Time slips away everyday for all of us. As we sit under the stars on the deck of a wonderful cafe at the end of Old Field Road, time is ticking, the sun rises and sets, the days come and go, moments and occasions click past us regardless of how much we all wish it would just stand still for a minute or three. i can’t count the number of times i’ve wished it would just be Saturday again.
i’m Social Porter and this is Outposts, a semi-live broadcast from the late evening, cascading banks of the Ockluhwahhah River.
What do we do with our time? How do we “spend” our moments? We all have time and moments to spend as we determine, they are valuable and whatever we choose to spend them on is a one time purchase, whether precious or frivolous, if you know what i mean. That time, in that moment, is here and gone again. So, the question was, how do you spend your time and moments? Chasing our kids, making meals, praying, arguing, deciding, thinking or maybe trying not to think about things, wondering, wishing … hoping. Maybe you spend the bulk of your time wishing you were doing something other than what you’re doing. Time is ticking by us and i’ve wondered how many of us seem to be unfocused and flat-lining in the middle of life. In desperation we come to the surface for air just long enough to convulsively gasp for breath, wishing someone would throw us a life preserver or pull us into a rescue boat.
Are we investing only in ourselves or have some of us realized that if we invest our time in others we, indeed, HAVE invested in ourselves.
The idea here is not to present a huge list of ponderous questions, truly, i think maybe most have a list of questions which completely out weigh our list of answers if we put some thought into it. i heard someone say the other day, is your problem actually your problem, or is your attitude ABOUT your problem really the problem? Consequently, is our list of answers r-e-a-l-l-y all that sufficient, or are they answers God has extended us except they are simply not the ones we want to hear?
Maybe we have more answers than we appreciate, but they just don’t fit our agenda. Time is ticking, the days are moving past us, and at some point we’re going to have to move out with God regardless of whether we have answers or not, taking Him to BE the answer, not just Him giving us answers which fit our agenda. Knowing about God and knowing Him are two very different things.
What do we do when we seem to have no answers? Please take note that i used the word, “seem” there. It’s all well and good to say, “the just shall live by faith” from Romans 1:17, or 2 Corinthians 5:7 “we live by faith and not by sight”, but when the poo really hits the fan and we’ve actually got to DO those scriptures, it might be a very different story for many. Having wisdom and DOING wisdom are very different you know. Like admiring Jesus is not the same as following Jesus, being arrogant is not the same as confidence which, at first glance, may look very similar, and being indifferent can easily be misread as having peace.
In 1987 a close friend of mine lost his job. He and his wife prayed, a lot, confessing they were people of faith and were standing firm. A short while later, they lost one car. They continued to pray and tell their friends they were people of faith and were standing firm. Then his wife lost her job, money was thin and getting oh so much thinner all the time, but they were standing firm, standing on the word of God, and rightly so. They were people of faith and were confident God would deliver them. “The just shall live by faith” they told themselves every day, knowing it to be true, so they clung to Jesus even more tightly.
Then the creme de la creme came, the house payments were so far behind, it appeared they would be losing their home. They prayed constantly for help from the Lord, they knew they were speaking to the one and only person who could help. They began to feel like they were in the “trials of Job”, worry nipped at their heels, gnawed at any surety, and doubt left them messages on their phone. Of course let’s not leave out the well meaning church folks who asked them if there was some unconfessed sin in their lives. Yea, that’s irritating isn’t it? Funny how church people think there’s likely something wrong with you before considering maybe the Lord was at the helm and it was simply a trial of faith. “You wouldn’t be going through all this if you were right with God.” That is wholly untrue and very unkind.
It is hard to not be frustrated when there seems to be no answers.
One evening, the youngest son went to a youth rally and gave his life to the Lord. The boy began to pray for his family, a job for his dad, for his mother to sleep and be at peace, and for his older sibling to come home because he had fallen in with a very troubling crowd. Wouldn’t you know it, things started to turn around. His dad got a job, the mortgage company miraculously extended them forbearance, his mom stopped looking like worry was hanging on her shoulders like a weight, and in a couple months, the older brother decided the fast crowd he was hanging with just wasn’t a good idea. It all worked out well, but they knew something after the trial which they didn’t know before: it is the truth, the just really do live by faith, and when unfortunate circumstances hit the fan in our lives, we can really and truly trust God, even when we don’t have any answers. Most especially when we don’t have any answers.
