New Thoughts (01/23/10-01/24/10)
There is a connection being emphasized throughout this section of the text (the larger section, not just the current passage) that we dare not miss. The overarching declaration of Jesus is plainly, “Don’t be anxious.” But, He is also answering the question of how one stops that behavior: Shift your focus. Reorder your values and set the kingdom first. Seek first the kingdom of God. Focus on that. Our problem is that when it comes to focusing on the kingdom, we focus not on the kingdom itself but on what we can be doing. Our focus inevitable turns back upon ourselves and therefore we miss out on the great benefit of a true kingdom focus.
To put the kingdom first does not mean we start another program. It does not mean that we throw ourselves at the mission with twice the energy of last time. It means we consider what God really wants us doing in this moment before we start doing. And, if His answer is to do nothing, that is what we do. This is a matter of survival, friends. I can’t speak for others, but I know for my own case that the church, being made of fallible men such as myself, is perfectly willing to ask more of us than God is asking. It is a bad place to be, if you are one who can’t say no, because they won’t stop asking until you drop.
I don’t state this as a complaint, in all honesty. But, it’s a thing one must be aware of and one must know how to deal with it. If you don’t know your own limits yet, you will! It is good, actually, to be exercised to those limits, else we will never grow. But, it is only good while it remains within the limits. If we allow ourselves to be stretched beyond those bounds, then we have allowed the good to turn bad. But, understand this, and understand it well: If this is happening it is not because others have forced us to do too much, it is because we have allowed it! We are not dealing with a sovereign God, in this case. We are not up against the ultimate power. We are dealing with people, people just like us: capable of making mistakes and all but incapable of failing to do so. People will make mistakes in dealing with us, just as we make mistakes dealing with others. People, unlike God, will blithely ask of us an effort that should not be asked, just like we do. We don’t really know each other’s limits. We can’t. We don’t see the heart and soul of the man. Only God has that perception.
It is a well known dictum that the percentage of church members who are actively involved in the work of the church is small, typically ten to twenty percent. Of course, when such a small portion of the available pool is willing to take part in the efforts required, they will get overburdened. Of course, when that small portion is keenly aware of the magnitude of the effort, they will develop that sense that, “if I don’t do it, nobody else will,” and this will lead to a tendency to just say yes to whatever needs doing. Oh, and those who share the load will laud us for such willingness to serve. But, the question remains as to whether we are truly serving. If we are just doing and doing and doing and never stopping to seek out the King’s command, we are no longer faithful servants. We are busy, but not about the harvest.
Now, to the message at hand, and do you know? In a strange sort of way, I really need to hear the admonishment in this today. “Life is a greater gift than food.” This is the Weymouth translation of Luke 12:23. Or, if I take my own attempt, “You have a soul which is worth so much more than food.” Get your priorities right!
You see, today our church is trying out a new thing they are labeling the ‘Agape Feast’ wherein those who will bring food and we gather together like the church of old to partake together. Now, the menu for this event calls for spaghetti, and I’m rather partial to making a good spaghetti sauce. This, I have done, and we actually had some last night. One of my better batches, if I do say so myself. Yet, I found myself going to bed with a certain dreadful thought: How are they going to serve this stuff out tomorrow? I mean, I’ve put a lot of effort into my sauce. If I get stuck with some crap out of a jar, I’m not going to be pleased. It’s a good thing we had some tonight, because I may never get any tomorrow.
No, I am not advertising this as the way one ought to think, I am only revealing the sad truth of my inner dialog. So, to come down this morning and see, “Life is a greater gift than food,” really does amount to an admonition that I need to hear. It’s not about spaghetti sauce! It’s about the soul. It doesn’t matter, really, whether I get fine food or plain. It’s God who provides, and He provides as is to my best eternal good. So, who cares about pasta? Wow! How screwy my focus has been!
