Search Results for: spiritual gifts

On Death, Part 4: Life (from Death) in the Body

May 4, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Preparing | Part 3: The God of All Comfort

God takes care of his people. Because he is all-knowing, he’s aware of our struggles; because he is good, he cares about us as we struggle; because he is wise, he knows how best to meet our needs in those struggles; and because he is great, he can do whatever those needs require.

God is kind even to his enemies; those who curse God with every breath get that breath, and the life-sustaining oxygen it contains, freely from the hand of God, who designed their respiratory systems and freely provides all the oxygen they need, not just to curse him, but to go on living even as they do so. In his great Sermon on the Mount, Jesus—who in fact created oxygen, and lungs, and everything else (Jn 1.3; Col 1.16; Heb 1.2)—observed that “your Father who is in heaven … causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Mt 5.45).

We call that “common grace.” God is kind to the most undeserving. But he is especially kind—gracious—to those who trust and rely on him, to his children, as any father should be (Ps 103.13-14). If you’re a believer, and you think back over your life, you will certainly see God’s provision and providence all along the path on which you have followed him.

One of the ways he has designed our walk with him and brought kindness and grace to us is by placing us into the body of Christ (1Co 12.13). When you were born again, Christ baptized you in the Spirit (Mt 3.11; Ac 1.5), and in that moment you were united with his body (1Co 12.13). That means a couple of things: first, that you are “in Christ,” with all that entails (Ro 8.1; 1Co 1.30; 2Co 5.17; Ga 3.28; Ep 1.3; 1Th 4.16; 1P 5.14), and second, that you are a member of “the body of Christ,” which is the church (Co 1.18, 24).

In an abstract sense, you and I are members of the church “universal,” the body of all believers since Christ’s earthly ministry, living and dead; that’s a powerful thought, that we’re united with Peter and Paul and Polycarp and Perpetua and Felicity and Luther and Calvin and Roger Williams and Jim Elliott and an innumerable host of people from every tribe and kingdom and language and nation, who will one day be assembled before the throne and worshiping together (Re 7.9-17).

But much more concretely, you are appointed to a visible body of believers, a local church (He 10.25), where God has providentially surrounded you with other believers who have just exactly the gifts you need (Ro 12.4-8; 1Co 12.4ff) to be strengthened in your walk with Christ. (And, conversely, you have gifts that they need, which you should exercise for their benefit; but that’s another post. Or two.)

So what does all this theology have to do with taking dominion over death?

God has designed, just for you, a local body of believers who are supernaturally gifted with exactly what you need as you face the death of a dear one or your own death—and, for that matter, any other need you have. When you need his comfort, his assurance, his strength, you can find it most easily not when you are alone in your bed in the dark of the night—although it is available there too—but you find it most easily in the fellowship of God’s people, who will use their gifts to minister that comfort to you (2Co 1.3-5). Gifts of mercy, of helps, of shepherding, of serving, of teaching, of exhorting. And faith, hope, love.

You don’t need to walk through this valley alone. Let God’s people share the journey with you.

Part 5: Joyful Grief | Part 6: Pain with a Purpose | Part 7: Closing Thoughts

Photo by Scott Rodgerson on Unsplash

On Fellowship, Part 5: Covering Both the Bases

March 19, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: It’s Who We Are | Part 2: What It’s For | Part 3: Getting There | Part 4: Measuring Success

Biblical fellowship is a two-sided coin, or a two-edged sword, or a two-way street, or something. (The title of this post strongly implies that I don’t know anything at all about baseball.)

I’d like to close this series, and the larger metaseries about the means of grace, by noting that fellowship, our reciprocal care for one another in the body of Christ, is a comprehensive task that involves complex people. It’s not enough to just try to be positive and encouraging.

Biblical Encouragement

Of course it includes encouragement, what the good old King James calls “exhortation.” The Greek word is paraklesis, a term applied to the work of both the Holy Spirit, our “Comforter” (Jn 14.16, 26; 15.26; 16.7), and Jesus himself, our “Advocate” (1Jn 2.1). We’re often “called alongside” to comfort others, perhaps just to be there with a ministry of presence, sitting silently with them in their grief or frustration or rage, or to pray with them and for them, or to encourage them to get back up and keep going, or to step in and do for them what they’re unable to do for themselves at the moment (Jam 5.14-15).

