Hope as it turns out is a cheap slut, or so my current situation would lead me to believe.  Allow me to explain…  I awoke this morning to find a situation that looked very promising in my email.  A company that I submitted a resume to for a completely different job, (for which I was absolutely unqualified), had done something very interesting.  Rather than toss my resume, they compared it to their other openings, and contacted me regarding a possible match.  In the preliminary discussions everything looked hopeful.  I dared to believe that this was THE ONE, that this was a providential opportunity that was going to lead to gainful employment.  I dared to hope.  I dared to believe.

It seemed like everything was going well.  I updated my resume as requested by the human resources staff at the company.  I asked for prayer from the people closest to me.  And everything looked like it was going to work out.  Until all hope was extinguished when the person I had been dealing with asked for more detailed revisions to my resume, and included the resumes of the other candidates in the process to show me what he was looking for.  It was at this point that hope fled like the virtue of a prom queen after the prom is over.  And I was left with an unbelievable situation and I was surely stunned.  The other candidates completely blew me out of the water in terms of qualifications, experience, training, and job knowledge.  They had advanced degrees, and decades of experience I could only wish to have.  One was even on the development team for the most current release of the product this job entails supporting.

And so I gave in to the dark despair that lurks in the recesses of my spirit.  I was left with a number of questions regarding the quality and nature of my faith.  The Bible says in many places that God cares for all of his creation.   Jesus himself repeats this theme in his ministry also.  I believe this to be true, and yet I wonder about God’s provision in my immediate context.  I am fearful about the future.  I accept the Bible at face value that God has a plan for my life, and yet I am frightened about its timing and implementation.

I wonder if I am a liar when I say that I believe in God’s word on this subject, yet reside in such a dark and despairing place.  I wonder if it is sinful to be fearful that God won’t fulfill his promises.  Am I a hypocrite when I exhort others to believe in God, when my faith seems to be so shallow?  Am I the wrong man for anything God may have planned for the future, when I am compelled to ask these questions?  Should I just accept the counsel of Job’s wife and ‘curse God and die’?

And yet in my darkest times I was reminded that God is sovereign.  I was reminded that despite my circumstances, God still sits on the throne.  I was uplifted to know that in spite of all the wind and rain that is buffeting my situation the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent being that created the universe by the simple spoken declaration of his will still exists.  The power to confirm all that he has promised still resides in his spirit. 

If I do nothing more than retain the belief in those things, I will have succeeded in surviving the test of this moment, for surely it must have been a test.  I was compelled to remember always, that my timing isn’t his timing.  I was encouraged to remain steadfast in accepting that God pays for what he orders in our lives.  He protects all that creates with the same power that said, ‘let there be light’.  Those that God has entrusted into the care of my life, matter to almighty God.  I matter to him at the same time.

This moment might seem to some to have been trivial.  It might seem like much ado about nothing.  I assure you that it wasn’t.  The substance of my very soul was tested this morning.  I was weighed on the scales.  I can only pray that I didn’t come to the place of remembrance too late.  I can only wish that my despair wasn’t as costly to me in the long term as I fear it might be.  The path out of despair this morning was painful and difficult, but I came out of the place.  And I know I didn’t reside there or walk out of there alone.  The spirit of God was there trying to comfort the whole time.  It was this same spirit that provided timely remembrances of God’s word and promises.  And it was this same spirit that carried me out of the land of despair when it was time, my feelings regarding hope notwithstanding.

I was inspired a while back to write a book with the above title.  The vision behind it was to attempt to assist others in capturing both a clear and simple portrait of God, who he is, and his role in relationship to us.  Since I will probably never get around to writing this book, I decided to share some of these thoughts on here instead.

I will attempt this by sharing some brief thoughts in upcoming articles on some of the major personalities and themes we encounter when reading the Bible.  I will then follow with some general articles on the books of the Bible so to perhaps provide a general overview of them prior to reading them.

In each of these articles, I will provide the subject of the article, a verse to meditate on concerning it, and then just some of my own thoughts concerning it.  These articles will not claim to be definitive answers to these subjects, but rather thoughts that have been helpful to me in grasping them in hopes that maybe they can help you as well and maybe even serve as examples to share with others in introducing them to God and these other related topics as well.

I will share other articles of topic as led, but will mention the God in a Nutshell theme in the title of those that go along with this “series.”  Again, I hope these articles serve in some helpful capacity, as always I invite comment and discussion, and God bless.

