Agrippa said to Paul, “In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?” (Acts 26:28)

“You know,” Festus had said to the king, just one day prior, “I have this prisoner who the Jews are simply desperate to kill. Strange case, in my opinion. They came with the raucous of the gods, only to tell me the most idle of tales.”

“What tales?” asked King Agrippa.

“Apparently they want this man dead because he claims that some prophet died, a man named Jesus, and yet is now alive. Impossible to investigate such delusions. I am not sure what to say to Caesar.”

“May I examine the prisoner?”

“Of course, my King. We will make a spectacle of it tomorrow.”

The next day, as Agrippa sat enthroned in royal pomp and splendor with the mighty attending, he found Paul much smaller than expected. The royal hush washed over the assembly as the king motioned for Paul to give his defense.

“I consider myself fortunate,” began the prisoner, “that it is before you, King Agrippa, I am going to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews, especially because you are familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews. Therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently” (Acts 26:2–3).

Agrippa was ready to do just that.

He listened as Paul recalled growing up a Pharisee, hunting Christians, and meeting Jesus in a heavenly vision on the Damascus road. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Jesus was alive, Paul insisted. Furthermore, he said that Moses and the prophets spoke of this very thing and even foretold such things as salvation extending to the Gentiles (Acts 26:4–23).

“Paul, you are out of your mind,” Festus interrupted with a yell, “your great learning is driving you out of your mind” (Acts 26:24). To this Paul responds with something equally as shocking to the king’s sensibilities. And how Paul replies next, how he turns matters to the king directly, offers a balancing word to one of our evangelistic emphases today.

King in the Dock

“I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus,” Paul responds, “but I am speaking true and rational words.” And as if pointing to the throne, he continues, “For the king knows about these things, and to him I speak boldly. For I am persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this has not been done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe” (Acts 26:25–27).

Paul, on trial before the king, puts the king on trial before Christ.

Paul’s appeal is no vague word or bashful plea. He speaks plainly, courteously, boldly, and directly. He does not shoot over Agrippa’s head but lets the arrow fly at his heart. Before the watching eyes of everyone who is anyone in the region, Paul looks him in the eye, and says for all to hear, “King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do.”

The arrow finds its mark. The king staggers. In wonder he asks, “In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?” (Acts 26:28).

Whether Long or Short

I find great correction in this scene, summarized by Paul’s final response,

Whether short or long, I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am — except for these chains. (Acts 26:29)

Organic, relational, “long” evangelism has its place. This form of evangelism tends to be especially useful with people woven into our lives. With those we will see again, we want them to witness our lives and open up to us that we might bring Christ to their specific hopes, sins, and sorrows. One brick at a time, one conversation at a time, because we have more time, so we think. “Whether short or long” he declared to Agrippa, “I wish that you would be a Christian.” He makes space for long.

But how many of us today have jettisoned the first half — the short-term, first-conversation evangelism that arrested the king? He did not expect that Paul would press the relevance of this news to his conscience and call for a response in their first conversation. “In such a short time,” he asked, “would you persuade me to be a Christian?” In such a short time, Paul would.

Not only did Paul have the spine to evangelize the king in front of all notable somebodies, but he turned to them, seeking to win everyone within the range of his voice to Christ. “I would that all of you be a Christian, just as I am,” he said turning to the spectators, “except, of course, for these chains.” He only had one shot. And so, with little regard to his own welfare, he broke down the fourth wall and addressed every man, woman, and child openly: “I would that all of you believed and were saved!”

Lies Short-Circuiting Evangelism

Do we do the same? Does it feel taboo to share the gospel at the bus stop, restaurant, basketball game, on the airplane? “Drive-by” evangelism, some have called it. Unnatural, ineffective, abrupt, and most likely offensive. That sort of thing is impolite and undemocratic, and if it must be done, surely it should be left to those especially gifted as evangelists, right?

