Unshakable

Almost everyone, I think, wants to know how to have an unshakable faith. We want to live our lives so that we believe even when it doesn't seem there's anything to believe in, so that we hope when all hope is lost, so that we trust when we can't see the next step. We want faith to step into the fire, but all of that seems easier said than done.

How do we develop an unshakable faith when this world seems set on rocking us to our core?

I don't know.

Sorry - I know you're used to more confident answers from me, and you were probably hoping that I was about to reveal the secret to the kind of faith that we're all searching for. But the truth is, I just don't know. I know it's possible. I've seen it happen, and I'm watching it happen. But I don't know how it happens. I can't even pretend to understand the ways in which God works.

I think part of our problem is that we think that faith is the foundation of our relationship with God. It's not. Faith, hope, trust, even love - these are not the foundations on which our relationship with God is based. Our relationship with God has to be based on God Himself, on His heart, on His character, on His goodness; that's the only thing that doesn't change.

And what I've found - and what I'm finding - is that faith is merely a landscape. 

Faith builds mountains, places where our confidence in God has soared. High peaks where we stand on top of the world and look out over all of the Promised Land, sure of who God is, who we are, and all His promises. 

Faith carves valleys and canyons, places where it's been harder to believe. Places where the shadows are cast in all kinds of crazy directions, and the only thing we know for sure is that the ground underneath us hasn't changed - God is still God, but here, the light dances with darkness. And somehow, this is part of faith, too. 

Faith digs trenches, the places where it buckles down. Places where it digs in hard, seeking refuge or comfort or protection. These are some of the hardest places, places of grief, of pain, of insecurity. Places of questions that don't seem to have answers. 

And faith fills those trenches with joy, the joy that flows down from the mountains and rushes through even these hardest places. Joy that overflows the banks of our trenches, spills out over the plains into even the dullest, most boring places of our lives. 

Faith forms oases in the deserts. It carves out caves in the hills. It sets up altars on the seashores and traces footprints in the sands. Faith creates this beautiful landscape of believing, draws out the map of our very lives. 

But it never changes the ground on which we stand, which is the very foundation of all things - the truth about who God is.

It doesn't sound like much, maybe, but it's everything. It's everything because it changes the way that we think about faith. If we accept the understanding that faith is nothing more than the landscape, that the ground remains the same, then we can start to just roll with the punches. We can start to just take life as it comes. We can let it change us, let it shape us, let it put new landmarks on our maps. We can watch the horizons expand and the sun rise and the shadows dance without fear, without worry, for the foundation of all that we have is solid - it is God Himself; it's just the landscape that is changing. 

And it's beautiful. 

So what's the secret to unshakable faith? I don't know. But I think maybe it's something like this.

At least, that's what I'm coming to find out. 

The Tenderness of Jesus

This has been a bit of a tough week for me, but it has brought a couple of powerful moments that are the kind that simply make me weep. Not because they are hard, but because they are beautiful, and they remind me of the incredible love of God for His children.

A couple of days ago, I woke up with one eye severely swollen. By the time I could get in to see my doctor, it was swollen completely shut. My doctor, who normally greets me with a big, hearty smile, a neat story, and great joy, took only half-a-second to change his normal demeanor to one that showed deep concern for my present situation. The difference in his face was powerful, but it didn't stop there.

He came near me and, as he got close enough to see, he said, "I have to pull this eye apart a bit to make sure your eye itself is okay." And with great tenderness, he proceeded to do just that. 

In that moment, I could think of nothing but the tenderness of Jesus.

You see, that's what the Lord looks at in me every day. He sees these horrible effects of my brokenness, all these places where I am clearly hurt, where I am clearly in pain, where something is clearly not right, and I can see the love that He has for me written all over His face. Even His eyes change. They tell me about a thousand things about what He's thinking in that moment, about what He's feeling, about the way that His heart has been moved for me. 