The author of the book of James says something odd to open the book.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds. “  James 1:1  NIV

The author calls us to joy in the midst of the times that try our souls.  The verse leaves me personally in a difficult place with difficult questions to answer.  If joy isn’t an emotion, then what is it?  How is it possible to have joy in the midst of difficulty?  When the roaring lion is circling me with the intention of consuming me, how is it possible to feel joy in any measure, much less enough to engage in any act of praise?

These questions point to the fundamental disconnect between the life God intends for us, and the life we typically lead.  It points to the notion that our ways aren’t God’s and his ways aren’t ours.  This exposes another facet of the logical difference between what God sees as how we should live thrive and respond to adversity and how we actually live.

The key to resolving this fundamental disconnect is found in understanding joy.  Joy isn’t an emotion, it isn’t a feeling, it isn’t happiness by another name.  The book of Galatians tells us that it is a fruit of the spirit.  In other words, it is an attribute that grows out of a life spent in humble communion with our redeemer, our savior, our creator, and our God.  It can’t be forced, faked, or cajoled into being.  It simply is not  unlike air, or gravity, or the wind.

So the response to this disconnect is found in qualitatively measuring  joy.  If we don’t feel joy in the midst of difficulty, it should tell us that something is not right with our relationship to God.  That isn’t meant to say that we shouldn’t feel anger, grief, or loss in times of difficulty.  We do, we should, and we will.  Rather, joy should be somewhere in that mix.  The degree to which we experience joy should function as a mirror to show us the state of our walk with Christ.

If our walk is functioning as it should our joy is derrived from our delighting in our God.  The degree to which we experience joy is directly proportional to the amount of delight we derrive from our relationship with God.  As a result, all of this boils down to the nature of our relationship with God.  When its good, right, and properly rooted in the mind of Christ, we should be experiencing Joy in some measure.

This reveals, at least to me, that joy is not a situational thing.  It is not something that comes and goes like a spring rain shower.  Rather it is a foundational thing that comes and abides in us like a well.  Joy should function to sustain us in trying times.  It should remind us that God is the creator and sustainer of our lives.  It should tell us that it doesn’t matter how hard the wind blows or how loud the the lion growls, God will act as our protector and redeemer kinsman.

It means that in spite of circumstances God’s love abides.  It means that in spite of the temporal trials we face, God’s committment to his children is eternally enduring.  It means that as long as we reside in the resting place that is our savior, the situations of life are devoid of power over us.  It means that God resides in relationship with those that are called by him, and live in community with him.  God protects his own, and seeks their best interest, even that best interest isn’t obvious to anyone involved.
It doesn’t mean that bad things won’t happen to us.  It doesn’t mean that we won’t face trials or difficult situations in life.  It doesn’t mean that our hearts won’t be broken in this life with the pain of loss and the accompanying grief.  It means that the joy of our foundational relationship with God sustains us in those times.  It means that when the flood of negativity invades our very soul, God is there with a hedge of protection and a flood wall to save us.

Matthew 5:13-16

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

           This passage is easily one of the most heavily mined passages in all of the Christian faith.  I say that, because I have heard countless sermons, lessons, and homilies from this passage.  And it ranks personally very near the top of my list of favorites Bible passages.  The text here is so compact and so filled with meaning.  The metaphors are so vibrant, relevant, and colorful.  And yet it is one of the passages that I least like to hear people teach, preach, or speak from.

            The reason for that is simple.  This passage is more often than not misapplied, and warped into a thing that bears little resemblance to the actual text.  The misapplication relates to a fundamental failure to appropriately read the text.  It is turned into a lesson about the doing, or behavior of the Christian life.  Verse thirteen is misread to apply it to behavior, which is where the door of misapplication opens.  This allows the passage to be perverted into a hammer to beat believers for either what they aren’t doing that they should be doing, or a millstone to weigh them down with guilt for what they are doing that they shouldn’t be. 