So yes, we ask a lot of questions when we gather, and we listen to the answers, seeking for ways that we can encourage our brothers and sisters through our spiritual gifts, teaching, helping, showing mercy, praying. It’s an obsession with us, or it ought to be.

Biblical Confrontation

But there’s more to fellowship than just that.

This word paraklesis, “exhortation,” is sometimes—indeed, most of the time—used in a stronger, more “negative” sense, one that includes confrontation, rebuke, the image of the coach getting in the player’s face and telling him that he can do better.

Paul exhorted the Corinthians to finish the work that they hadn’t yet completed (2Co 9.5). He exhorted the Thessalonians, without “flattering words,” to hear and respond to the gospel (1Th 2.3-6)—both the offer of salvation and the threat of perdition. Once they believed, he exhorted them to start making progress in obedience to God’s Word (1Th 4.1), and to exhort others in ways that included “warn[ing] the unruly” (1Th 5.14). Later he exhorted the indolent in the same church to get a job and earn their keep (2Th 3.12). He advised his protégé Timothy to “reprove, rebuke, exhort” (2Ti 4.2) his hearers. He told Titus to “exhort … those who contradict” (Ti 1.9). Jude exhorts his readers to “earnestly contend for the faith” (Jude 1.3).

As a former pastor of mine used to say, these are “stout words.” There is grace here, and patience, but there’s no coddling. Given who we are—in the image of God, but broken and susceptible to the gravitational force of our own sinful nature—we need brothers and sisters who will speak truth to us, lovingly but firmly, and who know us well enough to know when it’s time to jerk the chain. And we need to be that kind of spiritual sibling to those around us in the body as well.

We can’t do that for people we don’t know. We have to talk deeply and trustingly with one another, wisely using gentle support when it’s called for, and turning into the football coach when that’s necessary for the good of the player on the field.

You don’t get to know somebody that well just by saying “Hello” in the hallway or the aisle on Sunday morning. You don’t get that far into someone’s head and heart if you’re refusing to be honest about your own struggles, or worse yet, if you’re gossiping about the things they tell you. You get there over time, with attention and sacrifice, and with lots of prayer, individually and together.

Biblical fellowship is time-consuming hard work. It doesn’t happen without commitment and purpose and focus.

But the payoff is beyond words.

Photo by Jack Sharp on Unsplash

On Fellowship, Part 4: Measuring Success

March 16, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: It’s Who We Are | Part 2: What It’s For | Part 3: Getting There

Last time we considered a passage from Ephesians 5 that provided some basic principles to underlie our exercise of fellowship. This time I’d like to consider a different Pauline passage, one that helps us recognize when we’re succeeding.

In the opening paragraph of Philippians 2, Paul exhorts the church to live out their unity in Christ in several specific ways—

By being united to the core of their being (Php 2.2)—of one mind (what they focus their thinking on), of one love (how they choose to focus their energies and attention), of one spirit (Greek psuche, or self—what their life is all about). (The fourth phrase, “of one purpose,” is essentially a repetition of the first one.)
By setting aside their own interests or priorities (Php 2.3a)—not acting selfishly or out of a desire for self-promotion (“empty conceit,” literally “empty glory”; the KJV “vainglory” may be archaic, but it very specifically captures the word’s meaning).
By putting the needs and priorities of others ahead of their own (Php 2.3b-4)—which is exactly what love is all about; you demonstrate your love for someone by putting that person’s needs or conveniences ahead of your own inconvenience, without considering future remuneration. As Tertullian argued, the early Romans marveled at how the Christians loved one another.

What Paul is essentially asking is that they think as a team, being united in their purpose.

That’s what our churches should look like, whether assembled or out as ambassadors in the world; we should care for one another, each laboring to make the others better ambassadors for the kingdom. We should be working tactically, maximizing the strengths of every member of the team, using those strengths to support teammates whose skills are somewhere else.

