Don’t just pray. Get the room ready.

That’s a hard question. I’ve made lots of dumb decisions in my life. At first, I thought of the recent decisions that I’d change. But those wouldn’t change the course of my life. The decisions I’ve made lately are mostly not in that scope, not forks in the road that could lead my life in a different direction. It seems like they all build on what came before. So I thought back further. The first decade of my adult life were inhabited by several decisions that in hindsight were not ideal choices. Or, even when they turned out OK, I have to wonder where my life would have taken me if I had chosen that job, or moved to some other town, or said “Yes” to that invitation.

My answer was a little bit of a surprise to me. “I don’t think I’d change any of them,” I told my son. “There are things I did and decisions I made that were mistakes, and at first glance of course I’d say I would like a redo. But what if changing a decision years before meant that I wasn’t in the place in my life where I met your mom? What if it meant I didn’t have you? I wouldn’t take any of it back if that was the result.”

The things that happen in our life make us who we are. Even the bad parts. I think back to the worst of my youth, the hardest separations, the greatest losses. I think of the missed opportunities of my early adult years with some regret. Yes, there are regrets in there. For the most part though, in retrospect even from here they aren’t the things you might think.

It’s not the choices that might have made me more successful or wealthy that I regret the most, or wish I could change. The things I’d change aren’t the things that would change the course of my life. Those things are what build together to make me who I am today. I’m far from perfect today, but I don’t want to be someone else. The things I regret, that I’d do over if I could, are the times when I hurt others, when my choices turned out to be a land mine for someone else’s road.

In the end, I think it turns out that all things work together for good for those who love God, those who are called according to his purpose. It turns out that he was in control, even when I was making the bad choices. The hard parts, and even the results of the bad choices, were all opportunities for growth. Some of them I made good use of. Some I maybe could have done better. The things that were hardest, God meant for good.

James 1 tells us that we should consider it all joy when we face troubles and trials of all kinds, because they bring about perseverance, and faith, and growth. This is the process of transformation. It can’t happen instantly, because instant character isn’t character. Even Christ had to actually be obedient to the death for him to have been fully obedient. Being someone who would be that obedient if the opportunity ever came up just isn’t the same.

Our lives are not accidents. Even the worst that happens in our lives is designed for our transformation and growth. Sometimes, as I think back, I can see that I wasted some of the pain. Even that, I know in faith that God transforms for my good. He’s that kind of good God. When I am in the darkest valley I have to cling to that truth, and not let go even when I can’t really see it any more, and can’t imagine what it even looks like any more. Even in the darkest valley he is with me, and even there he is faithful. When sight fails I have to cling tighter to those things I know are true but can no longer see.

As I face the challenges of today and tomorrow, I need to keep that in mind. The things that God brings about are for my good. Even the things that I bring about by my poor choices, God will use for my good. I can have a part in making that even more beneficial and less painful a lot of the time by paying attention and responding well to hardship. But the most important part is to trust God. Trust him to be God. Trust him to be good. Just trust him.

My tendency is to plan for contingencies. Recently God pushed me out of the boat. I was ok with that, other than the fact that I didn’t say “Command me to come to you Lord!” but rather just accepted the push when it got hard enough. Maybe I’m more like Gideon than like Peter. I know that God provides, and I trust him. At the same time, I keep a close eye on what’s in savings, and what harvest is coming up in the fields (as it were) and I come up with contingencies in case it doesn’t rain.

I’m reminded of the times when Abraham and his descendents headed to Egypt. A couple of times when there was a famine, Abraham went to Egypt to wait it out, and perhaps that was God’s plan for provision for him. On the other hand, Abraham didn’t trust God to keep him and Sarah safe, and came up with some pretty bad plans for not getting murdered over Sarah’s good looks. He should have trusted God with that. Clearly, doing wrong to protect ourselves or improve our position isn’t a part of acceptable stewardship. Abraham had a pattern of amazing faith contrasted with bad contingency planning. Its important in noticing Abraham’s failures of faith to remember that God blessed him and counted his faith as righteousness. Strong faith doesn’t seem to have to be perfect faith. Thank God for that.

Jacob and his sons went to Egypt during another famine. That time it was clearly God’s plan for them, and was setting up for the Exodus and Passover. On the other hand, for Joseph that trip to Egypt cost his freedom and years of struggle. That provision for the family of Israel also turned into generations of enslavement. God provided, and in the long run he used it to point forward to our full redemption. It was a key moment in the history of the world. God’s provision and plan sometimes are enshrouded in his eternal plan, and sometimes come with significant discomfort.