Gosh do we need answers, and the world around us does indeed give us some answers, but in the end they aren’t the answers we really need. Here’s the problem with all the answers we are being given: If you don’t know or understand the questions, the answers don’t make any sense. If i were to look at you and say, “42”. You might ponder a moment, then hopefully ask, “42 what?” Ah-ha! Exactly. i just gave you an answer but seeing as how you had no context because you didn’t know the question, my answer didn’t make any sense. Now, not only do we need to know the question so we understand the answer, we also need to know HOW to apply the answer. Just because we know the question and possess the answer, doesn’t mean we know what to do with it. We need wisdom, knowledge and understanding, and there is only one source for the three. God. You may say, “My doctor has answers and i didn’t have to go to God.” True, but where did those medical professionals get the ideas to pose the questions which then led to their conclusions? No one is smart enough to do life by themselves, and we need God to spark our dormant flame for the “right” answers.
The Lord truly has given us many answers to our looming questions, but i think many see God’s answers as insufficient somehow. We DO have answers, but often the answers just don’t seem to fit our agenda as far as we can see, nor do they seem to go as we have imagined within ourselves. Here’s a better question then: Are His answers insufficient, or is it more that we simply don’t understand, and rather than be honest and say we don’t understand, we say His answer was insufficient? Oh it wasn’t me who didn’t understand, it was God who wouldn’t tell me, and that’s not true, at, all. That’s what i call the theory of shifting responsibility. i say it’s horrible weather. Is it horrible, or is it that i don’t prefer it. Weather is weather, and no one decided it was horrible but me. Actually, i’ve decided there isn’t any such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
Sometimes, when the conflicts in life are so thick, all the paint on our picture seems to have been blasted away and we’re down to bare canvas, it does qualify as suffering. When we put our foot on the brake pedal and there’s the hideous sound of metal-on-metal, life isn’t simple. i don’t know much about suffering except these few things.
1 – suffering reduces everything to it’s lowest common denominator.
2 – it adds meaning and dimension to even the smallest things.
3 – suffering reduces culture to a classless society, it levels the playing field, meaning, when the country is out of food, everyone is suffering from hungry, rich, poor, big and small.
And 4 – suffering teaches us to see the suffering around us, it is literally an eye opener to see beyond ourselves. The things we thought were important somehow lose their priority, the value of our social standing looses ground, priorities change quickly and suddenly God becomes VERY important. Faith is what you do when you have no answers.
Hebrews 11:6 “… without faith it is impossible to please God”. Faith is not having conclusions. Faith is not being qualified. In our western version of Christianity we are basically fed a line of thinking which says “If you have faith, you will have answers and conclusions.” Ummm, no, that doesn’t hold water, if you know what i mean. Some seem to think that if they pray loud and long enough they can, somehow, “make” God do something other than what He’s doing. We want our prayers answered when we read books on prayer, listen to a message or podcast on prayer, or talk to people known as prayer warriors. A LOT of people pound the floor demanding and declaring of God, trusting that the strength and passion of their declarations may be sufficient to make God do what they want, as if His answer to prayer were contingent on how much emotional energy they can summon. We need to understand that the Lord is God and He alone is sovereign. His plan is bigger than any one player on the field. We ought not to come to God imagining we are somehow entitled and God owes us something. No, we are powerless to “make” God do anything, He is not indebted to us in any fashion, what-so-ever, nor do we have that kind of power or influence. Faith does not mean having answers or conclusions.
Some think if you have faith you will prosper and never suffer, and if you are poor and are suffering, obviously you don’t possess the faith to rise above it all, as if you could run down to Walmart and by a couple cans of “Instant faith – just add water”. Some even say, ‘if you are sick or poor, it is your own miserable lack of faith which keeps you there.’ Friends, that is cruel and untrue.
Suffering is as much a part of Christian living as not suffering and we are always measuring each other as to who is more sinful, more blessed, closer to God (or not) than we are. Always measuring according to who has the most answers. “So-and-so must be more sinful than i am because they have way more problem’s than i ever thought of having. i don’t see what could be wrong with them, but look at them, things aren’t well with them, and things are well with me, therefore, i must have more faith and favor with God and less sin in my life than my neighbors.” Astoundingly, many believe that and it isn’t true … at … all.
The Jews of Luke 13 seemed to feel that bad things happened to bad people of poor faith, and good things happen to good people who have lots of faith. This is called “retributive theology”, which says “If i am good to God He will be good to me, and if things don’t go well for me then surely i must have done something wrong,” or do-good, get-good, do-bad, get-bad. Jesus said that is absolutely not true. Job was a righteous man according to God in Job 1:8 and there was not another man on earth like him, yet he suffered many things. Jesus was and is the most righteous man there ever has been, or ever will be, and He suffered many things. Was it that those people were sinful or due to their lack of faith there was suffering? Did Abraham leave not knowing where he was going or in what direction because he didn’t have his faith all worked up in order to get the level of answers and conclusions he thought he needed? Or was God just being ambivalent with him, jerking Abraham around? It wasn’t like that at all. Sadly, in our present society we are trained like that. Make good grades, everyone likes you, make poor grades then no one wants to be your friend. If we are successful at work we are promoted, and if we are poor at our job, not only are we not promoted but we may not be allowed to work there anymore. But God doesn’t operate that way, at, all.