Paul spends much of the rest of the chapter setting forth three examples of this kind of thinking.

The first example, to no one’s surprise, is Christ himself. In this famous Christological passage (Php 2.5-11) Paul presents Christ as the paramount example of someone who puts himself at the greatest possible disadvantage—from “equality with God” to “even the death of the cross”—for the greatest possible advantage of those he loves. No sacrifice that any of us could possibly make for the spiritual benefit of a Christian teammate could come close to the example of sacrifice he has already laid down for us.
Paul’s second example is his protégé, Timothy (Php 2.19-24). Paul notes that Timothy has a long record of selfless service—likely more than a decade as he writes this epistle—“like a child serving his father” (Php 2.22). From that record Paul concludes that there is “no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare” (Php 2.20). And Timothy’s service to Paul is not without risk; besides the long list of difficulties Paul underwent (2Co 11.23-27), we know that Timothy himself was imprisoned as well (Heb 13.23).
The final example is someone most Christians would have trouble identifying. His name is Epaphroditus (Php 2.25-30), and he spent time with Paul when the latter was under house arrest in Rome awaiting his hearing before Caesar (Ac 28.30-31). He was well known to the believers at Philippi; some commentators speculate that he was actually their pastor, but we do know for certain that he was one of the men sent from that church to bring Paul gifts during his house arrest (Php 4.18), and that on that trip he became sick, nearly dying (Php 2.30), but had recovered (Php 2.27-28). This was someone who “risked his life” for the work of the kingdom (Php 2.30).

So how are we doing? How seriously do we take our fellowship? When’s the last time you risked something in order to benefit another member of the body? When’s the last time you even put up with a little inconvenience to do so?

As I write this, the US is in the process of shutting down over COVID-19. The school where I teach, like many others, is sending its students home, where they’ll finish the academic year through online classes. At church we’re not shaking hands, and we’re thinking about the old folks, who are at higher risk.

There are people in our churches that are going to need some help, the sort that will inconvenience us. Next to the examples above, that’s small potatoes, isn’t it?

Part 5: Covering Both the Bases

Photo by Jack Sharp on Unsplash

On Devotions, Part 7: Prayer

February 24, 2020 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

I typically end my morning devotional time with prayer.

Prayer’s always been really difficult for me. I find it hard to have a real conversation with someone who’s invisible, and my tendency toward something resembling ADHD means that my thoughts in that situation are all over the place.

I’ve found that a couple of practices help me a lot. First, I have a plan. I was brought up in a culture where liturgy was suspect, but I’ve found that a certain amount of structure and even recitation helps keep me focused and contributes to my sense of purpose and goal.

Second, I usually pray with my eyes open. That seems counterintuitive, but during my morning prayer time I’m typically the only person up, and there aren’t distracting things going on around me. And opening my eyes enables me to focus on the written plan that I’m using.

There are lots of ways to structure prayer; most books on prayer offer suggestions. Most recently I’ve been using the well-known ACTS acronym: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication. It’s been working well.

I begin with exalting God (Adoration). In Theology Proper (the doctrine of God) the standard organizational structure is 1) Person (characteristics) and 2) Works (activities). My prayer “script” lays out the standard points under these two headings. For Person I’m currently using the classic description from the Westminster Shorter Confession, Question 4: “God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.” For Works I’m using the standard list: Creation, Providence (consisting of Preservation and Government), and Miracles. Each day I focus on one item in this list.

Next comes Confession. I structure this in a standard way: Sins of Omission (failure to love God, and failure to love my neighbor) and Sins of Commission (in thought, word, and deed). Over time I’ve asked God to make me more sensitive to my sin as I’m committing it, so I can pause throughout the day to seek (and receive) forgiveness. I’ve found that waiting for daily devotions to confess the previous day’s “batch” encourages me to forget a lot of stuff. Lots of Christian teachers say we ought to “keep current accounts” with God. They’re right.

