Tag Archives: confidence

God Knows What He’s Doing

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God knows what He’s doing. That may sound like an oversimplification relative to our complex world, but oftentimes, the simple view is best. Even Longfellow recognized, “In character, in manners, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.”

Indeed, God knows what He’s doing. That said, I can rest easily.

Evelyn and I talk a lot during our twenty-five-minute drive to and from school throughout the week. We cover multitudes of topics. Some are serious. Others are more daydreamy. Two weeks ago, a song from The Lost Boys soundtrack carried us down the roadway. As it did, we wondered aloud what we would do if we became vampires. That was fun. Last week, we wondered what we’d be like had we been born in the 1880s. I doubted out loud that I’d have been a pastor. She agreed. She figured me for a lawman, but only after admitting the possibility that I might have owned a saloon. I agreed—minus the saloon. Standing behind a bar all day is not how I’d prefer to spend my days. Besides, notoriously shady behaviors and trades were associated with saloons, none of which fit my character.

Why not a pastor? I don’t know. I just don’t think I would’ve been one. Either way, as a believer today or in the yesteryear of 1880, I’m sure I’d continue to say, “God knows what He’s doing.” I’d have been right where He wanted me. I just happen to think it would’ve been a role requiring a gunfight or two.

There are plenty of things about which I’m certain. I love my wife, and I love the family and life God has been so gracious to grant me, just to name a few. Another is that I’m right where God wants me to be. I think that bothers some folks. In fact, I know it does. There’s a statistic out there somewhere reporting that at any given moment in a pastor’s ministry, at least 30% of his congregation wishes they had a different pastor. I don’t know if that’s entirely true in my home congregation. Although, statistics are stubborn things. Let’s just say I hope it’s closer to 10%. Either way, I know there are likely some who, if they got the chance, would actually work to lift it from 10% to 30%. Every congregation has those people. We have them, too.

But here’s the thing. When you are immovably confident that God knows what He’s doing in your life and that you are right where you belong, then there’s little chance that a disparaging alligator lurking around you (no matter how big and powerful the gator might be) is going to frighten you away, let alone move you closer to the safety of another shore apart from Christ. In this sense, the simple and supreme excellency (as Longfellow described) of God’s omniscient care becomes an impenetrable barrier between you and the ever-vigilantly circling gators. And by ever-vigilant, you know what I mean. They’re always looking for a way to get you. They’re hoping to find a loophole in your faithfulness—an unguarded middle space in your life—so that they can accuse you, finding you guilty of failings they were sure you’d eventually commit.

That’s an interesting juxtaposition, isn’t it; the certainty of God’s gracious care and the certainty that someone will fail? In response, there’s a quotation I’ll sometimes share when standing before pro-life crowds, especially since it so often seems gators endlessly circle the pro-life cause. It was Babe Ruth who said, “You just can’t beat someone who won’t quit.” I should add my own words to that. A confident person cannot be a quitter.

There’s another essential simplicity to keep in mind in this regard, and it’s what gives the sureness described its impervious quality. When someone is immovably certain God has him right where He wants him, while at the same time, he knows he’s a sinner in need of daily repentance and forgiveness, whatever unguarded middle spaces an alligator may find, they become relatively inconsequential. Instead, they’re received as opportunities for self-reflection, amending, and carrying on in God’s extraordinary forgiveness. What were intended to be piercing accusations could only ricochet like raindrops, ultimately beading up and flowing back into the gator’s swampy mess.

Faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of my sins, no matter what those sins may be, becomes the Christian’s foundation. Even better, when the Christian knows that God stands at the ready to dispense His immeasurably wonderful grace to the penitent sinner, that foundation becomes mountain-like in its durability.

I should clarify something before concluding.

God’s grace isn’t cheap. We do not live as we like assuming God is a divine Pez dispenser of grace (Romans 6:1-2). I say this because in order to know what God’s love is, it’s just as important to know what it isn’t. For one, it wasn’t an economical effort. It was costly. He paid top dollar. Look at the cross and see. It’s there you’ll behold the jeweled elements of certainty’s concrete. God loved you that much. Knowing this, Saint Paul’s words in Romans 8:31-39 ring truer than ever before:

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I don’t know about you, but I almost expected to read the word “alligators” somewhere in Saint Paul’s list.