When I am tempted to think this way, such resistance belies several wrong beliefs that are especially compelling in our day.

‘Jesus can’t save in one conversation.’

When I forget that the gospel is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16), I remain silent. Offering a word of true hope to a stranger can’t do anything but make me look foolish, so why bother?

But Paul remembered the power of the gospel.

“God, through his gospel, can and does save — sometimes over years of relationship and often in random, short conversations.”

One vibrating with divine life, quaking with expectation, muscular enough to capture and liberate even the chief of sinners. He was willing to persuade them, with a “loud voice” at his trial, and expected King Agrippa, the military tribunes, and “the prominent men of the city” to cast off their crowns and bow their knees before the King of glory (Acts 25:23). If Jehovah’s Witnesses, with their door-to-door evangelism, believe they have a message that can save in a moment — why not the actual witnesses of Jehovah?

‘Salvation is my work, not God’s.’

New birth is not fundamentally the offspring of a good relationship between a Christian and non-Christian. Our coffee conversations or basketball games or neighborly help has no power to raise anyone from the dead. Salvation is now and forever a sovereign act of our Almighty God. When Nicodemus hears Jesus explain this, he is perplexed and astounded (John 3:4). “You must be born again.”

No, Nicodemus, your positive assessment of me and my miracles is not enough — you must be born again.
Yes, your self-striving will not avail you of the kingdom. Correct, you can no more choose to be born again spiritually than you chose to be born physically.
You have as much control of the Spirit as you do the wind. And if you had read the Scriptures correctly, none of this should surprise you.

That night Jesus baffled Nicodemus, but it can encourage us in our evangelism. No matter how vulnerable, risky, awkward it feels, God, through his gospel, can and does save — sometimes over years of relationship and often in random, short conversations. Nicodemus’s life, for one, shows what one uncomfortable conversation can do (John 7:50–51; 19:38–40).

‘A personal relationship makes evangelism easier.’

In my experience, the less short-term mindset I have at the beginning, the harder long-term evangelism tends to be. If I refuse to tell someone from the get-go that I am a Christian, the harder it becomes to tell him later. It always feels odd to introduce something so massive about myself later on. It seems to betray that Jesus isn’t really that important to me.

“I know we have known each other for a while now, but did I ever mention what matters most to me? I believe a murdered Jewish carpenter — who was also God in the flesh and the fulfillment of God’s plan for the world — is now alive, enthroned in heaven, and will come back soon to judge the world in righteousness?”

“Gospel truth doesn’t only travel through well-established relationships, nor does it travel at all when not shared.”

Typically, the more upfront we are in the beginning (if possible, in the very first conversation), the easier it becomes to return to Jesus later on. And again, it is our privilege to share the hope that we have, and not our responsibility to convert the person by our conversational prowess. The saving work is God’s alone.

God, Give Me One

None of this is an assault on “relational” or “friendship” evangelism. The apostle himself, after all, would win King Agrippa in a short time or long. My point is that long-term evangelism must not be our only method, nor is it a reasonable excuse to neglect single-conversation evangelism. Despite the merits of the statements like, “Truth travels best through relationship,” I want to remind you, as I remind myself, that gospel truth doesn’t only travel through well-established relationships, nor does it travel at all when not shared.

I know of an elderly saint in my church who recently told me, “I have prayed every day for God to send me one person that day to tell about Jesus, and in fifty years he has not failed me once.” Paul modeled such bold, firm, polite, short and long evangelism. Let’s pray such prayers and not fail when it comes time to speak.

“Only remember me,” Joseph requested, “when it is well with you, and please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this house” (Genesis 40:14). Though he sat in prison, Joseph had just interpreted the cupbearer’s dream favorably: he would be restored to his former height in three days. “Only remember me to Pharaoh,” Joseph asked.

In three days, the cupbearer was taken from the cell as foretold. It will only be a matter of time now, Joseph thought. Three more days passed. Five days. A week. “Two whole years” (Genesis 41:1). Nothing. Once ascended to his former place, “the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him” (Genesis 40:23).

