Tag: trust

Here’s What You Need to Do

Posted on by Hilarey

Recently, we watched a television series called Ted Lasso. It’s about an American football coach who goes to England to coach a British football team (soccer). There are three guys who periodically show up, watching the matches from a pub. They are either hugging each other, or screaming at the TV, depending on how the team is doing. To me, this is an icon of sports fans: somebody who couldn’t run a mile, yelling at an athlete to jump higher and run faster. Then, without any sacrifice, enjoying a sense that they were part of the conquering. But I am not super competitive, so likely there’s something I’m missing.

A yoke you couldn’t bear

It’s fun to brainstorm a book that you don’t have to write. Likewise, to offer advice that you don’t have to follow. Advice-givers can be another version of an armchair warrior.

It’s easy to demand that a teenager reign in their passions when you’ve had constant access to sex through marriage for several decades, your libido has waned with age… and you didn’t actually wait either. I’m not saying you shouldn’t tell them what God says about sexuality—but try to remember what it was like to yearn.

A spring of both fresh and salt water

Younger people are listening to everything you say. But they’re also thinking about how and why you say it. Both the intentional words you tell them and the complaints you mutter to yourself.

Previous generations said to get married, but then called their spouse a ball and chain.

They insisted that all you need to do need to do is to find a job you love, but complain about work or insist retirement is the best thing that ever happened. Then spend all their time talking about inflation and how it is impossible to live no matter what you do, and the government will take everything you ever earn, anyway.

And many say that God is on the throne, but live in despair after the election.

Do not think you are offering advice that will fix a young person’s future when you are also defeating their hopes for the future. I think this is like the spring of fresh and salt water (blessing and cursing) James 3:10 says should not come out of our mouths.

And the following generations watch even more than they listen. So if you live in fear and despair, a motivational speaker from the world appears to offer more solutions than your church.

Try inviting those you love to the good and abundant life God promised on earth—not a life filled with negativity and despair.

Maledicion

The power of our words should create a knee-shaking awe. Matthew 18:18 says, “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” It’s worth meditating on that section.

Telling someone “You are so far from God” is like prophesying over their life. Why not instead speak “You are never so far that the arm of the Lord cannot reach you?”

You would not speak a bad word over your child (or anyone you loved) if you believed your words bound and loosed things in both heaven and earth.

Choose your audience

Sometimes it is good to be as raw as an open wound in front of someone with a more fragile faith—when it is about your faith walk. But sometimes, when it should be about them, clean and bandage that up before you expose it.

Keep people close who can hear your work-in-progress of pain and fear. You can wrestle your curse out loud to God, or to someone who will let you take it back. But for others, finish that psalm before you speak it. David didn’t always start off holy, but he usually finishes in praise.

Finishing a psalm with unanswered prayers

Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster says, “to understand that the work of prayer involves a learning process, saves us from arrogantly dismissing it as false or unreal.” So if prayer isn’t working, he says to find out what’s broken. Maybe we have asked amiss, that we may spend it on our passions. Maybe we’re using mindless, repetitive words. Possibly we need to grow patience and faith, and God wants us to persevere so we know the answer came from him.

If you are a married man, consider how you are treating your wife if you think your prayers are hindered. But truly, it matters how any of us treat other humans. Emphasis on the “other,” since it’s godless and lazy to only love people in your tribe. Believers are warned, do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive so you will be forgiven.

And if you have caused offense, ask for forgiveness from the person before you come before the Lord. Which is hard. It’s really easier to justify your part, or pretend like it didn’t happen, and hope the other person gets over it. But how we think about and interact with others is a component to having our prayer heard…

Giving up and calling it God’s will

Defeatism about someone’s eternal election doesn’t line up with the statements of a God who desires that none should perish. “Maybe they just aren’t chosen. The Bible does say there will be a great apostasy…giant sigh.”

Foster also says in Celebration of Discipline that sometimes it is a lack of compassion on our part. “If we genuinely love people, we desire for them far more than it is within our power to give, and that will cause us to pray.” I think it’s also a great tool of the enemy to try to hide our power from us or diminish our authority by instilling a fear that we can’t know God’s will and we have to tiptoe around it in prayer. One of the points of prayer is to align yourself with God’s will. So don’t give up.

God’s coworkers

I don’t mean to indicate any kind of prosperity doctrine—but, believer, what if you could change the outcome instead of heralding the impending doom?

Jesus told his followers John 15:7, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.”

