The Heart of the Matter

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day designed to honor the achievements of Martin Luther King Jr. in his fight for the rights and dignity of African Americans in our country.  Unfortunately, for many people this day has turned into a glorification of the man and his cause instead of honoring what he did and glorifying God for the worth He has ascribed to all humans.

You see, Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t invent his ideas.  God is the one who decided from the beginning of his creation of the world that all people have equal value and worth.  This is based on the fact that all people have been created in the image of God himself (Genesis 1:27).  To be made in the image of God means that all humans reflect God’s nature and possess God’s character.  This is what makes all people worthy of honor and respect, regardless of the color of their skin or other differences.

The entrance of sin into the world corrupted God’s creation and the way he designed things.  Ever since the original sin in the garden of Eden, humans have judged each other by human standards – deciding what characteristics are desirable and which ones are not.  Every generation and every people group chooses different criteria to determine what makes others worthy of respect, but this has never been God’s way.  God doesn’t look at the outward appearance of people, but rather at their hearts (1 Samuel 16:7).  Every person has value in God’s eyes because he looks beyond the surface things that we can see.

On this holiday, I’m thankful for the heart of Martin Luther King Jr. and his achievements in helping our country to see others the way God sees us.  But mostly I’m thankful for the God who created us in his image and gave us value and dignity and worth.  And I want to be someone who joins with God in looking at the hearts of those around me instead of their outward appearances.    

How Carefree Are We?

Yesterday my pastor started a short series of messages about stewardship – encouraging us not to love and serve money, but to love and serve God first and foremost.  His sermon reminded me of how well God provides for us if we just get out of his way and allow him to!  We live in one of the most affluent cultures in history.  As a result, we truly can provide just about everything for ourselves without God’s help.  So I think we sometimes miss allowing God to provide for us because we are too busy taking care of ourselves.  In our culture, it is easy to depend more on ourselves and our money than we do on God.

I find it interesting that Christians are willing to trust God to provide for their souls but often find it difficult to fully entrust their physical needs to him!  I think one of the reasons for this has to do with the way in which God chooses to provide for us.  Sometimes God provides for us in miraculous ways, and sometimes he uses more common, everyday means.  If we are always looking for miracles, we may miss the common ways he works; and if we are accustomed to thinking in earthly terms, we may miss a miracle God wants to perform.  Learning to truly trust God’s provision for us involves accepting whatever method he chooses at any given time and being content with the outcome.  Stories in the Old Testament like Abraham (Genesis 22:1-14) and Joseph (Genesis 50:20) help us to see that God’s way of providing is always best.

Trusting God’s provision and obeying his calling on our lives should produce obvious and tangible results.  If we trust God fully to provide for us, we have the freedom to be generous with what we have been given; and God’s generosity with us should lead to our generosity with others.  When we trust God to provide for us, we don’t have to worry about running out of resources.  As Jesus pointed out in Matthew 6:25-34, it is possible and desirable for us to get rid of being preoccupied with earthly things and to relax and live free, unfettered lives where we can be truly “carefree”.  This allows us to share generously with others whatever God has given us, whether money and other earthly possessions or spiritual gifts.  When we trust God to provide for us, we can focus our attention on more important things – toward God and others.

“Lord, You are more precious than silver

Lord, You are more costly than gold

Lord, You are more beautiful than diamonds

And nothing I desire compares with You.”

(Lynn DeShazo, ©1982 Integrity’s Hosanna! Music) 

New Year Thoughts

It’s another new year.  So are you excited, concerned, or indifferent about that?  I think how I answer that question reveals something about my personality and the way I’m wired.  Some people like changes, and others don’t.  Newness can be scary, and even God-ordained changes require adjustments.  Changes move us out of our comfort zone and bring with them a loss of predictability and a lack of security.  Newness takes away some of the things we have been able to count on.  I don’t know everything that this new year will bring, and that can result in a feeling of unrest.  I want the newness brought about by changes to feel just-as-good as everything was before the changes.

But how I answer that question also reveals something about my faith.  It’s important that we find our security in God’s unchanging qualities instead of looking at our changing lives here on earth for answers, focusing on God’s unchanging nature instead of our experiences.  Because our spiritual, physical, and emotional lives are all inter-connected, sometimes God ordains physical or emotional changes, as well as lifestyle changes, in order to effect the spiritual changes he wants in us.  Many times we seek to control the changes by manipulating our circumstances rather than trusting God’s work in us and walking by faith.  We have to be willing to trust him enough to trust the process rather than getting sidetracked by the individual changes as they occur.

As I start a new year, I want to be more excited than concerned.  I want to see the newness as a gift from God as he continues to work in my life and grow me.  And I want to be able to experience the peace and contentment that come from trusting God when changes happen:

Isaiah 26:3-4:

“You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! . . . the Lord God is the eternal Rock” (NLT).

“People with their minds set on you, you keep completely whole . . . Depend on God . . . in the Lord God you have a sure thing” (MSG).

Peace and contentment come because we are supported by God’s unchanging love and power – not our own – and, therefore, change is not able to shake us.  We look to God to provide our contentment and security and discover that we are whole because in him we have a sure thing regardless of what is going on around us or happening to us.

I don’t know exactly what this new year will bring, but I know that an unchanging God who loves me will not be surprised by anything that happens.  I know he can be trusted to do what is best for me and to walk with me every step of the way.  With those things in mind, I can say without reservation, “Happy New Year”!