After God delivered the people from Egypt, they kept wanting to go back. Egypt meant slavery, but the grass is always greener just beyond our reach, yesterday is often greener than today, and enslavement with stability often seems preferable to the apperent insecurity of depending on God to provide in a place we have no hope to provide for ourselves. For all those years they were provided daily with mana, God miraculously provided quail and water on more than one occasion, and their shoes never wore out. Even with all of God’s clear provision, Egypt still held its allure. Going back would have been forsaking God’s leading. In fact, when they got to the Jordan the first time they said (my rough paraphrase) “God’s promises and provision are not enough for us. We don’t trust God enough to stand against walls and giants.” Sometimes God calls us forward even through the wilderness, through the water, and into the midst of battle. In each of those situations he provides. At the Jordan, when they did finally cross, he didn’t stop the water until they stepped into the river. When God calls us forward, turning back to Egypt is never the answer.

Generations later when the Assyrians and later Babylon came against them, Israel tried to play the larger powers against each other rather than trusting in God. They lost on all sides. When they fought against Egypt they lost. When they turned to Egypt for help they lost. Contingency planning failed completely. They should have turned to the Lord.

After Judah fell, the people again turned to Egypt for sanctuary instead of trusting God. They even asked Jeremiah if they should go to Egypt, and then refused to listen when he delivered God’s message that Egypt would not be the security they sought. God is our hope and salvation. There is no other safe harbor for God’s people but God.

Finally, though, we get to Christ. When Herod sought to kill Jesus, Joseph was instructed to flee to Egypt. This time it was God’s provision again. This time the time of sanctuary in Egypt was short, and God again called them out of Egypt as a part of his plan and provision.

There are, of course, many other pictures of God’s provision. There are numerous example’s of God’s provision throughout the Old Testament, from Noah, Job, Ruth, Gideon, David, Daniel and his friends, and many others. In the New Testament Jesus talked about God providing for our needs quite a bit, and so did the epistle writers. Recently I have read biographies of people like George Müller, Liu Zhenying, CT Studd, Rachel Saint, Sundar Singh, Lillian Trasher, and Brother Andrew. It is very clear that God’s plan for his children is best, even when the path leads through valleys, jungles, disease, and prison.

I would love to have a burning bush, or fire from heaven, or a pillar cloud to follow, or the clear leading God gave at times to the people I just mentioned. Visions and dreams, visits from prophets bringing a message to us from God, angels opening prison doors. These things do still happen. I’ve had times in my life when his hand and direction were clear. Other times his presence is clear but it seems like he takes down all the road signs. Sometimes you get to the Jordan and the water doesn’t stop, or our shoes give out while we’re crossing the wilderness. That too is God’s provision. We rest in his hands.

I haven’t answered the question of where stewardship means contingency planning and where we step out in faith and leave contingencies to God. I haven’t found the answer yet on this stretch of my path. I do know that when our contingency planning means we don’t look to God for our security, it undermines our faith and we stagger under a load this isn’t ours to bear. In these situations, maybe especially for us in the modern West, savings accounts and earning potential and a solid business plan are as much or more of a distraction to our walk as having less that seems dependable. We love to feel in control. We aren’t in control of God’s provision or call, and we never were.

On this trip the path leads on through. I can’t go back to Egypt now. I wish I had a clue where God is taking us, but the path I thought we were on isn’t going where I planned. Money we thought was coming didn’t. A child we thought that God was preparing a place for has stayed missing. Just when I had figured out what God was doing the path curved. Maybe confidence in the path and thinking I understood the plan meant less reliance on God. It seems that God failed to look at my calendar and schedule in deciding his timing. Certainly the lessons of patience and trust are not learned as deeply as I would like to have claimed. Or maybe he is planning to weed out the sin that still lurks where I’ve tucked it, trying to keep it out of view. There is still work for God to do on my heart, and God’s method of transformation in us sometimes involves discipline. Or maybe this is part of a longer term plan the outline of which can only be seen from eternity. I will have to be content in leaving God’s plan in God’s hands.

He loves us. I trust him. For today that will have to be enough.

I was praying that a situation would go easier for someone close to me.  God’s answer was that he could make it easier, but his love and plan is for it not to be easier because he brought about an opportunity for growth, and it would not be the most loving thing to take that away.  Love supports and encourages and walks with another, but it does not always take all of the pain away.  If someone is training for a marathon you can help them by running with them (if you can do so without slowing them down), but you can’t help them by carrying them or making the training easier.

The trials that God has designed for my life are not the same as yours.  They are designed specially and specifically for each of us, by a God who knows us intimately and is fervently interested in helping us to grow to maturity.  The fact that the training is sometimes painful and hard does not mean it isn’t carefully planned for our benefit.