Don’t forget that Moses pleaded and changed God’s mind! God also withheld the punishment he threatened Nineveh after they repented, and Abraham interacted with God in a way that indicates he could have stopped the destruction of Sodom, but at least he was able to save his family.

Pleasant words are like honeycomb

In America, we think fanny is a cute word like bootie, bum or derrière. It was a modestly popular woman’s name until the 19th century. But, it’s quite vulgar in Ireland.

Vulgarity is like modesty and has a cultural context that morphs depending on the era.

A favorite quote of mine from The Count of Monte Cristo talks about this kind of change. “The difference between treason and patriotism is only a matter of dates.”

What if a curse isn’t a word like jackass or bitch (two benign words in animal husbandry a few hundred years ago) but words that diminish a fellow human’s hope?

Stop giving your fear a voice. Rather, pray in your rightfully entitled power. If you do open your mouth, prophesy life and build up like it says in Ephesians 4:29, instead of speaking malediction over the ones you love.

Who, what, where, when, why the hell?

Posted on by Hilarey

Questioning hell

When I first heard the gospel, it was good news. Everybody was going to hell where there would be eternal, unbearable punishment…wait, here’s the good part: I didn’t have to go if I didn’t want to. I could have a free ticket out.

Yes, please. Sign me up. I was eleven years old. Who the hell would want to go there?

Then came other questions. Do you have to be baptized for this free ticket? What if you’re baptized in the wrong church? What if it’s a sprinkle, not immersion, or it’s before the age of reasoning? Do you have to get baptized again for the free ticket? And a weird question that arrived later…can someone else get baptized for you after you die?

1 Corinthians 15 is an interesting chapter.

Paul addresses some believers who have an incorrect view of eternity in verse 12. Apparently, they didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead.

Let this sink in. It’s possible for believers to have an erroneous belief.

Paul reasons that if there is no resurrection, then Christ didn’t rise. If Christ didn’t rise, then it’s all in vain and worthless. And if our faith is worthless, then we’re still in our sins. And we should be pitied more than all men. Basically, what the hell is this life for?

He says in verse 18 that if this is so, believers who have died perish. Without resurrection, you perish. You are destroyed; you cease. Without resurrection, you don’t live forever.

Last week’s post challenged the idea of humans having an inherently eternal soul. But let’s say eternity is not a gift from God, and the Greek philosophers rationalized correctly: our souls live forever. Maybe Satan was right when he assured Eve, “You will surely not die. You will be like God.” God, who is immortal.

Unrepentant or not

Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians 15 to describe how God will subjugate everything under Christ. And the last enemy will be death. Verses 26-28 What it would look like if a billion people are in outright, unrepentant rebellion, hating God and cursing his name, writhing in the pit. Are they subjugated?

To subjugate is to conquer into submission. And I can see the victorious lion who comes bringing war ruling the earth this way. One day, every knee will bow—but I’m unsettled that their hearts don’t matter anymore. That heaven is eternity with some still despising the king.

It’s equally unsatisfactory to believe that the uncleansed sinners grow horrified at their mistake while writing in pain, and acknowledge the one true God, crying out in repentant sorrow. When the hell would it end?

I doubt people in hell will eat from the tree of life (just so they can suffer eternally) since that right is given to the residents of heaven. While they burn, instead of the fire doing what it normally does, consume completely to ash, will God preserve bodies and souls like he did with the burning bush? Will he preserve minds as well?

Kept conscious

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk is one of those books that seems to take me longer than it should to finish. I wait months without picking it back up. It’s just a hard read for me, not uninteresting. I’m fascinated that our human bodies have so many ways to protect our brain from trauma: blacking out, going insane, disassociation, repression of memories.

In verse 51 when Paul says not all will die but all will be changed, is he talking about unbelievers as well? Will residents of hell be given a special new body that feels all the sensations of trauma, but they cannot escape in any way? Will God supernaturally keep them conscious to make unbearable punishment just bearable enough to last forever?

Torturers study and aspire to that goal.

Who is a vindictive torturer, delighting in our suffering? I think our enemy doesn’t just try to look like God—sometime he tries to make us think God looks like him. So much skewed doctrine comes from thinking God is like man, or evil.

“Does the one who told us to love our enemies intend to wreck vengeance on his own enemies for all eternity?”
Rethinking Hell
Readings in Evangelical Conditionalism

Irrevocable, not ongoing

I’m not suggesting there is no hell, or that there will not be a punishment. I’m merely suggesting that the punishment might not be ongoing torture—but irrevocable perishing. Eternal separation from God, who is the source of life and in whose hand all things are held together. And I am suggesting that eternal just means permanent.