And as He draws near, He says essentially the same thing - I need to pull back this brokenness a little bit, just to make sure that your heart is okay. And with great tenderness, He proceeds to do just that.

Maybe that makes me a bit unique in terms of the way that I am willing to be loved by Jesus. I think so often, we get into this mindset where we want Him to just heal us. We don't want Him to be tender with our brokenness; we want Him to be ruthless with it. We want Him to use His power to rip it out. We want Him to use His skill to excise it. We want Him to make it better, and now.

But things just don't work like that. At least, I've never found that they have. These things take time. You have to be tender with them. He has to be tender with them.

And there's something about knowing that you're okay already. At least, I mean, in part. My eye itself? It's fine. It's a little troubled right now, blocked behind this massive swelling. But my eye itself is okay. 

So is my heart. Of all the broken things that I've had in my life, I've had these beautiful moments with Jesus when He draws close, pulls back the brokenness just a little bit, and says, "Yes. Good. Your heart...it's okay." It's just a little blocked right now. 

I don't know what it is, but these are my favorite moments. Every time someone is willing to look beyond my brokenness and see that, you know what? I'm okay. Things are a little grotesque right now. Things are a little rough. But the core of me...it's okay. There's something beautiful and completely healthy underneath all that. I don't know...it causes me to weep. Not because it hurts. Not because it's broken. But because through all that is hurt and all that is broken, something beautiful has still been found. It's right there. And it's okay.

This is the tenderness of Jesus. 

And man, it gets me every time....

Who You Shall Serve

The question posed by Joshua when he addressed the Israelites is a bit of a false one. "Choose for yourselves this day who you will serve, whether your God....or the gods of the people whose land you are about to enter." Yes, this is, in the grand scheme of things, the real choice. We will either serve our God or we will serve some other god (or something we have set up as a god), but in the practical, lived-out nature of service, it's not so simple.

For example, sometimes when you are serving your God, you are also serving your brothers and sisters. This was the case for Joseph. He was dutiful in his service to the Lord, but in the end of the story, we find that his service to the Lord was not only for the Lord's glory, but also for his brothers' preservation. Interesting that this was the man who was hated by his brothers for his dreams that they would one day bow down before him. They did, but only because he was the only slave who could save them. Funny how that works, huh?

That's not to say that every time you are serving your brothers and sisters, you are serving your God, however. There are plenty of things that we do for one another that are not particularly God-pleasing. But it is often true that what we do for God is of benefit to our brothers and sisters, so pay attention to how God is weaving these threads.

On the other hand, not most of us would say that we would choose to serve gods other than the Lord our God, but we do it in practical terms all the time. We wouldn't say that we serve money, but we do. We wouldn't say that we serve ourselves but we do. We put these things above all other things, and they become our gods, whether we intended for them to be or not.

But neither does it follow that every time we make good use of money, it replaces our God. Or even that when we do something for ourselves, that this is idol worship. There are some very good, God-honoring ways to use money and to care for ourselves. These are called stewardship and discipline, and they do not need to be wicked. They can be very good.

So it's not as simple as saying, "Pick your god." What matters is how we approach the things that either are God's or can become gods in our lives. And we have to know how it is that we're approaching these things. 

The question, then, is not "What are you doing?" but rather, "Why are you doing what you are doing?" Are you doing it for the glory of the Lord, out of the recognition that you were created for this very purpose? Or are you doing it for some other reason? Any other reason than the glory of the Lord is idolatry. But both idolatry and glorification are slavery. They're service. 

So you're a slave, of course, as you knew that you are. But a slave to what? And why?

Transformative Power

The first thing that we have to understand about slaves as the Bible tells their stories is that slaves are anything but powerless. Because of the way that modern slavery operates, we often think, Oh, those poor slaves. They've got nothing going for them. But that's just not the case.