It is no failing when a hard thing turns out to be hard.

“I am confident that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”  He is able, he is faithful, and he is always good.

The fruit of the Spirit is his fruit.  We can’t get supernatural results from our own power.  On the other hand, God’s work through and in us is something he brings out through our obedient action.  If we don’t act, he does his work in some other way, through some other person perhaps, and we lose that opportunity.

This morning I came across John Piper’s message “I Act the Miracle” in which he talks about this idea in regard to dealing with sin in our lives.  If you have to choose between reading my post and listening to Piper’s message, go listen to him.  Piper’s point is that God has forgiven our sins, and we died with him and died to sin, and it is the power of God that frees us from sin and conquers it in our lives, but he does it through our will and action.  ”Don’t wait for a miracle,” Piper tells us.  ”Act the miracle!”  When we do that, then the power of God will do the miracle of completing our sanctification.

Piper’s message is an encouragement to me that helps in addressing the sin in my own life.  But it occurred to me while I was listening to him that the point of what he was saying doesn’t just apply to our response to sin.  It applies to all of our action, to the obedience that comes about in our lives, and to the fruit that the Spirit produces in us.  It ties directly to my point at the top of this post: when God speaks, get up and do it.

God’s power in our lives is rarely exhibited independently of our response.  That’s just not the way God usually works.  We act in obedience, as Piper put it we act the miracle, and God completes his promise in us and through us.  If you want to see the power of God in your life, if you want to see the power of the Gospel in action, if you want to see the completion of God’s promise in John 14:12 (Jesus said that he who believes in him will do greater things than these) then you must get up and act.

When Jesus healed the blind man and told him to wash in the pool of Siloam (John 9), Jesus healed him but the man who acted in obedience acted the miracle.  He worked out his faith, and Christ healed him.  When Peter told the man in the temple gate to get up and walk (Acts 3), Peter acted in saying “Get up!” and helped the man to his feet, and God healed him by God’s power.  He was healed immediately upon getting to his feet.  He didn’t wait for the miracle and then stand.  He stood and God healed him.

God moves through us when we act in obedience.  That requires a doing on our part.  As Paul said in Philippians 2:12-13: “work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”  It is his fruit, his work, his results, which he brings about by his power miraculously through our obedient action.

I know that God has work for me and you today.  I know that because he said so.  We are created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).  If we listen to him, he prepares and guides us, prompts us to see the opportunity, calls us to make the most of it, and empowers us to action.  Then, when we obey, when we act the miracle, he works through his faithfulness and power to bring about his fruit.

If we don’t respond in obedience first, it doesn’t mean that God’s will to work is thwarted, it just means that God doesn’t act through us.  We stagnate.  We miss the opportunity to see God’s power in action through us.  God will still do his work, but we will never see John 14:12 come about in our lives unless we obey.  We must act the miracle if we want to be a part of what God is going to do.

In my previous post I talked about whether we believe God or not. I made the comment that if we understand truth and grace, our lives will reflect that belief. The problem is that we don’t really believe that it’s true. We don’t understand the importance of truth, or the depth of grace.  I’ve continued to think about these topics, and there are three areas in particular that pop up currently in my life where I need to consider whether I am going to embrace that what God has said is true, or not.

As most people who know me have heard me say, when I”m talking about believing God, I’m not talking about intellectual assent.  There are a lot of things that Christians say that they don’t really believe.  We can know that they don’t believe them, because their actions and lives don’t match what they say.  I guess this is the heart of hypocrisy.  I’m not saying that if you believe certain things about God and life that you will do specific actions.  It isn’t a formula or magic, and your response won’t be the same as mine.  Rather, the things you do, the choices you make, the way you treat others, all of these areas of your life will reflect your understanding of who you are and who God is.  If they don’t, then I have to conclude that you don’t really believe those things.  If you tell me a bridge is safe, but there’s no way you’re walking out on it, I would conclude that you don’t really believe it is safe.

So here’s a heart check moment for me: do I really believe that what God says is true?  The way I can know what I believe is in seeing whether I am willing to act on that belief.  That willingness is displayed by actually doing it.  I don’t think there’s any other course.

First, do I believe that God’s grace is sufficient for everybody?  What I say I believe is that without the grace of God we are all equally dead.  Dead people stink and rot.  There’s no distinction between good corpses and bad corpses.  God’s grace extends equally to all of us, whether we’re someone who has followed the rules, or a criminal in the midst of our own well deserved execution.  I find that easy to believe in the abstract.  When I hear stories in far away places or times in which really bad people come to God and are changed, I think that’s really awesome.  When the story is closer to home, grace seems further away.