When you think of the ascended Christ, do you imagine someone like this cupbearer? Has he who once descended into our pit and suffered for our sins — only to rise to a better life three days later — forgotten us?

Perhaps you expect his attention when he returns, but until then, he basks in the angel’s praises, grips the scepter firmly in hand, and with our prison far behind him, you suspect that you remain little upon his heart.

Sympathy of the Prince

William Gurnall (1616–1679) gives a moving illustration in reply:

Suppose a king’s son should get out of a besieged city, where he had left his wife and children, whom he loves as his own soul, and these all ready to die by sword or famine; if supply come not the sooner, could this prince, when arrived at his father’s house, please himself with the delights of the court, and forget the distress of his family? (The Christian in Complete Armor, 31)

Right now, Jesus thinks of me, he thinks of you, as this prince who has left his bride and children behind. He has not forgotten us, coronated as he is in glory, just as any good man could not for a moment forget his family shackled in sorrows in an evil land. If we who are sinful are moved at the distress of our loved ones, how could Christ, whose name is love, disregard the sufferings of his family still on earth?

If you’re tempted to feel forgotten, be reminded that right now Christ loves his bride with a love surpassing knowledge (Ephesians 3:19). His heart toward us from heaven deserves more thought than many of us give it. Consider first how un-cupbearer-like our ascended Christ is, and then why Christ does “please himself with the delights of the court” while still not forgetting “the distress of his family” — and why that is such good news for us.

He Has Not Forgotten

Jesus, our King, has departed into glory, leaving us here on earth. And unlike the prince in Gurnall’s illustration, Jesus prays we remain temporarily apart, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15). But in order that we might not draw false conclusions, on the eve of his death Jesus also says in several ways, “I will not forget you.”

He assures them, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:3). He promises, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. . . . Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:18–19).

When sorrow fills their hearts at this news, he ensures that he means their good: “I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7). He guarantees, “You have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (John 16:22).

On the darkest night in history, Christ carries his people upon his heart in prayer to his Father: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). And this he prays for you and me as well: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word” (John 17:20).

“Surely Jesus will not forget his bride, the reward of his suffering and anguish.”

These words do not pour forth from a heavenly cupbearer. We can be certain that he who said, “as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you” (John 15:9), and whose life was summarized in those expiring hours with the words, “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1) — surely he will not forget his bride, the reward of his suffering and anguish. Nor in a real sense will he ever truly leave her (Matthew 28:20).

He Still Enjoys the Court

Suffice it to say that Jesus Christ will not, cannot, forget his beloved, even if his beloved is prone to forget that she is not forgotten. This is one problem.

But there is another: we can assume that Christ thinks only of us. The spirit of our age would have us picture a needy, codependent, lovesick Messiah. He is in heaven, not really paying attention to the glory there, doodling hearts on the margins of the cosmos with our name in the middle.

Such a spirit omits that Jesus also told his disciples, “You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). We might be conditioned to believe that his world revolves around us, that he must be perpetually pained in heaven, unable to fully rejoice with his Father or receive praises or enjoy the delights of the court because we are not yet there.

When He Wrote to Her

Consider the love letter he sends from heaven to his hurting, left behind bride in Smyrna. She is a faithful local church (no censure or call to repentance appears in this letter). How does the compassionate Christ speak to his suffering church? To the angel of the church of Smyrna, he tells John, write,

The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life.

I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death. (Revelation 2:8–11)

What comfort does he offer? He says that he is the first and the last, the one who died and came back to life. He says he knows their tribulation and their poverty (though they are rich). He tells them that he hears the slander of their enemies who have become a “synagogue of Satan.”

But notice too how he instructs them in their persecution: “Do not fear what you are about to suffer” — Satan’s throwing them into prison will test them, and end up serving greater purposes. Jesus tells them to be faithful unto death, and that he will be waiting on the other side with a crown of life. He tells them that they must conquer so as not to be hurt by the second death, the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14).