Friends are Friends

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I’m sitting here wondering… who are the people in your life you trust, and why do you trust them? I know that’s a deeper question than it sounds. Each of us has people in our lives we’ll trust for one thing but not another. Still, there are those we keep close in everything. They are second selves in a way—people we’ll lean on no matter the circumstance.

I’m guessing that for many of you, it’s your family that best fits within the boundaries of this description. Speaking for myself, I can certainly affirm that my wife, Jennifer, is the one person I trust unreservedly with everything. She’s also the person I can trust to not pester me when there are situations happening that, while I need to keep them confidential, are clearly weighing me down. She never pries, but instead, does what she can to cheer me up, all the while encouraging me to keep pressing forward, especially when she can clearly see that I don’t feel like I can. This, again, is an aspect of her trustworthiness.

I have a trustworthy Bishop, too. He’s more than an ecclesiastical supervisor. He’s a friend. Even better, he’s a pastor’s pastor to all in the district. What I mean is that for any of the church professionals out there within reach of his supervision, if they have no one else to trust aside from Christ, they can trust him. I’m glad for that.

Since I mentioned the idea of confidential things, in contrast to those you’d trust, there are those around each of us who display a tendency for handling secrets in the same way they handle cash. They circulate them, using them to buy and sell with others. By the way, those folks are often the first ones to pester for secret information, ultimately betraying their lack of intention or ability for ever keeping to themselves whatever it is you may share. There’s another term for those people: Gossipers. For the record, I keep gossipers at arm’s length. In fact, anyone who knows me will know I have a tendency to come down hard on gossipers. Gossip is poison to the Church and it should never be tolerated.

Of course, keeping confidence isn’t the only thing that makes a person trustworthy. Again, speaking only for myself, the people I keep closest are the ones I know will receive my words honestly—easy or hard—and in turn, they know I’ll do the same with theirs. I hope Jennifer doesn’t mind that I’m repeatedly using her as an example, but this reminds me of something she articulated so wisely a few years ago. In fact, I mentioned it in The Angels’ Portion, Volume III. I may have shared it with you before. Either way, here’s what I wrote:

“‘Friends are friends until they’re not,’ my brilliant wife has observed. And the substance of her meaning is a direct outflow of her life as a pastor’s wife. She knows all too well that her husband is always just one decision, action, conversation, or sermon away from ticking someone off and seeing that which once was become a thing of the past. She knows all too well that if she shows up on Sunday and gets the cold shoulder from someone who only last week was as fresh and friendly as a springtime sprig, it’s because of something I did.”

Friends are friends until they’re not, which is why I’m guessing that like me, the people you trust the most are the ones who continue to prove the long-lasting nature of real friendship that can withstand being over-taxed by mistakes, careless words, or whatever else might cause division between people. Most often the first action of a trusted friend, at least the kind I’ve described so far, won’t be to attack you, but rather will be to seek peaceful ways to fortify his or her friendship with you through faithfulness to Christ.

I appreciate the phrase, “True friendship is never serene.” Marie de Sévigné said that. She was right. And her point: True friendships are not without turbulence. Still, I’m guessing they have something that other relationships do not: Humility and forgiveness.

Humility will always be a sturdy bridge for carrying heavier issues over from one person to another. And if forgiveness is there waiting on the other side, the friendship will be proven capable of withstanding what breaks all other relationships.