Next is Thanksgiving. This has always come easily to me; I’m just a generally happy and thankful guy. Currently I’m structuring this section on the great description of God in Exodus 34.6-7, praying through one characteristic per day. Then I add three areas in which God has been good to me: physical, providential, and spiritual. There’s plenty of fuel there for gratitude, and I find that thinking through some of these things every day does wonders for my devotion—and, incidentally, for my mental health as well.

It’s worth pausing here to make an observation. At this point we’re 75% of the way through the daily prayer, and we haven’t asked for anything—but forgiveness. Many years ago it occurred to me that I was coming to God in prayer as though he were my personal assistant or butler—expressing thanks, yes, because that is, after all, a polite thing to do for those who work for you—but almost immediately getting to a list of demands. Prayer was more about me than about him. After studying biblical prayers, I realized that I was missing the whole point. I didn’t talk that way to anyone else that I loved; how could I be so brusque and efficient with my Creator, Father, and Shepherd? So I’ve developed the practice of beginning with fellowship.

Next time I’ll describe my plan for the final section of my daily prayer practice—requests—and we’ll wrap up this series with some closing thoughts.

Part 8: Conclusion

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

On a New Year

January 2, 2020 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

This is my 65th New Year. The first few I was completely unaware of, but since then, like a lot of other people, I’ve enjoyed the sense of excitement and optimism that our culture associates with the date. There’s something bracing about turning the page, starting out fresh, doing things better this time around.

Sometimes those among us who have half-empty glasses feel the need to point out a couple of things about the new year—as a public service, of course—

There’s really no such thing as a new start, you know. We carry with us the consequences of our previous sins and failures and misjudgments.
If the past is any guide, your good intentions are going to fade in a few days, and statistics show that pretty soon you’re going to be back in the same old rut.

As someone whose glass is perpetually half full—with contents that are quite tasty, thanks—I’ll observe that while those two statements are technically true, they’re practically false by virtue of their incompleteness. Let me explain.

First, it’s true that we carry with us the consequences of our past failures. The founder of my university used to say that if an inebriated bar patron loses an eye in a bar fight, and then gets gloriously converted, he’ll be forgiven, but he’ll never get his eye back. There are consequences of our sin that are inescapable.

True enough. But let’s not forget that he does get gloriously converted, and that’s nothing to slough over. And with conversion comes a whole raft of change and empowerment that will certainly affect the path that the convert takes for the rest of his life.

So yes, you do bring some baggage into this new year, and you can’t pretend that the baggage is weightless. But if you’re a believer, you have the Spirit of God indwelling you, changing your thinking, enabling you to act on that new way of thinking, and surely and powerfully bringing you, over time, into conformity with the Son of God (2Co 3.18). This new year is another step in that sure process.

Divine enablement is a powerful, powerful thing. If your New Year’s resolutions involve spiritual progress, they come with serious momentum behind them.

Now about that second point. Let me note first that statistics don’t “show” anything about the future. They show tendencies about past activities. But rare things do happen.

It’s demonstrably true that most people accomplish less toward their New Year’s resolutions than they intend. But that says nothing about how you’ll do on yours. The fact is that a minority of people do make and maintain significant changes. Somebody’s going to succeed; why can’t you be part of that group? Set reasonable goals, lay out a plan, pray for grace, and go for it.

Maybe you’ll accomplish less than you intend. Fine. But you’ll accomplish something. Refer to point 1.

So much for the naysayers.

My experience also tells me that some new years seem to hold more promise for change than others. In my lifetime, the Big One was Y2K, which involved the potential End of Civilization As We Know It and turned out to be, well, a dud. (Yeah, I filled some containers with water so we’d at least be able to flush the toilet after the End. Can’t hurt to make simple provisions.)

This one is 2020, which is a new decade, and a balanced number, and carries the connotation of clear vision, so who knows? Might be a big year.

But we make too big a deal about Big Years.

Of course our lives include major events—birth, marriage, parenthood, maybe a championship of something, or some other form of public recognition—but the important stuff, the really important stuff, is typically all about simple consistency and attentiveness and faithfulness. The wedding is a Big Deal, but the marriage involves simple daily kindness, gentleness, and thoughtfulness. The birth of your child is a Big Deal, but parenting is a daily slog that is sometimes difficult and frustrating but in the end leaves delightful memories.