He gives to this church what appears to be a masculine comfort, that is, comfort that retains an exhortative tone given its vision of higher priorities (1 Thessalonians 2:11–12) — namely, the church’s eternal well-being.

Christ’s words here are not those of a nursing mother with her child (1 Thessalonians 2:7), though equally full of love. Jesus comforts this church, but not by telling her he cannot enjoy heaven and his Father while she remains oppressed and apart. He does not refuse to sit on the throne before she is seated safely in glory.

Moved, but Not Injured

Jesus cares deeply about us, but not too much — is that what I am trying to say? No. He cares more deeply about his bride than we know, and he is still our God who inhabits a heaven that is bigger than us. He loves us beyond knowledge, and he does not have absolute need of us. Part of the beauty of his love is how freely given, or unrequired, it is.

As our great high priest, Christ invites us to approach the throne of grace because he is able to sympathize with us (Hebrews 4:14–16). But he is not consumed by pity, nor does he feel with us so as to sustain injury. He owns our persecutions as the head of the body — “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me” (Acts 9:4) — yet not in such a way as to be freshly pierced.

Thomas Goodwin (1600–1680) describes it this way in The Heart of Christ:

These affections of pity and sympathy so stirred up by himself, though they. . . affect his bodily heart as they did here, yet they do not afflict and perturb him in the least, nor become a burden in a load unto his Spirit, so as to make him sorrowful or heavy, as in this life here his pity unto Lazarus made him, and as his distresses at last, that made him sorrowful unto death. (47)

“Jesus is provoked to help us; he draws near, moved by our hurt, while not being hurt himself.”

Jesus Christ, once a man of sorrows, has risen and ascended; he is not in heaven sunken that his bride is not yet there. Goodwin claims that the glorified Christ has “no tang of disquietment” or “afflicting affections,” though his “perfection does not destroy his affections.” He is provoked to help us; he draws near, moved in measure by our hurt, while not being hurt himself.

He Sees the Day

This is good news for us, for Christ loves his people without unbraiding all reality by loving them above his Father and his glory. The Son invites us into his eternal, Trinitarian love, without making us the primary focus of that eternal love. He loves us without making us God.

Our final joy and eternal well-being are certain. Jesus has no guesswork as to our fate. While far from unfeeling, he is not tossed by the waves, as we are this side of heaven.

Jesus is the Shepherd of the sheep, the Groom of his bride, guiding us home through a world of distress to springs of living water, promising to soon wipe away every tear from our eyes (Revelation 7:17; 21:4). While he tarries, he can and does enjoy “the delights of the court,” while not forgetting “the distress of his family.”

If you were told you had five years to live, would you live more in those five years than in the decades you might have had left?

By “live” I cannot mean “lifespan,” or the question isn’t worth asking. I mean to live wide awake, live purposefully, live undistracted by empty pleasures. Could you imagine the quality of those five years becoming preferable? Could five years more alive to God, his world, and the faces around us outshine decades of business and bluster with little fullness?

Oh, to sail under the stars awake to life, feeling the breeze upon your face and hearing the music of waves crashing. How different from the dreary drift from one meal to the next, one episode to the next, one year to the next.

Do you feel the preciousness of time? Are you truly living? A hand hold with a spouse or a wait in line at the store can take on new significance when we consider it occurs within this shooting star we call “life.”

Good I Could Have Done

I perplex myself, then, to consider how many golden moments I let pass, wasted. Hours upon hours, gone without notice, lost without grief. So many silver coins squandered; exchanged for pebbles and bubbles.

While not leaving the good news behind — namely that this neglect will not have the last word, but his grace will — the healthy sting is still felt. And if we let it: still instructive. When I awake to the value of time, the sheer possibility held in any given span, I sigh at how many moments have fallen irretrievably between the cracks — and this sends me to God for more mercy and help to better steward the time I have left.