Christians, in particular, know these things very well. And why wouldn’t we? We know that even as we were God’s enemies, completely dead in our trespasses and sins, Christ humbly submitted Himself to death on our behalf (Ephesians 2:1; Romans 5:6). The forgiveness He won for us by His death is the foundation of our very identity as human beings. From this, we know without question that He is the absolute epitome of “friend,” having made clear to us that there is no greater love to be found among friends than that one would be self-sacrificing, that one would lay down his life for the other (John 15:13). When Jesus speaks this way, of course He’s referring to Himself as the only One capable of being the truest friend. And yet, He certainly gives this faithful Word in order to establish the same selfless relationships between His people, knowing that by the power of the Holy Spirit, we would be found emitting to each other in much simpler ways what He first demonstrated to us in the greatest of ways.

You may have other criteria behind your determining of trusted friends. I certainly have others I’ve not shared. Nevertheless, what I can tell you with relative simplicity is that when humility and forgiveness are present in a person, the rest of what we might consider to be not-so-likeable qualities are most often barely noticeable—which makes complete sense. It’s a lot harder to see the bad stuff when Jesus is blocking your view.

Gospel Dominance

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For those whose Easter is little more than an annual go-round with chocolate rabbits and painted eggs, the fanfare of the celebration has come and gone. Not so for the Christian Church. For us, it remains. We actually live each day in the wake of the ultimate enemy’s defeat.

Death has been conquered. Jesus has done it. Therefore, Death no longer has standing among us. No room for mastery. No room for terrorizing. No room for demands. No room for negotiation. It really is finished. Easter is the proof. And now through faith in Christ, we are His and He is ours. Living in that redemption, what’s left to frighten us?

Nothing.

The more I experience life in this fallen world, the more and more I become glad for this wonderful reality born from a Gospel of great power. It’s a Gospel that changes me. It changes the way I see the world. It changes the way I understand people. It changes the way I maneuver from task to task each new day. It changes the way I suffer during struggle. It alters the way I endure hatred from others.

By the loving promise of Death’s defeat, I can steer into all of these knowing that while I might not pass through them unscathed, I won’t go into them or come out on the other side without hope. Christ has cemented my hope, and with that, I can be content. I can have joy.

Before this contentment took root in me, it wouldn’t have been uncommon for me to get worked up in caustic situations. Not so much anymore. Take for example a recent circumstance in which my reputation was being maligned by deliberate deceit. In the past I might have run headlong into the fray to defend myself. Not so much anymore. I don’t feel the need to do so. I have a dominance in those situations that’s hard to unseat.

Yes, dominance.

There’s a saying that people only talk behind the backs of those who are dominant. Whatever that proverb might mean to the world, for me it has been reinterpreted by the Gospel. Yes, I am in a seat of dominance. But it’s a dominance that has been granted to me—a dominance of contentment in Christ. It’s a certainty that drives away worry, leaving me to know I’m completely surrounded by the Lord’s loving care. Even as I’m behind His flag, He’s also covering any and all of my exposed flanks. With this assurance in hand, I really can say, “World, do your worst.” I am content to live according to the promise of the Easter Gospel. This means that even when things seem their darkest and I begin to feel the blunt end of injustice, even if things don’t turn around in this life, one thing remains true: I’m not an inheritor of this world. I’m an inheritor of the world to come—an inheritance won by Jesus, one in which He is sure to flip the switch of the divine lights and expose all things done in darkness. In the meantime, I can be at peace in all circumstances, strengthened for continuing forward in faithfulness.

Once again, the resurrection Gospel imputes this. It imputes it today. It’ll be there imputing it again tomorrow. And the next day. That’s the promise. If the last enemy, Death, has been conquered, what else is there to concern or harm us?

Believers know the answer to this question as they go about their lives in the perpetual sunshine of Easter, and the world will squirm with frustration around us as we do.

I want you to know that when I go to the altar of God this week at Our Savior to pray privately for His people, this will be the precision of my petitions. I will pray on your behalf, asking God that in the coming days, by the power of the Holy Spirit, He will grant for you to remember these things. My prayer will be for you to be emboldened by the same Gospel that emboldens me, that you will have taken into yourself the joyful promise of the Lord’s mighty resurrection for your justification before the Heavenly Father, which is also an ultra-confident—nay, dominant—slap in the face of Death itself.

By faith, all of this is certainly yours for the taking.