I am not a scholar, and I have been mulling over these ideas for a few years. So, I do not reject the suggestion of eternal conscious tournament lightly. Neither do I need this to be true because I want to escape hell. I earnestly desire to spend eternity with the God I love. But something shifted inside me toward God when I began to contemplate these ideas. I don’t actually know how it will all work out, but based on what I know of God, I can trust him.

There are terms for last week’s post (conditional immortality) and this week’s (annihilation view of hell.) But I think we are too quick to jump into labels. We tend to want to know what flag to raise so we can know who is in a different camp and where to aim the heretic gun. Working out your faith is a process and you will have to be willing to sit in undefined thoughts and to wait on the Lord. As you read and study on your own, consider that every time the Bible speaks of eternal punishment, perishing, death and destruction, it means that there is no going back. Not torture.

If, at the end of your physical body, you still reject him and do not want to spend eternity with the Almighty God who loves you, he will let you have your way.

You may ask, “How the hell are we going to scare people into heaven?” It’s true that if you take the fear out of religion, it is a different choice. Fear the Lord is a reverent awe of him, not cowering before capriciousness.

The crux

If you want to spend eternity with God because you love and trust him—spend this life loving and trusting him. Just the possibility of the annihilation view of hell helps me do that a bit more.

Of course, the truth of God is not based on what “feels” right to humankind. But if the traditional view of eternal conscious torment in hell is unseated according to your prayer, reflection and study—is that because you have more compassion than God? Give me a freakin’ break.

I would like to apologize to my mom for the language in this post.

My Immortality

Posted on by Hilarey

In literature, you often see a closing image that highlights or completes the opening image. It can be for good or for bad. It brings the theme full-circle.

Sometimes it’s forced and cliche, especially in movies. But when it’s done well, you feel a sense of completion that you can’t always put your finger on. Writers often go back and rewrite the first line after they know how the story ends.

In my first book, it showed up accidentally. (It’s very exciting for writers when this happens and contributes to the sensation of magic, whispers of a muse, and feeling like you are a conduit.)

The more I read the Bible, the more I see glimpses of poetic mirror images. I think the year I read through the Bible with The Bible Project app was the fundamental change for me—and recognizing patterns was one reason. It was the second time I read through the Bible and I remember telling my husband, “I know I’m called to do this. But I don’t want to sit another year in all this confusion and offense.” I didn’t like the Bible…

No longer do I take my English translation so literally, at face value, without context. I search differently, wait and question. I’ve grown to love and trust the mystery of it. There is more than meets the cursory glance.

I see parallel images throughout, often signaling something ending and new things starting. Or just causing me to sit up and say, “Hey now, this means something.”

A quick example, when God created Adam, he breathed into him in Genesis 2:7. “Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”

Something started.

Then, after Christ had died and risen, but before he’d returned to heaven, and before he told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem, he did something similar in John 20:22. “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit…'”

Something new started.

The Tree of Life

So I think it’s significant that the story of creation ends with banishment from the tree of life and heaven begins with some people receiving rights to the tree of life. Even if it was a literal tree in Eden, it could be a metaphorical tree in eternity. But since Jesus ate in his resurrected body (demonstrating it as physical resurrection, not just spiritual), there will be a marriage feast, and possibly a literal tree that produces different fruit every month—we can infer that eating isn’t one of the things we do away with in heaven.

But then comes a startling question: “Why would an immortal soul eat from the tree of life?” Is it symbolic? Is it just to keep our physical body from decaying? But that poses a few questions about the physical bodies that live in hell. What keeps them going?

I remember hearing a doctrine from LDS friends, which said our souls existed in heaven prior to conception. It is a reason to have more children—souls are waiting for their turn in life.

And I actually thought, how arrogant to think we existed before time with God.

But then I had to ask myself, why do I believe my soul will live forever?

Is that not arrogant?

Will I innately live forever because I’m human? I’ve been told this is the difference between humans and animals, and it’s true that we don’t see God breathing animation into animals at creation.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. The word perish is not common in our society, so it loses its punch in translation.

It seems like this verse that most people know tells us our option is to “pass from existence” or to “live for eternity.” So, again, why have I always believed my soul would automatically live forever?

I think the full circle image is that Eden gave access to the tree of life and the choice to trust God.

Now, here in earth, if you choose to trust God while it is still day, heaven grants the right to live forever with him.