Father, forgive me! How could I let this become such a big deal to me? Am I truly so jealous of my own efforts? Clearly I am. Oh, wretched pride, what must I do to be rid of thee? It’s not even sane! Here we are coming together to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, and all I can think about is mine. Lord, change this heart. It’s become terrifyingly ugly, and it needs Your restoration to set it aright. I see, from what You have put on my heart this morning, that overwork in Your house is clearly poisoning the spirit in which I do. It is time and past time to stop doing and return to the place of rest in Your presence. If I cannot do for You joyfully, but rather suffer an endless resentment in the doing, then what value does doing hold? Absolutely none! Indeed, it is less than useless. It is dangerous. It is dangerous to me, and it is poisonous to the body. Lord, I see it, yet I know not how to change it, so I call upon You to reveal to me the path to walk, and set my feet upon it. Let me get back to that first love place, that place of joyful service with no sense of being put upon.
And now, I am put in sight of this bit: “My counsel is: Don't worry about things” (Mt 6:25 – TLB). Even in this matter I have just taken to prayer, “My counsel is: Don't worry about things.” This is the value of developing and sustaining a kingdom focus. If my eyes are on heaven, there shall be no worrying. If I maintain a clear sense of the Truth that a perfectly Good God is my perfectly Good Provider, then I don’t worry about the quality or the quantity of His Provision. If He is in charge, then I have nothing to worry about. That’s it! That’s all there is to it! Because, those ifs are not ifs. They are certainties. They are the ‘final causes’, the primary points. Everything else stems from them. All else depends upon them.
The Psalmist writes of the animals that they wait for God to give them their food at the right time, and He does (Ps 104:27-28). “You open Your hand (pouring out provision), and they are well satisfied.” Listen! For all our capacity to sow and reap and labor and toil, what he has said of the animals is our own story. Just try it. Put that idea in the first person. “I wait for You to give me my food at the right time, and You do. I gather as You give. You open Your hand and I am well satisfied.” That is the walk of the faithful. That is the message of this passage. “He will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?” This, from the NLT. That is the story of my spaghetti sauce. It’s not about how I give. I gather not as I labor and do. I gather as You give, and You will CERTAINLY care for me. Indeed, You will certainly care for me perfectly, as best fits my true need, whether or not I can even see my true need.
Allow me to put this in another light. My daughter is about to go off on her first mission trip. This is, or should, a wonderful thing. Yet, I see not the least sign of a missionary zeal in her. Indeed, I see a near total shutting down of the things of God. Oh, she comes to church, largely because it is required of her, and even more, because many of her friends are there and she doesn’t see them elsewhere. Yet, she doesn’t wish to hear about God, and certainly not how He might apply to her own life. Now, the logical part of me looks at this scenario and says, “and you’re going to go represent Him to these other folks? You’re going to be useful as a missionary?” It just doesn’t add up in my book. Indeed, I find a large question in me as to whether she ought to even be allowed to go. But, then, I am put back in mind that God is in control. He is in control in her life every bit as much as in mine, whether or not she chooses to recognize it.
God, being Truth, is much like Truth in this regard: He is not changed by our acceptance or rejection. Truth remains True whether one believes it or not. God remains God whether one believes Him or not. God remains in control whether we joyfully accept that reality or choose to kick against the goads. Acknowledged or railed against, He is still God, He is still perfect in power, in knowledge, in goodness and in righteousness. He is not moved by our opinions.
So, maybe, just maybe, this daughter of mine is not the missionary in this case, but rather the mission. Maybe this is the point at which God breaks through into her rebellious youth. Of course, it may not be the case, either, and though it is hard to take, I should have to accept it if God has decreed that she is not to be among the remnant. Does this sound harsh? Yes. Yes, I suppose it does. But, it is a sovereign God of Perfect and perfectly Good Will that I serve. I don’t say that I hope this is her final estate, nor even that I suppose it is. But, if it is, then I must know and understand (and accept) that her condition is as much a reflection of that perfectly good will of God as my own salvation. God chooses and He chooses perfectly. The clay has no more right to complain of the determination of a vessel made from the next lump over as it does to complain of its own use. And, frankly, all my worry over her can no more add one bit of good to her life than it can add any bit of time to my own.