So this year, steward your goals, and make them achievable. Make them less about the fireworks and more about faithfulness in the shadows. And watch God keep his promises for your growth in him.

Happy New Year.

Photo by madeleine ragsdale on Unsplash

For My Angry Friends, Part 1: Foreword

July 1, 2019 by Dan Olinger 3 Comments

As I noted in my
last post here, I’ve taken a 4-week hiatus in order to devote my attention to a daily journal of the BJU Africa Team’s adventures in Tanzania, from which we’ve just returned. It was nice to be there, and it’s nice to be back.

In the interim, I’ve been thinking about the next adventure on this blog. I’d prefer to write about something I care about, of course, and something that might be of some help to people I care about. There are a lot of such things and such people, but I suppose the thing that’s most on my mind these days—at least of the troubling things—is the polarization of our country and the effect of that polarization on my friends.

I see it pretty much every day during my scrolling time on Facebook. I have a number of FB friends—many of them retired folks with long records of Christian service and care for others—whose postings are mostly a concatenation of forwarded stories and memes with recurring themes—

Things that are just not true. I’ve addressed
that here before.
Things designed to stick a finger in the eye of
liberals. Mockery. Disdain. I’ve written
about that, too. “I’m not ashamed to post this MAGA hat. How many of my friends
have the courage to share? Let’s show those stupid liberals!”
Expressions of frustration with the way things
are going. Fear that God’s people are going to lose the battle.

All of these things have a common theme. They read as though there is no God, and if there is, he’s not in his heaven, and all is not right with the world. These dear friends are expressing a godless worldview, one that gives no hope, no offer of grace, no attraction, to those who are actually godless.

That’s a very bad ambassador (2Co 5.18-20) indeed.

I have another group of friends, equally dear to me. I don’t suppose these folks would object to being called “never-Trumpers.” They don’t like President Orange, and they shake their heads at anybody who does, for any reason. “Can’t you people see what you’re doing? You’re destroying evangelical Christianity! You’re undermining our credibility for generations to come!” Tut, tut. The posts of these friends read as though there is no God, and if there is, he’s not in his heaven, and all is not right with the world. These dear friends are expressing a godless worldview, one that is dominated by fear, one that questions the motives and the intelligence—and even the spiritual life—of fellow believers. They, too, fear that God’s people are going to lose the battle.

These two groups of friends have more in common than they might think.

Sometimes they post things that are true and ought to be considered in the political discussion.
But in the main they’re just reflexively forwarding, without checking, anything that confirms their worldview bias.
In being motivated primarily by fear or frustration, they’re demonstrating, as I said earlier, an essentially godless worldview.

God is never inattentive, or hurried, or frustrated, or unconcerned. He’s at work. He raises up kings—both Obama and Trump, most recently—and he sets them down again. All things he does are good and for the ultimate good of his people and, ultimately, his glory.

And if we believe these things—and we must, for they’re true—then we will live in a broken world with a different spirit—a different Spirit—one that brings to the observing enemies of God astonishment and even attraction. One that shouts—yes, that is the right word, as odd as it sounds in context—peace.

Shalom.

Not the peace of the Pollyanna or the Scarlett O’Hara (“I’m not going to think about that right now”), but the peace of the one who knows things that the riotous crowds don’t, who sees the chariots of fire on the hillsides all about, who knows that the chaos is only apparent.

I’d like for all my dear friends to grasp that so firmly that it oozes out of the pores of their every post— not for the sake of my newsfeed, but for the sake of my friends. Calming, conquering peace, way deep down at the core of their souls. And yes, for the sake of the legitimately fearful and frustrated, who have no source of peace, but who know people who do have it, or should have it.

What a difference we could make. What a stark contrast we could demonstrate.

In God’s kind providence, during this hiatus I’ve been studying Paul’s letter to Titus in some depth. I’ve found some things there that have helped clarify what I’ve been thinking about this bunch of troubled hearts. In this series, I’m going to share some of those things.