            The truth of the passage is that it has nothing to do with behavior.  This passage is about the essential nature of the thing.  It is about what salt, candles, and prominent cities on hills really are at their core.  It has nothing to do with how they behave or don’t behave.  It has nothing to do with whether or not they read their Bible, pray, witness to their friends, or the like.  The text here does not cast this in an active tense at all.  It casts this in the passive tense.  And so, this isn’t about doing in any way, shape, manner, or form.  It is solely about the being part of our lives and it is about how that being connects with God, and how that connection impacts the world around us.  As such, it is not and can never be about whether or not we do the stuff, (reading, praying, or proselytizing).  It is about the being part of our relationship with God.  It has to do with what we are, and how what we are impacts where we are placed.  The difference may seem subtle, but it isn’t.

            I do not believe that Jesus is interested in hammering believers for their behavior in this case.  Jesus was rarely interested in the doing, or the behaviors of a life of faith.  He was interested in what was going on or not going on at the essential core of a life of faith.  This is because the Bible tells us that our best behavior is like filthy rags to a Holy God, and so this passage can’t be about behavior.  Why would Jesus spend time speaking to encourage better behavior, when He knew that our best behavior was a cheap, filthy, and tawdry thing before the Holy Father?

          People tend focus on the last portion of this section as proof that this is about doing.  The section uses the word ‘deeds’, so in their mind, it isn’t a stretch to saying that this is about ‘doing’.  The problem is that the rest of the text doesn’t support that notion.  The rest of the text is passive in nature.  The rest of the text leads to a different place.  Rather than resolve the passive nature of the rest of the text, they misapply it in whole, and make the text about something that it isn’t.  The deeds portion of this is the only time an active word is used in the context.  In all honesty, the use of the word ‘deeds’ can mean many things here.  The best exposition of ‘deeds’ that I think the whole of the text supports is in line with the passive perspective of the rest of the text.

          ‘Deeds’ here I think speaks to the object of the metaphor being what its essential core nature really is.  By that I mean, what is the ‘deed’ of salt?  What is the ‘deed’ of a candle?  What is the ‘deed’ of a city on a hill?  The ‘deed’ in this context, means that the thing in question fulfilled its nature, by being what it was created to be.  The deed of salt is to be salty.  The deed of a candle is to provide light.  The deed of a city on a hill is to accept that it cannot be hidden.  The deed of the believer is to live out their commitment to God by being who God created them to be.  This isn’t active, but rather an acceptance of the fundamental core of the believer.  God is meant to be praised by this, because it was his act to make good on the potential he placed in our very being.  And so it is in being that God gets the credit for his doing.

            This passage is saying that a life of faith is a preserving agent, a light in the darkness, and something that cannot be hidden.  It is saying that a life of faith is about the essential nature of our being, not our doing.  It is saying that this life to which we’ve been called isn’t just about ourselves.  The act of obeying our savior in the innermost parts of our being causes things to happen within us that cannot be hidden, that provide guidance to others, and act as a preservative in our lives and the lives of those around us.

            In the course of being who we are called to be, others cannot help but see this.  They cannot help, but be touched by God dwelling in our lives.  They cannot help but be drawn out of their darkness and into God’s light.  The passage is saying that God uses the most essential part of our core, the most fundamental parts of our nature for his glorification, and benefit, and for the benefit of others.  This passage is not about guilt, or shame in any way.  It is not meant to beat believers into doing things.  It is meant to show us what a life of faith looks like when it is right at the core.  It is meant to show us that what God is doing in us cannot be hidden, and that God is the workman that carries out all of the doing.  Accordingly we are meant to simply focus on relationship with God and abide in that place of being.  The rest of equation is His to do or not do.

There are few questions of faith more universal than this one.  Each person, on this terrestrial spheroid we call home, will confront this question in some form or another.  It is also one of the thorniest questions to be sure.  This is due to the specialized nature of the question.  Each questioner confronts this question from a different perspective, frame of reference, life history, and the like.  The answer to their question is as individualized as the person asking it.  As there are no two exactly identical people, there are no two exactly identical applications that answer this question.

That isn’t meant to say that there aren’t some generalities in application.  There are a few, and we can find a good entry point to them in the book of Romans.  Romans 12:2 it says,

If we excerpt out the “Good, Pleasing, and Perfect will” statement we find a good entry point for aiding an answer of this question.  We can see the broad outlines for this subject.  This statement could be best thought of as an onion with three broad sections that we can see as good, pleasing, and perfect.  These sections are then subdivided into a multitude of layers and these layers are part of the instance that is specific to the individual.