If you will not live forever under your own volition and innate characteristics, what would be a motivation to even eat from the tree of life—unless you wanted to spend eternity with the God you love?

Unquestioning Obedience

Posted on by Hilarey

I think I always trusted that you could wrestle with God, but felt there was a warning, or at least a caveat. If you wrestle with him, you’ll come away with a limp. So, if you want the easiest life, just trust him implicitly.

I remember a time when I felt uncomfortable and said to my kids, “Please follow me.” They slipped in behind me and we left the theater without another word. In the car, I thanked them for obeying without question. My daughter reflected on that, saying it was weird to be thanked—because it never occurred to her not to obey.

When I consider the situation, I assume they were uncomfortable as well. I don’t think they were always unwaveringly obedient. Unquestioning submission is helpful in certain situations where a parent or military commander does not have control. But I don’t think it’s something to strive for, or to be expected. Because when you’re raised to be overly obedient, you have a hard time learning to distinguish who can tell you what to do later in life.

To a human mind, obedience from others might feel like trust. Or even love. Obedience is a facade of trust, though, because you can obey mindlessly. Even if you come to a place where you implicitly trust whatever someone says, it isn’t proof of love or trust. It could just be fear of punishment. Fear of walking away with a limp.

However, I think when you really love God; you do really trust him.

Interestingly, though, I don’t see God asking us to trust or to follow without question and reasoning. It might seem like we are sheep because he describes himself as the Good Shepherd. But I don’t actually see any indication that he wants us to act like ignorant animals with our heads down, only thinking of our needs, destroying our path, biting each other, and mindlessly responding in obedience when a staff snacks us.

There’s definitely more than one way to question the Almighty God. In Luke, when Mary asked, “How can this be?” she received an answer and her praise song is recorded. When John the Baptist’s dad, Zacharias asked, basically the same thing around the same time, he gets in trouble and his voice is temporarily removed. So an insolent heart might affect the interaction.

But…think about this: Zacharias still received the blessing of his son, got his voice back, and finished in praise like Mary!

I don’t know that an easy life without wrestling wounds, questioning, or needing correction is the goal. Don’t be afraid to fall into the hand of the Lord, because his mercy is very great, but may we never fall into human hands!

Obedience with some details

God tells Ananias in a vision to go get Saul in Acts 9:10-19. I love his reply. “God, I’ve heard about this guy. Are you sure? He has authority to put me in prison.” God replies, “Go. He is my chosen instrument.” He replied with a challenge because of his fears. But when he got clarification, he went.

Peter does something unthinkable in Acts 10. He goes inside the home of a gentile. (Possibly an ancestor of a modern Palestinian—essentially making it possible for you and me to be a Christian.) Peter sets aside racial superiority and, dumbfounded, says, “I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.”

But Peter didn’t start that way. First, he received a dream. One so shocking it created offense. Peter was incensed and declared that nothing unclean had ever touched his lips. God rebutted him and gave the information he needed to walk into the waiting circle of gentiles.

Allowing doubts

I found an intriguing idea about doubt helping you maintain your faith in an article regarding a classical education school in town. They found their graduates were more likely to pray alone, to read religious material, to practice their faith… But also more likely to doubt their faith than evangelical and homeschool peers. The higher percentage of admitted doubts encouraged them because it meant they had “…a healthy level of curiosity and are willing to express doubts and find answers.”

I think there’s a link with not allowing yourself to question God because of fear of him, fear of others, or fear of what you’ll find, breeding a fundamentalist version of faith based on “intolerance, tunnel vision, and dogmatic rigidity.”

The key is finding the answers. Not staying numb, distracted, lazy or fearful.

Wrestling with God

Peter was prepared by the miracle he witnessed of the fish when he was first called to follow Christ. He was prepared by the dream when he went into the home of the gentiles. And Ananias asked for clarification. There are times in the Bible when only a command and an action are recorded, but we don’t know what groundwork was laid to create that trust or what dreams and visions built the faithful one up to that point.

For the most part, I try to keep my darkest wrestling and greatest fears pulled back from others. Is this the best thing? Would it have helped my young children if I had been more open about confusing things? I guess I would have first needed to be honest with myself.

I want to be quick to follow the Lord. Even to jump without asking for questions—so it’s hard to get my mind wrapped around not being required blind trust as sort of test… with correction waiting on the other side.

I see it working that way in the world, but not in scripture. I haven’t experienced it with God either. He is not scrambling for a semblance of control like a military leader, or a parent who doesn’t have the words or patience to explain more than, “Because I said so.”