On to that next time.

Photo by Wes Grant on Unsplash

On Beginning Another Academic Year

August 13, 2018 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

Today is the first day back in the office after a summer of activity, rest, and refreshment. Year 24 of teaching. (I was a teaching assistant during my seminary days, and I’ve been teaching fulltime since the fall of 2000.) Every year means refocusing, fine-tuning, tightening both philosophy and technique.

Every faculty member at my institution has expressed a personal philosophy of education, which he includes in his annual portfolio. What follows is mine.

__________

My educational philosophy grows out of two broader, over-arching philosophies: my life mission and the mission of the institution where I serve.

My life mission is to glorify God by edifying His people and helping prepare others to serve Him. It finds its foundation in Paul’s statement to his Corinthian friends: “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all things to the glory of God” (1Cor 10.31; my translation). It finds its specific application in Paul’s words to another group of friends, this time in Ephesus: “[Christ] gave [gifted people to the church] … in order to equip the saints for the work of service, for the building up of the body of Christ” (Eph 4.12). Like my fellow believers, by God’s good plan and providence, I am where I am, and have the gifts that I have, in order to use those gifts to build up members of the body of Christ. There is no greater mission. And as a fringe benefit, God is a good and gracious Master.

By that same providence, I find myself in the corner of the vineyard that calls itself Bob Jones University. By contracting to teach here, I have agreed to its mission, which is to build Christ-like character in students through the medium of liberal arts higher education. That means that I have a dual focus as I teach: to teach my students the Scripture itself, by which God, over the years ahead, will change them from the inside out, to make them more like Christ (Acts 20.32; 2 Cor 3.18); and to give my students the tools to teach themselves and others the ideas of Scripture (which is my subject area), so that they in turn may present it clearly to those who are seeking and may serve other believers with its truths.

That’s a big job, impossible without divine enablement. Thus I need to begin in reliance on God Himself, nurturing my relationship with Him, praying for direction and empowerment each day, recognizing and embracing each day’s circumstances and challenges as divine appointments. Since I will give account to Him one day for my stewardship (Rom 14.12), I need to prepare myself for each day’s responsibilities, first, and in general, by keeping my academic and spiritual qualifications sharp, and then by evaluating carefully each day’s objectives and planning how best to reach them.

Since the same divine appointment has placed each specific group of students before me, I recognize them as the Bible describes them: made in the image of God (Gen 1.26-27), and therefore worthy of my best effort, regardless of their individual academic abilities or personal character flaws. My goal is to meet each student where he is, and to bring him, by God’s grace, as far as I can down the path of Christ-like character and preparation for skillful service. The Scripture also tells me that my students, like me, are broken images, with sinful natures and evil tendencies (Rom 3.23). That means that I have to encourage them to progress down that path even when they are—often—not inclined in that direction. I may use positive motivation, such as encouragement or praise, or I may need to use what the student may view as a more negative experience, such as exhortation, academic penalty, or even careful criticism. While I never assume that students will naturally do the right thing, I try to approach them positively first, resorting to harder measures only as the softer ones prove insufficient.

My classroom technique is an outgrowth of my own nature. (I believe that had I been born two decades later, I would have been diagnosed with ADHD as a child.) As a student, I needed to be interested in what I was seeing in order to engage it. As I teach I am constantly driven to present material that is both at a reachable level and enjoyable. That means that I first need to couch the material in terms that communicate to the students directly and clearly, and then in a way that is engaging and attractive. I use everyday language, and I define useful jargon as I present it. Since my courses typically need to cover a lot of relatively technical material, I find that I have to use lecture predominantly, but I try to make it engaging by using a lot of humor and demonstrating my own interest in the subject. I’ve learned that a light in the eyes goes a long way.

I find that I cannot reach these goals effectively without at least encouraging my students to interact with me beyond the formal classroom environment. I regularly eat lunch with students in the University Dining Common; I hold scheduled office hours each day; I meet each week with a prayer group in the men’s residence halls; and when I pass students in the hallways or out on the campus, I make a point to catch the eye of each one who will look up, and offer a friendly greeting. (When I’m walking, my cell phone is in my pocket, where it belongs.) When I notice that a student has an uncharacteristic look, I’ll seek an opportunity to take him aside and ask if there’s anything I can help with.