This is especially true when I consider time lost while at work — how much good that might have outlasted me has been forfeit by my laziness and inattention?

What hid this realization from me for so long is that I never thought of myself as slothful. I get things done. At times, I’ve worked very hard. No one would have looked at me and said I sleep too much, or that I neglected my studies, or that I put off difficult things indefinitely. But looking back, I have realized in my work life that I have lived too often as a sophisticated sloth. Here are a few characteristics.

1. Slow to Begin

The traditional sluggard does not begin tasks at all. We hear his voice crying out from his bed, “There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets!” (Proverbs 22:13; 26:13). He would go to the work like the rest of us, he assures us, but for those killer cats.

He says they prevent him from traveling to work,

There is a lion stalking the square.Travel to work? — I couldn’t dare.I shall stay in and feast— Oh that irksome beast —This confinement is too much to bare!

He says they prevent him from going to church,

There is a lion purring the pews.Upon good men’s bones it chews.Surely none could find faultIn avoiding assault;I’ll wait till next week to hear the good news!

And while I do not make such foolish excuses, as a sophisticated sloth, I start my tasks, eventually. The lions roaring in the street do not indefinitely detain, but they do delay me. When I gaze ahead and see duties sloping uphill, I decide I need some stretching before the activity — maybe some social media, or checking email, or a quick snack. How many hours have I wasted “getting in the mood” to start something difficult?

2. Quick to Break

We are told the traditional sluggard “buries his hand in the dish and will not even bring it back to his mouth” (Proverbs 19:24). This image is his profile picture.

The sluggard started his task. His hand, as a crane maneuvering a construction site, lifts, steers sideways, and drops on the full bowl. Upon impact, some Cheese Puffs jump overboard. As we continue to watch him, anticipating the triumphant return, we wait, and we wait — and we wait. Gravity assisted him on the way down, but has now betrayed him. The way up proves too much for him.

He is again made to seem ridiculous. As activity swirls about him, he sits immobilized, his hand in a dish. His eyes are open, but in such a way as to be shut. His fingers plop into the dish and remain, reluctant to return at the half-hearted bidding of their master. He is alive, but not alive. A man, but not a man. John Foster gives him a sobering epitaph, “Here lies a person who has lost nothing by being buried; for he is just as good a man underground as he was above” (An Essay on the Improvement of Time, 189).

“The sloth is alive, but not alive. A man, but not a man.”

By God’s grace, I am not such a creature. My hand does return, just not right away. I have been quick to indulge breaks as a reward for doing what was only my duty to begin with. That’s good enough for now, I think, don’t want to overdo it. A harder working man could have completed the same task without interruptions in a fraction of the time. A harder working man might have accomplished another life’s work by simply redeeming the intervals.

3. Open to Interruptions

I have contributed my attention to the notable businesses that profit on the distracted. Every text message and Youtube video seems so much more interesting when I am in the middle of my labor. The path of each workday has offered me multiple rest stops.

The traditional sloth also knows the power of a minor detour from the path.

A little sleep, a little slumber,     a little folding of the hands to rest,and poverty will come upon you like a robber,     and want like an armed man. (Proverbs 24:33–34)

The thief of time today is a tiny man. He specializes in little. Just a little sleep, a little slumber — just a little surfing the Internet, a little text-message conversation, a little checking of Facebook or ESPN.

He sells distractions during the workday, and though he will take large checks if he must, he prefers coins and small bills — ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes — you know, harmless folding-of-the-hands kind of costs.

I, as the sophisticated sloth, have started and stopped, started and stopped, as a teenager learning to drive a stick shift for the first time. And while the classic sloth may not wake until he is robbed of everything, I return home every day just missing a few dollars here and there. The total sum I cannot estimate.

4. Puts Off Harder Work

This is one the cleverest tricks of the sophisticated sloth: He works — to avoid doing harder work. He is the kid who sees dad coming and rushes to take out the trash so his brother is left to shovel instead. He chooses to work when he must — to spare himself more difficult work later.

