Hey there. What I want to do for this blog entry is just be honestly vulnerable for a few minutes and walk you through the work God has been doing in me amidst some of my day to day struggles. My prayer is that some of you will find a sense of empathy, others will find helpful applications and all of us will develop greater hope in God.
The last few days I’ve been wrestling with what I could only describe as a “burdened soul”. The seemingly tangible weight from intangible causes that makes the normal activities feel bogged down. Personally, although this might seem cliche, it’s as if a somber cloud has been hovering over my heart for no reason that is apparent to me. I go through my mental checklist of potential antecedents: how’s my walk with the Lord, have I been in the Word every day, how am I doing as a husband, is anything unusual happening with ministry or my day job, etc. There’s a few minuscule frustrations, but nothing that I haven’t had the Lord lead me through before so there’s no striking red flags as I ponder and reflect. Then I think of Psalm 42 verse five, which I had read in my daily devotions about a week ago.
“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall praise him, my salvation and my God.”
I love how the Word of God reveals to us that we are not the only ones who have faced the adversities and struggles that we do. The unfortunate reality is that so often times we can become consumed with our problems and don’t have a solid foundation in the Word of God, allowing the flesh and the Devil to work together, creating this illusion that we are isolated. Leading our hearts and minds to believe that our suffering is somehow unique, more extreme, or that no one can understand us. Anyways, that was a little side-note.
I find myself this morning just saying and thinking those three words that initially answer David’s heart-questioning: “hope in God”. What does it mean for me to hope in God right now? What would it look and feel like to rest in the hope of God? I often think in questions. A form of self-interrogation, not sure if it’s the best way to go, but all I know is that it’s helped me get to the bottom of things so far in my life and think deeply about the Truth and how I am called to apply it.
Dictionary.com defines hope as “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen or a feeling of trust”. My initial response to that is “a feeling” seems a little shaky to me. I’m a pretty emotional guy and I know that more often than not, my “feelings” lead me in wrong directions when it comes to difficult situations. I remember the words of James 17:9.
“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
So, thanks dictionary.com but I’m not quite satisfied with the idea that David is referring to a “feeling” towards God when he prompts himself to hope. Hope is something more substantial than emotions, although our emotions are powerful, they lack consistency. There not something you can really rest in since their always changing, sometimes for no apparent reason at all. Hence my current dilemma. Now, I think emotions may come alongside hope, but the core of hope is at least founded on Truth. When we trust in something solid. Standing on a firm foundation that our very souls find rest upon and are strengthened by.
Okay then, what truths about God do I need to trust in right now? Are there any truths that I’m not trusting in or struggling to trust in right now? One thing I’ve come to realize is that every struggle I’ve had in my lifetime has had a theological issue at the core of it. My battles with sin, depression, fear etc. have all proven to be doubts, misunderstandings or misapplications of who God is and what He’s done. To dig into the specifics of that is a blog or conversation for another time. But understand, that’s my perspective as I tackle my predicament. If there’s an issue, I need to find the theological core of it, because otherwise it’s just addressing the symptoms instead of curing the disease.
There’s two attributes of God that come to mind when I consider things that I need to trust in just to get through my day to day. The two that are most often doubted or misunderstood when it comes to trusting in them, leading to all kinds of anxiety, frustration, depression etc. At least that’s what personal experience and the observed experience of others seems to affirm.
The first attribute is that God is Sovereign. He sits on the throne over all the universe and He rules with absolute supremacy and authority. There is no detail in the cosmos that occurs which he is surprised by or does not have dominion over. God does not anxiously pace around the throne room biting his nails, worried about what’s going to happen and if his plans are going to work. He is seated, calmly watching his plan unfold exactly as he knew and predetermined. It’s all part of the plan. So, as I reflect on my life and the few things that may be frustrating or discouraging, or the times when I feel discontent with the circumstances around me, I need to understand that God is in complete control. He’s not panicking and repeatedly apologizing while He fails to captain the ship of all existence. Just because He’s driving it through a storm doesn’t mean God doesn’t have a firm grip on the helm. But the world and especially those that choose to reject the existence of God will take that theological concept and twist it to say that if God is Sovereign, He must be cruel to allow so much tragedy and pain. This leads me to the second key attribute: God is gracious.
Now, the common way to say this may be that God is good, but allow me to explain why I prefer the term gracious. To use the word “good” is to enter into a subjective argument about how we define “good”. Typically our definitions of “good” are in accordance to what we think is most advantageous for us. So, in order for God to be good we would have to experience no hardship, pain, loss and only be blessed with success, wealth and the world basically revolving around us. To say that God is gracious brings it into a different realm of measurement. It means that God is willing to grant unmerited favor and blessing to Creation, especially to men through the person and work of Jesus Christ. The common expression around our church body at Journey is that when asked “how are you doing?” we respond, “better than I deserve.” Now, from the perspective of our American culture which indoctrinates us to believe that we deserve everything good we receive and don’t deserve any negative circumstances or experiences, this seems like a depressing shot to our self-esteem. However, the more and more I think about it, I absolutely need shots to my self-esteem. My heart can create a sense of entitlement out of nothing, and a self-centered mentality naturally infests my mind. I don’t need self-esteem, I need less of me, and the only way to do that is to have more of God as John the Baptist exemplified in John 3:30. “He (meaning Christ) must increase, but I must decrease.” That is the fundamental battle at the heart of every single one of us. The struggle that we naturally desire to magnify ourselves, but don’t realize until its too late that our own selfishness is actually the most destructive force in our lives. A greater esteem of God not only silences all the anxiety, discontentment, and discouragement that we produce in our own hearts, but it also fulfills the desires of our hearts. Our longings for security, peace, and joy can only be satisfied by God as we come to the realization that He is the source of the things we fundamentally seek as human beings. And not only is He capable of this fulfilling work, but He actually promises it. A verse that my wife and I have clung to for the last few months is Psalm 37:3-4:
“Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
The point of that verse is not that we go to God like some kind of genie. That our prayers or faith are like spiritual rubs of the lamp that compel the Creator to give us all the worldly things that we want. The promise here is that if we seek and desire God, making Him the desire of our hearts, then we will find that desire fulfilled, and I can attest to the fact that my other desires end up finding their fulfillment in Him as well. Usually not in the way I expect it, but that’s why Ephesians 3:20 says that God “is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think...” His ways are not our ways and that’s a good thing. Because if God only operated in the ways we can understand or anticipate than we would only experience shallow satisfaction instead of the ultimate fulfillment which is being “filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19).
I need to encourage my own heart to trust in God’s Sovereignty and graciousness. Even as I’ve been writing this and meditating on those aspects of who my God is, I find the heaviness of my heart growing lighter. I can move from the typical downward spiral of listening to myself and begin preaching to myself. Take my eyes off the broken confusion of emotions and circumstances that make up my life apart from the work of God, and witness a divine glory in the midst of even the most mundane of activities. And I know that the more and more I embrace who my God is, the more I find my soul able to rest in the Sovereign, gracious presence of my Lord. His being eclipses my troubles, gives me peace, kindles my joy and grants me a sense of rest despite the reality that my life right now seems burdensome for reasons I don’t even understand yet. My hope in God leads me to expect that and I love that feeling when your expectations actually prove to be right in the end. Like when you predict the twist at the end of your favorite TV show, only better. This time, we can predict the ending of our struggles based on promises we’ve received and the sweetness we experience when they are fulfilled makes everything else a pale comparison.