If I cannot worry my way to a greater maturity in myself, I surely cannot do it for another. That is, after all, the underlying point of Matthew 6:27 and Luke 12:25. It’s not about trying to grow an extra foot (and why should I want to?) It’s not about trying to live a few days longer (and, again, why should I want to?) It’s about growing up. It’s about maturing. The point, then, is that we cannot mature ourselves by fretting over our youthful foolishness.
Worry is not maturity. We get that mindset, though, don’t we? We somehow come to think that worry is the natural opposite of foolishness. But, it’s not. It’s just foolishness that gone past its ‘best used by’ date. It’s youthful foolishness that has been foolishly allowed to remain in the adult. It is over-ripe. It is rotten. It needs to be done away with. Again, the message here is that there is a way to do away with that anxiousness. It’s called: Focus on heaven. Seek the Kingdom, and understand the King. Get it through your thick head that He is your Provider. Whatever labors you do, it is good that you do them, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking that your hand has brought you what you have. Your hand can just as swiftly lose it all in a flash. You are no more in control of tomorrow than you are capable of changing yesterday.
If you find favor at work it is because He has arranged it so. If you are being showered with good things, it is because He has chosen to let it be so with you. If, on the other hand, work is rough and provision seems slim, guess what: It’s all good! You may not like it that much, but it’s what He has seen will be best for you in your present state of development. If you would have it otherwise, perhaps you ought to develop further? (And let there be no doubt that I am part of the you I am speaking to here.) If your circumstance is not pleasing to you, is it not just possible that there’s a lesson being taught? A discipline applied? Is it not likely to be more fruitful to seek the meaning of the lesson rather than to gripe against the teacher? You cannot worry your way to a greater maturity. You surely cannot complain your way to it, either.
“Cast all your cares on Him, because it is He who cares for you” (1Pe 5:7). We all know that verse, and we all get that warm fuzzy feeling when we think upon it, at least until the next care hits. But, push it a little farther. “Cast all your anxieties upon Him.” Same issue we’re dealing with in this passage. Pour Peter, so many years later, is still dealing with being anxious. Or, at least, with his charges being anxious. Frankly, I’m pretty sure it was both. Peter understood that man being as he is, he needed to hear things over and over again, because we quickly forget. Like I said, we will forget the comfort of casting our cares upon Christ as soon as the next care comes along, because we forget what it was we were supposed to do with it. We take it on ourselves. We gnaw at it and worry over it and get ourselves all worked up trying to figure out how to deal with this new situation. “Same as the last one” just never seems to occur to us. Nope. Gotta give it the old college try. Gotta show God what I’m made of, let Him see how well I can deal with this stuff on my own. Oh, He’ll see all right. Of course, He already knew. Eventually, though, we’ll come back to our senses and hear the message again. “All your anxieties upon Him.” All of them! Why do we wait so long?
This brings me to the catch-phrase that the Message provides for this passage: “careless in the care of God”. But, is that really what we’re called to here? Does a lack of anxiousness mean I am become careless? I don’t think so, at least not such as I would understand the term. No, I am not careless. I am just, as Paul would say, content. I don’t stop working, I just stop getting worked up about it. I don’t stop trying, I just keep the reality of the situation in sight. It is He Who is working in me, not me who is working in Him. I don’t cease from my efforts to do what is right in His sight, but neither do I go in for kicking myself when I fail. That’s a losing game plan. No, it’s let Him pick me back up and dust me off and set me on my feet, and let’s try again. And if I fail this time, well, the answer’s the same: It’s in Him that I shall succeed. He is faithful to complete this work He has begun in me, and no amount of anxiousness on my part is going to move Him to complete the work a moment sooner than He has purposed. Neither is my weakness somehow presenting Him with a challenge that for once He cannot overcome. He shall not complete the work a moment later than He has purposed, either.
It is for me to do as best I can the things that He has created me to do. It is for me to strive with all that is in me, yes, but in the contentment of knowing that He is in control. It is for me to labor in His vineyards, but always with my eye upon His kingdom. It is to labor in such a way as to earn the reward, but never to focus on the reward as an end in itself. It is to know the joy of being given the privilege of helping Daddy, always knowing that really, Daddy is the only one who can do the job. But, it sure is nice being there with Him, isn’t it?