Faith is not having answers and just because you know stuff doesn’t mean you are someone of faith. Knowing Bible information and scripture addresses is not the same as having a relationship with Jesus.
In Hebrews 11, did Sarah have to wait for 10 years after it was prophesied to her that she would have a child because she didn’t have any faith or because she was sinful? Was Watchman Nee poor and desperate because he didn’t have any faith? Did the early heroes of the faith become martyred because they didn’t have the faith to escape persecution and they somehow deserved to die because they were faithless and sinful? Do we not have answers to important questions because we don’t have faith? Maybe we do have answers, we just don’t like them. Or are we not able to come to some of life’s necessary conclusions or know what to do many times because we don’t have any faith? Many times we don’t know what God is doing, but we are required to trust Him until His purpose and direction comes clear.
Many times we don’t know the rules and are asked to trust God until the boundaries are made clear, and they will be made distinct. i don’t understand how God is right many times, but i’m willing to wait because i believe God is right in what so ever He does.
Faith is not having answers.
Being willing to wait in the interim space of having no answer IS faith, and in that space of waiting with no answers and no conclusions,
God creates faith. Catch the vision here: sometimes, waiting is like exhaling and waiting too long to inhale, and there is a growing ache and urgency which begins in our body. Yes, i know this ache well, but the Lord will give us breath for the conclusions we need to resolve our dilemma.
The instruction of much of church-ianity tells us that if we have faith we will have our certitudes if we use the standard religious formulas. Faith is not a paint-by-number set. There are so many books which outline prosperity in a step-by-step, “How to live by faith” manual. It all maybe a great read, but when you’re the one on the boat with Jesus, there’s water coming over the sides, the wind is howling, the Master seems no where to be found, and in your most authoritative voice telling your neighbor to “just have faith” is almost cruel and cliché.
Jobs counselors were NOT willing to live in the space of no answers and no conclusions, and as of today, many many people equate “having answers” with “having faith”.
Jobs friends or counselors told Job in Job 8:20 that if he would “just admit he was a corrupt and rotten guy that in no time God would give him blessing on blessing and he’d be singing and smiling again.” But Job refused to violate his integrity by admitting to something that wasn’t true just so he wouldn’t have to suffer, just so he wouldn’t have to keep trusting God even though he didn’t have any answers. We will not gain faith or joy by compromising our integrity. i myself have, before the Lord, admitted to things i never did in hopes of stopping the storm i was in, yet the storm raged on. and a fix based on my timetable, i wanted things to change, and i was more willing to focus on how horrible the situation was rather than focusing on the goodness of God. Even in the storm, set your eyes on Jesus, not the storm, because as long as you stare at the storm, the storm is all you’ll see, and the more you see it, the more it sweeps you out to sea. Even at that, God has not left you.
Having faith doesn’t mean having answers, but more being willing to trust God and live in that space of time without answers and without conclusions. It’s easy to glibbly say, “just have faith” until you’re the one in the hot seat.
In that space of waiting, between an exhale and an inhale, in the
space of no answers and no conclusions, it is always so very uncomfortable, and many times it feels like dying. But trust me, the sky will clear. Storms are only here for a short while and then they move on, the skies will clear and stars will come out again. You’ll see.
Let us trust God who is completely trustworthy. He is faithful and righteous, and even when we don’t know the answers, God is still with us who believe on Christ, and we can be assured that our answers will come at the right time, the best time, in God-time, and it will be enough. Think about it
Actually, we do have an answer: Jesus. He is THE answer … i wonder what it will take for the rest of our nation to confess He is Lord? Truly, i’m trying not to think about that. i suspect it will be a very unpleasant time in history before they bow their knees.
i’m Social Porter and this has been Outposts, cool acoustic jazz and contemplative conversation, brought to you by Living In His Name Ministries, the always amazing Andrea at Viva coffee house in Tucson Arizona, Area 22 Guitars, Paul Powers, the ever so talented Jerry at Werner Graphics, and Trinity Bakers where there’s always something good in the oven.
Be still in the time of waiting, take advantage of that time rather than resenting having to wait. Jesus really is the answer, everyday, from the beginning to the end, even when we’re down to brass tacks and bare metal, Jesus is the answer.
It is God’s timing that we are between an exhale and an inhale, trust him, He is building extraordinary faith in you! Step out in faith this week. Ask the Lord how to get closer to Him and to know Him better. Drive carefully, pray for your friends and neighbors, have faith and trust God. Meet me next time and we’ll pickup at the feet of Jesus where we left off. Amen.