If we look at these sections and take them in sequence, we start with the good will of God.  This section is largely representative of the process by which a person enters into relationship with God or at least is afforded the opportunity to do so.  It goes without saying, that each person’s process of coming to know God is unique.  The road traveled to arrive at the onion and this first section is distinct to each person.

This section is dominated by opportunity and as such is largely a potential section.  A person can choose to enter into a relationship with their creator and proceed deeper into this section or stop peeling the onion of faith right there.  If they however choose to keep peeling the potential nature of this section is translated into kinetic nature and a transformation occurs.  We call this transformative process conversion.

While the conversion process pleases God, I think the pleasing section of the statement here refers to something else.  I believe the pleasing section refers to a growth in relationship.  The individual comes to understand God in a much more direct way.  The person who continues begins to learn about their God with a higher degree of specificity; as such this section is dominated by the intellect.  This section of our faith onion is akin to  the phase of a relationship that happens post initial attraction where a person becomes obsessed with knowing the other in a more detailed fashion.  Questions are posed and answered during this phase.  Question like: ‘What is this person really like?’, or ‘What makes this person tick’, or ‘what pleases this person’ are asked and answered in this section.

If this section is completed fully by the individual, it culminates into a transition from intellect into action.  The believer begins to act upon the knowledge they’ve gained.  They begin to seek out ways to please their beloved.  They begin to emulate behaviors that God finds acceptable.  The believer begins to walk out the commitment they have made in the previous section.  Habits change, behaviors change, new behaviors begin to show up in their life, and the transformation that occurred in the previous section becomes evident.

The first two sections can be broadly defined in general terms.  They can be outlined and even graphed in some cases.  The components of these sections are easy to spot and identify in action.  While these two sections are unique and tailored for the person experiencing them, they can be rationally exposited in ways that are generally experienced by each believer.  These two sections are rarely the source of the questions that believers pose on this subject though.

It’s the last section in which the majority of the questions come up.  The Perfect Will of God is this section.  It’s is a sweet spot of faith in which purpose, form, and function meet destiny, design, and divine providence.  This occurs at the confluence of the relationship between the believer and the creator.

The section of God’s individual will is completely and totally unique to that individual.  There is only one universal principle that defines this section; intimacy.  It is in the context of an intimate relationship with God that the specifics of the perfect will of God for that individual are made known.  It is only by placing oneself in places and times where this relationship can progress into an intimate state, that the questions of faith that we all possess and the specific implementation of God’s plan for our lives can be probed and made known.

So if the question a believer has relates to God’s specific will for their lives, becomes important to look first at the Good and the Pleasing aspects of God’s Will for their lives.  If those segments have been or are currently satisfied, only then can a discussion of the perfect will really begin.  The Perfect will can’t be faked, forced, or coerced.  It comes and becomes apparent when God’s timing is right for it to be made known.  Grasping the Perfect Will of God as an individual is largely a Herculean task and it takes a lot of effort to reach for it.

The key to the whole matter is relationship.  It is only when we can say that we are in relationship with God that we can reach out for this understanding.  So if your question relates to the Perfect Will of God, the answer is found in your relationship with God.  Seek to know God, inasmuch as any individual this side of eternity ever can know God, and the task, becomes possible.  Notice, I didn’t say easy.  I just said possible.  If we communicate the desires of our heart to the one that formed and shaped us in the womb of our mothers, and seek to know His heart for us in return, God can’t help but answer in reply.

Another key in grasping this matter in its entirety is found in individual focus.  The specific believer shouldn’t focus on how God works in the lives of others.  You’ll just end up either feeling less than, because God’s movement in your life isn’t like that of others or you’ll end up feeling jealous, (both of which are toxic for the soul, trust me I know).  The believer should only focus on their context with God.  They should seek to find the rhythm and process that works to facilitate their connection with God.  The connection process for some is very ritualized and liturgical in nature.  And for others, it’s anything but that.  The character of this connection is highly specific to the believer and no two are exactly alike.

So if your questi0n is, “What is God’s perfect will for my life?”  My answer to you is that I don’t know, nor is there any way under Heaven that I can really know it.  The answer is yours to suss out, to wrestle with, to work out with fear and trembling.  All I can promise you about the perfect will of God for you is this, that God has one for you, and that only in an intimate discussion between the two of you will you ever be able to fully plumb the depths of  it.  Only in reaching beyond what you believe is possible for yourself will you ever be able to glimpse it.