The end result looks like the typical sloth:

I passed by the field of a sluggard,     by the vineyard of a man lacking sense,and behold, it was all overgrown with thorns;     the ground was covered with nettles,     and its stone wall was broken down. (Proverbs 24:30–31)

But the text doesn’t tell us about the sophisticated sloth inside his house, pointing to his mostly clean dishes, washed clothes, and bed with a comforter folded over bundled sheets. Too often, I have done the easier work indoors and left the harder work unattempted.

Missing Servant

Time is far too precious to let it so subtly slip away. Those pressed up against the grave more rightly estimate its value; blessed are we if we can waken before we near closer to that slumber. Jesus seeks to help us awake to the stewardship of our lives in the parable of the talents.

To the hardworking servant who trusts his Master, believes him, loves him, and knows the privilege of his service and thus invests and turns his five talents into five more, his master says to him,

Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. (Matthew 25:21)

The slothful servant, afraid of his Master and otherwise suspicious of his motives, buries his talent in the ground. He doesn’t lose it; but doesn’t improve it either. To this man, the Master says,

You wicked and slothful servant! . . . You ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. . . . [C]ast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. (Matthew 25:26–27, 30)

“Time is precious. Now is the time to live and work and love.”

I, however, have been describing the man who did not make the parable. He is the servant to whom the Master gives five talents, and yet brings back just two more instead of the full five. He could have brought more — but he wasted so much time on lesser things.

Whether we have five years left or fifty, life is a most terrible thing to waste. To other such servants, consider with me what glory lies ahead for the faithful Christian servant. “Well done, my good and faithful servant” — the eternal commendation. “I will set you over much” — the everlasting stewardship. “Enter into the joy of your Master” — the undying bliss of life with our God.

Might this not help us toward faithful living in total reliance upon our Savior?

Over the years, I have talked with several Christians who have told me they wanted to die. They were of different ages and different ethnicities; they had different personalities and different reasons. But they each concluded that death was better for them now than life.

It took courage to bring into the open the secret thoughts of death. Many others could not relate. Most of humanity had only run from the dread that gained on them moment by moment. Few had felt the impulse to stop, turn, and welcome the beast as a friend.

Now these, again, were Christian men and women. They knew the horror of self-murder. They knew such a crime was not a romantic gesture between teenage lovers, but a heinous sin against the Author of life. When suicidal ruminations sought to guide them to another exit, even amid debilitating and cruel circumstances, they knew to resist Satan’s suggestions. By faith, they would continue, one foot in front of the other, until their all-wise Father brought them home. And a few had prayed for just that.

“If you have asked God to take your life, the first thing to realize is that you are not alone.”

If you have asked God to take your life, one of the first truths to realize is that you are not alone.

God has heard such petitions before. For different reasons, at different times, from different pits, men and women of God have prayed to be taken away. And the prayers we find in Scripture come not just from normal saints like us, but from the ones we would least expect to struggle with this life: leaders and heroes of God’s people.

Consider a few men of God, then, whose prayers the Holy Spirit captured to remind us we are not alone and, more importantly, to witness how our kind and gracious God deals with his own at their lowest.

Job: The Despairing Father

Oh that I might have my request, and that God would fulfill my hope, that it would please God to crush me, that he would let loose his hand and cut me off! (Job 6:8–9)

I wager that anguished prayers for death are the most common. They come in the winter of life, when even songbirds are too cold to sing.

Job, a righteous man without rival on earth (Job 1:8), now sits in the ashes, boils rising on his skin, surrounded by accusing friends, and plagued with a heart too heavy to carry. His shards of a prayer rise from the ruins of a former life: all his wealth gone, many of his servants slain, and what was more, all ten of his children buried beneath a house, collapsed by a great wind.