I can think of times when God told me to move, and I sat still. I’m more likely to look back on my life and consider opportunities where I hesitated, and possible blessing was lost. Humans are prone to measure success through the temporary, worldly terms of what we can see.

I can wonder if I missed a blessing while arguing, but the love and trust I’ve developed after questions are answered make a better bedfellow than unquestioning obedience.

Growth through reasoning with him might be a more valuable treasure than avoiding a limp.

The Things That Are God’s

Posted on by Hilarey

I’m not thinking of taxes, yet. I will be in a few weeks when I sit down to organize everything. I’m just thinking about how much I love the interaction between Christ and the political/spiritual leaders who tried to trap him in his words regarding taxes.

In Mark 12:13-17, they asked if it was lawful to pay the imperial tax, thinking it was a no-win situation for him. Who wants to pay tax to an oppressive military occupying your country and taking all the money back as tribute to the conquerors? Most don’t want to pay their own government–even when it funds schools, parks and public services. Especially because the school bonds never seem to end and very little appears to trickle down into books and teacher salaries. People spend other people’s money flippantly.

We want to be in control of our own money.

But, I think this is one part of why we should tithe. Of course, there are several valuable reasons. To acknowledge, consider and then care for the poor. To have personal investment in other believer’s needs, so they become like family. To keep money flowing and fund important things instead of hording like a dead sea.

But really, the point is to not be in control of our own money.

There was a time years ago when I wanted to tithe, but did not see where we could. We’d come to Idaho to serve in a ministry. Life had always been tight, but then, we had to ration everything to make it. Lights, gas and heat. Our fridge was typically near-empty a few days before payday. We did not have any entertainment or unnecessary spending we could eliminate. I didn’t know where charitable giving could be squeezed from.

Wealth wasn’t my goal, and I certainly wasn’t thinking that God would owe me worldly baubles if I did tithe. I was growing, and wanted to be obedient to him, and I believed that we needed to tithe to do it. I added a line in my spreadsheet with Malachi 3:10, just to take him at his word.

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.”

I remember driving down the road and asking God, “Will you please give us enough money to tithe?”

Shortly after, my husband received a raise that netted about 10 percent to our budget. Enough for the traditional tithe, but not enough to add Netflix (which was RedBox at the time) or a trip to frozen yogurt as a family.

I knew right away that God had answered my specific prayer. I think when I asked him if he would keep his word–he asked me if I would keep mine.

We started to tithe. But I will tell you, even though we now had enough, it was not easy to send the money away. The church we attended had a frivolous spender at the helm, so there was a learning curve of how and who to tithe to. But every month we’d give our money away, we’d juggle our bills, and we’d live frugally.

A lesson worth more than money

Notice in Malachi that God does not promise blessing in the way of wealth. As we did this, I discovered that I gradually trusted God more and more. Especially when there was exactly enough. But in order to do it, I had to write out our paper check and verbalize, “God, I need you…more than I need fifty-three dollars.” It was almost comical to say sentences like that out loud as I spelled the numbers in long hand. Duh. The God of the universe who holds all things together is just a little more security than fifty bucks. Even then.

But then later, as the amounts changed, the sentiment never did. “God, I need you more than one-hundred and thirty-two dollars.” It has gotten to where I’ve not seen an amount that would give me pause to write out without declaring that I need God more than that number. (Although I don’t write physical checks anymore.)

It wasn’t flawless. There were growing pains. On more than one occasion I would hold back a tithe because we “couldn’t afford it.” Something unexpected like a random bank fee would usually come up. I remember one unexpected bill that was the exact amount of the tithe I held back.

I learned that I really did need God more than one-hundred and thirty-two dollars. And when I’d write it and say it, I’d imagine intangible blessings my storehouse could not contain, and not want to be without whatever God would pour out over me in my trust.

Money seems like one of the hardest things to relinquish. So, you want to be able to see the monies of this world as belonging to the Caesars of this world. But there are so many other arousing things that whisper provision and satisfaction.

If you belong to God

When there is a thing, a person, or an action promising joy, fulfillment, pleasure, tranquility… but it means to step outside of a relationship with God to embrace it, we can use same phrase. Even if it is something good or benign, but it isn’t the right time, I have found success saying it out loud.

God… I need you more than I need this item.

God… I need you more than I need this relationship.

God… I need you more than I need this sin.

God… I need you more than I need ___.

In his hands are the depths, the heights, and pleasures forevermore. Don’t be afraid to ask him if he will keep his word.