Take Joseph, for example. A foreigner, sold as a slave in Egypt. He gets there, and he's such an amazing slave that he's put in charge of everything in his master's house. A lie gets him thrown in prison, but he's such an excellent prisoner that he's put in charge of everything in the prison. God turns his situation around, and he finds himself before Pharaoh, and he's such an amazing slave in Pharaoh's presence that he's put in charge of the entire country. And it's because of this slave that the entire world did not starve in the famine. 

That's quite a testimony of a slave.

Or take, for example, the story of the nations that Israel did not end up driving out of their land. There were several peoples that, for one reason or another, became slaves instead of casualties. And in more than one case, what do we see? It was the slaves among Israel that began to introduce the foreign gods. Their influence in their own households and cities was so strong that the slaves are the ones who drew Israel away from the Lord in worship.

That's power.

Or what about Israel as slaves in Egypt? When Israel came to Egypt during the famine, Joseph was able to secure his relatives the choicest of all the land among Egypt. Even Pharaoh admitted what good land it was when he gave it to them. Fast forward about 400 years, and the Egyptians don't even seem to remember what good land it was. To them, it's just the land of the detestable Hebrews who are nothing but a bother to them. Amazing how the best place can become the rejected place.

But that is the power of the slave. 

There are so many more examples - Israel in Babylon, Daniel specifically. Slaves in the Old Testament. Slaves in the New Testament. But you're starting, I hope, to see the point - slaves in the Bible are not anything like slaves as we think about them from our own historical context. They were far from powerless; they were often the most powerful persons around.

This is very important for us as we start to consider what it means to be slaves. What it doesn't mean is that we give up all of our power. Rather, perhaps it means that we have more than we ever bargained for. 

Slaves

Although it's not very socially acceptable today, the Bible is full of stories about slaves. There are servants as far back, at least, as Abraham, who took one with him when he and Isaac went to Mount Moriah. Joseph was sold into slavery. Israel herself became slaves in Egypt. The nations that she didn't destroy in the Promised Land became her slaves. Israel was brought into slavery again in Babylon. Even in the New Testament, we see references to slaves and slavery - one of the letters that we have is from Paul to the owner of a certain slave, Philemon, lauding the slave's tremendous help. 

For most of us who live in a post-slave society (we cannot say a post-slave world, since slavery still exists and, to be honest, we still live in a society of sex slavery, so we cannot even say this really about ourselves), this is hardly fathomable. How atrocious! we say. How terrible! Slavery! We just shake our heads.

And it's true that even in the Bible, slavery is often talked about in negative terms. No one wants to be a slave. Joseph didn't want to be a slave; his brothers sold him into it. Israel didn't want to be slaves in Egypt; that's not how they started out there. The other nations weren't keen on the idea of becoming Israel's slaves; it was, however, better than the alternative (being claimed for the Lord by the sword - i.e. dying). In many cases, their slavery wasn't even part of God's agenda; it was a trick to save themselves. 

But despite this, we also see that slaves have tremendous power in the Scriptures, for better and for worse. 

This is important because Paul says that we should be slaves to Christ. And most of us, in our postmodern, individualistic mindset, really struggle with this. Me? A slave? Forget it! I do what I want when I want and nobody can tell me what to do. Not even Christ Himself. (And even if we are not so bold as to say this out loud in so many words, it is the way we're living, as though we have no master at all.)

Yet as is also true what we find in the other Biblical wisdom - we're all slaves to something. If we're not serving Christ, we're serving something else. We're slaves to Christ, or we're slaves to sin. We're slaves to Christ, or we're slaves to money. Even as far back as the Old Testament, Joshua declared, "Choose for yourselves this day who you will serve, whether the Gods of your forefathers or the gods of the people in whose land you are living." Notice that he doesn't given an option for not serving any god at all. 

It's not possible.

We're all slaves to something. We are not our own. And that's why it's important to look at some of the things that the Bible story teaches us about slaves, about the power that they hold (for better or for worse) and what kind of impact we can have on the world, depending on whose house we choose to live in.