Help Me Learn Your Ways

Help Me Learn Your Ways

“No wisdom, understanding, or advice can stand up against the Lord.” Proverbs 21:30

I suppose it goes without saying, but there is not one of us that wants to lose. We do not attend our children’s tee-ball games and hope they are trounced by the opposite team. Cheerleaders don’t spell out the opposing team’s name at the Homecoming Game. No one watches the Super Bowl hoping their beloved Seahawks go down in defeat. (Having lived in the Northwest for eight and a half years now, I am, by law, required to root for Seattle.)

The same thoughts carry over into all areas of life. Our daughter just finished her final classes and last semester of student teaching. A few weeks ago she attended a Job Fair where a number of area Elementary Schools were represented. (Bragging alert…) She has been walking on cloud 9 for a few weeks now because she was hired by the first Elementary School that interviewed her. She had one other offer school courting her as well. Patti and I prayed, and I can assure you we did not prayer assuming God wanted her to fail, especially since the school was only 25 miles from home!

We simply are not wired for failure. And that is fine. A motivation for excellence can take us far in life. God has created us in His own image, and even though that image is marred by sin, we still reflect the desire that what we accomplish can be called “good”. That is the word God used to describe each stage of Creation. After creating light, the sun and the moon, the oceans and the animals God said, “It is good!” The desire for “good” results is part of God’s image within.

But we can sometimes get the desire to do well confused with the sinful desire to always “be right”. Think about how difficult it is to have a conversation with someone about an area where you and the other person disagree. And, make it an important topic; the death penalty, for example. If you believe in completely abolishing the death penalty, you believe your opinion is “good”. It follows, so our shadow self thinks, that anyone who disagrees has a “bad” opinion.

Since we are so invested in winning, and because our sinful self gives little room for other opinions, we begin to think of those who disagree as “bad” or “wrong”. It gets even worse once we tag “God’s Will” onto our belief. We pull out our Bible, underline every Scripture we think supports our position, zoom past the passages that might support our opponent, and we are now armed for religious warfare! God, now on our side, is expected to back us up when our opponents shares their “ungodly” opinion.

The truth, of course, is that there are followers of Christ who are deeply invested in both sides of this particular argument. And, rather than being a “right” and a “wrong” view about capital punishment, it is better to think of it as a spectrum of possible thought. Some are completely against capital punishment; some would bring back the hangings of the old West. But, between those two bookends are many variants to this belief.

So, what do we do, then, when Scripture says there is no “wisdom, understanding, or advice that can stand up against the Lord”? First, we remember, it is the Lord’s wisdom, not our interpretation of His wisdom that stand up against rebuttals. We need to be deeply humble when we think we know best.

This can be seen most easily in election years. Candidates, hoping to lure the “Christian” vote will claim all sorts of things for God. And yet, we find the same candidates calling others names who disagree with them. Like playground bullies, candidates stake out their position “for God” and anyone who disagrees is immoral, ungodly, or just stupid!

Perhaps we need to remind ourselves of the sort of God we serve. Remember, it is the Jesus who came as a Servant whom we follow. He did not erect a wall around Jerusalem, instead, He said He was the Way. He did not keep people out, He invited them in! The invitation “Come to Me”, was given to everyone who heard, not to just a select few who could mark the correct boxes on a list of political options.

Remember, Jesus died for His enemies. He didn’t reject them, or call people to treat them as outcasts. Jesus rejected an “eye for an eye” system of justice, replacing it with acts of mercy, even when it is totally undeserved and comes at a cost to ourselves. If Jesus’ call to mercy is at odds with the politics of the day, then we must become people of mercy! Why? Because nothing can stand against God’s counsel. If we do not follow the ways of mercy Jesus taught, we may find ourselves fighting God Himself.