Clueless

When the kids were little I noticed that occasionally my response to their needs was anger. I had to think about this and realized that my anger wasn't directed at them but stemmed rather from a sense of helplessness - I didn't know what to do about a particular situation and that made me angry. Lately I've been facing a situation where I don't know what to do and find that once again, it makes me angry. I suppose I could psychoanalyze myself and try to figure out why I have the need to "know what to do" in every situation. I thought it might be more helpful, though, to just skip the analysis for now and get right to the what-should-I-do-about-not-knowing-what-to-do? If that makes any sense.

As always, the Lord was there waiting for me with His answer. I was reading and studying Psalm 78 this morning. The Psalmist is recounting God's dealings with Israel - His grace and provision and miraculous deliverance of them. Sadly, in vs. 32 it says "In spite of all this they still sinned, and did not believe in His wonderful works." The lesson from the Psalm is, it doesn't matter if I don't know what to do. The point is, do I believe in and trust in His sovereign work in the situation, based on His wonderful works in the past? Keil & Delitzsch comment: "They tempted God by unbelievingly and defiantly demanding instead of trustfully hoping and praying. Instead of allowing the miracles hitherto wrought to work faith in them, they made the miracles themselves the starting point of fresh doubts."

I was reminded of Jehoshaphat in 2 Chron 20. The sons of Moab and of Ammon, together with some of the Meunites, came to make war against Jehoshaphat. His response is a model for me. "Jehoshaphat was afraid and turned his attention to seek the Lord." In vs. 12 the following words jumped off the page at me: "O our God, will You not judge them? For we are powerless before this great multitude who are coming against us, nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on You." Wow. Powerless and clueless. But his eyes were on the Lord.

My mental cross-referencing immediately brought Jeremiah 17 to mind: "Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind...and whose heart turns away from the Lord." And Psalm 123: "As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master...so our eyes look to the Lord our God." It's not about knowing what to do, it's about walking in faith, fixing my eyes on Him. How often in the past has God miraculously worked and shown His faithfulness. He's the same today and will be just as sufficient today. I would hate to have "did not believe in His wonderful works" as the sub-title to this chapter of my life. Clueless is ok - unbelieving is not.

Agenda

I tend to take life for granted. Most days see me getting up and getting on about life's business without a whole lot of conscious reflection about the meaning of it all. Recent internal and external circumstances, however, have kind of pushed that slumbering question to the surface again. And I've been thinking about it. "It" being the meaning of life. Or in my case, my life.

I won't bore you with the whole progression of my thoughts but I will put down a few of the conclusions I've reached.

1. It's not about me. One of those paradoxes of life but there it is. It's my life but it's definitely not about me. What a sentence of futility it would be, to be limited to my self. It's the grain of wheat falling into the earth and dying, so that it doesn't remain by itself alone. John 12:24

2. Every morning that I wake up is an invitation. It is an invitation to experience forgiveness and mercy. I arrive at this by backwards reasoning: "For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed." Malachi 3:6 and "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning." Lamentations 3:22,23 As long as I am on this earth I will fall short of the glory of God and be in need of grace and forgiveness. As long as He gives me life, He has not placed me beyond the reach of His grace. By granting me the breath to wake up, God is granting me the invitation to drink deeply of His grace. Today.

3. My job each day is to learn to have a heart of wisdom. This one I also arrived at by backwards reasoning. "So teach me hourly to contemplate the fleeting character and brevity of my lifetime, that I may present to You a heart of wisdom." Psalm 90:12 If a heart of wisdom is what I need to have at the end of my life, then it logically follows that the minutes and hours of this day should do something towards arriving at that.

Get over myself. Drink deeply of His grace. Pursue a heart of wisdom. That's the agenda, today and every day. Nice and simple.