God gifts His people to serve Him, and each one has something he can do well. I find that when I’m in the classroom, I am most at ease; that’s where I fit. (Well, or in Africa with a team of students—but that’s teaching too.) There’s nothing else I would rather do; I don’t talk about “hump day” or yearn for the weekend, and I don’t eagerly count the days until I retire. By God’s grace, I’d like to die with my boots on—teach the last class, deliver the last lecture, turn in my grades, and step through to God’s plan on the other side.

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

7 Stabilizing Principles in a Chaotic World, Part 2

July 16, 2018 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1

So, here we go. Principles to deliver us from the fear and anger that characterize too many of us.

Number 1: Providence. There is a God in heaven, who directs in the affairs of people and nations.

The lunatics are in fact not running the asylum. All that stuff that’s got you twisted into knots? Well, the stuff that’s actually true—we’ll get back to that idea later—has come to pass through divine intention. That’s just a fancy way of saying that God’s done it.

That’s true of the stuff we like—God sends sunshine, and rain, and crops, and seasons (Psa 104)—but it’s true of the stuff we don’t like as well. God has his way in the whirlwind and the storm, the prophet tells us (Nahum 1.3).

Whirlwinds are nothing to mess with. In 1998 a tornado wiped out Spencer, SD. A week later I was there. The whole town was just gone. The water tank on top of the hill? Gone. The gas station? Gone, though the concrete pads for the pumps were still there. The corn silos? Gone. The telephone poles? Twisted off 2 feet above the ground. No buildings, except for 1 house that was inexplicably spared. And the whole thing lasted just 6 minutes.

At 8.30 pm there was a town, and homes, and businesses, and normal life. By 8.45 it was all gone.

Who did that? The mayor? The governor? The devil?

Not according to Nahum.

God did it. For reasons of his own, which we may or may not ever understand.

But you know what? There’s still a Spencer, SD. By the grace of God, and through the hard work of a lot of remarkable people, life goes on at Karen’s Beauty Shop and Trinity Lutheran Church and the baseball field.

It’s not likely that anything worse than that has happened to you; if it has, I haven’t seen you post about it on Facebook.

And if it has, then take courage in this: God is working his plan, for you and for everybody else.

And here’s the thing. God isn’t impersonal, or arbitrary, or unfeeling in all of this. He doesn’t throw the switch on the train track just to see what will happen, or just to shake things up for some warped form of amusement.

God cares. He loves—personally, individually, intimately, passionately. And with a wisdom you and I could never fathom, he conducts the symphony of your life for your greatest spiritual benefit and for his greatest glory. He knows what he’s doing, and he acts out of wisely directed love—in a way no one else you have ever known ever could.

This God—the creator of heaven and earth; the keeper of covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the one watching over Israel, who neither slumbers nor sleeps; the lover of our very souls—this God is directing your steps, and mine, and everyone else’s to accomplish his perfect, delightful plan.

No, the lunatics are not running the asylum. God gave us Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama. And most recently he has given us Donald Trump. Love them or hate them, they are all—all—gifts from a wise and loving God, perfectly prepared and perfectly directed for the nation that elected them. That doesn’t mean they’re good, or wise, or effective. But it does mean that he is.

So why live in desperation, or rage, or panic, or frustration? Is there not a God in heaven? Do you not trust him? Does he not give peace?

Maybe, if you have no peace, you have no basis for it. Peace comes not from the political process, or health, or leisure, or physical resources. Peace, peace in your soul, comes from above, not from outside. Peace comes from the Prince of Peace (Isa 9.6), by whom we have peace with God (Rom 5.1), and through whom we find peace even with our enemies (Eph 3).

Think on these things. Breathe them into your reading, and listening, and surfing. And see if maybe your perspective, and thus your reactions, come to reflect peace more than panic.

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Photo by Keith Misner on Unsplash