In my life over the past few years I’ve been exposed to some people who come from some rough places, or who have made some really bad choices, or are just not good people.  Do I believe that God’s grace, which I believe extends to all in the abstract, can extend to these individual people too?  Can he forgive people who have hurt little children?

Quite honestly, I think my real belief is that he could, but I kind of hope that he won’t.  I can relate to Jonah, who didn’t want to go to the people of Nineveh because they might repent and be spared from God’s judgement.  Can I pray for the salvation of a person who has done evil that hits closer to home, knowing that if God’s grace can reach them, I have no right as one also forgiven to hold onto my anger?

God’s grace isn’t about making good people better.  Its about bringing decayed corpses to life.  God’s grace is sufficient for me, and for you, and for even the most heinous of criminals.  If I believe that, then I will pray for them, not just that God will deal with the evil, but that God will touch their hearts and that they will turn to him and be saved, and in doing so become my brothers and sisters in Christ.  God will then show them the same kindness that he has shown me, pouring on them every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.  And if I believe that then I will also pray that God will use me in that process, and I will speak to them in love and truth, not just to condemn evil but also to point to grace that is sufficient for each of us.  Then, I will also forgive, just as God has forgiven.

The second heart check moment recently for me was this: can God really use anybody?  One of my kids has Cerebral Palsy and a variety of other problems.  I think its not all that difficult to believe that God can use people with physical handicaps.  I recently heard David Ring speak, and it was very encouraging to me as a dad of kids with special needs.  A man with CP can be used in amazing ways by God.  But the idea that God can use someone with a physical handicap isn’t that far fetched to me.

On the other hand, here’s a challenge for me to believe:  God can use idiots, people who can’t get anything right on their own, people who have never had a logical or coherent thought in their lives, and complete screw-ups.  I don’t just mean he can use them as bad examples.  God is not limited by our limitations.

In one sense, that’s a relief, because I spend a lot of my life out of my depth.  In fact, if you follow God’s leading he will surely put you in situations that you cannot possibly succeed without him.  The point isn’t for us to do it on our own, but rather to learn to lean on him to do his work, and for the glory to go to him when it’s done.  There is no one else who is capable of accomplishing God’s work.  Only God can do it.

In another sense, its a profound challenge to me, because I have to admit that when I interact with people in the church or in ministry who are really not as smart as I think they should be, or who don’t know what I think they should know, or just seem to never get things quite right, I start to wonder.  ”But God chose what the world thinks foolish to shame the wise, and God chose what the world things weak to shame the strong.”

I tend to think that God’s grace makes the good better, but I need to remember that God’s grace is for the dead.  I tend to think that God uses the talents and skills we bring to the table for his work, but I need to remember that it is God doing the work, and he uses the weak on purpose.  That’s a good thing because it means he can use me.  Its a hard thing because it means he can use the people that I have a hard time believing are capable of any good outcomes.  I cannot assume that because someone is not very bright, or not very talented, or just can’t seem to get anything right, that they are not exactly where God put them on purpose so that he could do amazing things, things I might not even be aware are happening.  God works in mysterious ways.  After all, he chose me.

The third heart check issue for me recently is whether I really believe that God’s promises hold true today, right here where I live.  My last post touched on this, whether I really believe what I say I believe.  Here I’m focusing more narrowly.  I listened to a message by Francis Chan recently in which he pointed out that the same word in John 3:16 that says “that whoever believes in him will not perish” is the same word in John 14:12.  In the previous verse Jesus pointed to his miracles, and then in verse 12 he says “he who believes in Me will do the same things I have been doing, and even greater works than I have done.”

Do I believe that God is active and moving with power and purpose in the world today and in my life?  Do I believe he is sovereign and good, and keeps his word?  If what God says is true, than I can trust him.  I can move forward in faith knowing he is here, now, and he is in control, that he loves me, and that he is good.

I know that God answers prayer because I have seen it happen more times than I could count.  He has shown me that this week, and he’ll answer prayer today.  The astonishing thing is how quickly I can forget, and not talk to him about things.  The amazing thing is that when he speaks I sometimes find excuses not to listen, most often based on the oldest trick in the book: “Did God really say…?”

I am so far from perfect it isn’t even a comparison, like comparing crumbling mud to a diamond.  The thing is, perfection isn’t really my goal.  Trusting and loving God and doing what he says is my goal.  Part of that is trusting that he who began a good work in me, in my heart and life, will complete it.

God’s grace and forgiveness are enough and available for anyone who will accept them.  God’s power is enough to work even through you and me, and through the weakest of his children.  He is trustworthy and able to do all that he has promised. And he will, not only someplace else or some other time, but here and now.  He is able and willing to move with supernatural power in your life and in mine, today.