Job, staggering with grief, curses the day of his birth: “Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived’” (Job 3:3). He muses aloud, “Why is light given to him who is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, who long for death, but it comes not, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, who rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they find the grave?” (Job 3:20–22). Death now glitters as a treasure, wafts as sweetness. He sees no reason to wait.

Perhaps you, like Job, know great loss. Perhaps you sit in the rubble, scorned by former days and missing loves. You can’t bear any more; you gaze ahead into an endless night. Hope has turned its back. Consider afresh that God has not.

“Continue believing. Continue trusting. This dark night is preparing for you an eternal weight of glory.”

The Lord denied Job’s request. He had more compassion to give, more mercy, more communion, more repentance, even more children waiting on the other side. Job couldn’t yet imagine how his life might turn out to glorify God’s grace, as James summarizes: “You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful” (James 5:11).

Some sufferers may not find comfort in the fairy-tale ending of Job, but his renewed fortunes foreshadow not even half of yours in Christ. Continue believing. Continue trusting. This dark night is preparing for you an eternal weight of glory (2 Corinthians 4:17). Scars will do more than heal there.

Moses: The Weary Leader

If you will treat me like this, kill me at once. (Numbers 11:15)

This is the second prayer for death we overhear from Moses on his long journey with the people. The first comes in his intercession for them following the golden-calf rebellion (Exodus 32:32). Here, he prays for death as an overburdened, fed-up leader.

The rescued people of Israel, with sores still mending and Egypt still within view, complain “about their misfortunes.”

Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at. (Numbers 11:4–6)

Ingratitude has warped their minds. Their memories suggest that slavery included a seafood buffet; meanwhile, the free miracle bread had grown bitter and bland. Did Moses really expect them to settle for second chef?

The ingrates fix their eyes on Moses, mutinously mumbling about how much they missed Egypt. Moses looks up to God, and exclaims,

I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me. If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness. (Numbers 11:14–15)

Notice again God’s gracious answer. He does not kill Moses, but instead provides seventy elders to aid him in his work, giving these men some of his Spirit. And for added measure, God promises to feed Israel meat — so much meat that it will come out of their nostrils and they will begin to loathe it (Numbers 11:20).

If you weary under burdens too heavy for your feeble arms to carry, and could wish to die at times, see the God of Moses. Lean into him in prayer. Your compassionate Father will provide help to alleviate your load and hold up your arms to give victory.

Jonah: The Angry Messenger

Please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. (Jonah 4:3)

The merciless prophet Jonah baffles many when they read the book bearing his name. He shows a calloused determination that Nineveh, capital city of Israel’s enemy the Assyrians, not receive mercy from God but rather destruction. He refuses to be an instrument of their salvation.

God had renewed him after sailing away from his calling. God had rescued him from drowning in the sea. God had given him refreshing shade as he waited outside the city to watch it burn. Yet Jonah still would not put away his hatred. When he realized no doom would descend,

It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” (Jonah 4:1–3)

Few in the West today face the temptation to want a whole people destroyed. The Assyrians were a brutal people — brutal to Jonah’s people. But perhaps we often murder in our hearts those who have wronged us. While they live, our life rots. To this, the Lord responds, again, patiently and compassionately, giving us shade while we scorch, asking us as a long-suffering Father, “Do you do well to be angry?” (Jonah 4:4).

Most of the time, we do not do well. This prayer for death is foolish. Repentance is required. Go to your Father for help to extend that impossible forgiveness that you most freely received from him, that you might be able to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12).

Elijah: The Fearful Prophet

[Elijah] was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life. . . . And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” (1 Kings 19:3–4)

We can attest truly that here stands one with a like nature to ours (James 5:17). Notice that this moment follows Elijah’s finest hour. The prophet of God won the showdown with Ahab and the 450 prophets of Baal. God rains down fire in front of all Israel to show that a true prophet walks among them.

Or runs among them. After Jezebel hears that he had the 450 prophets of Baal killed, she vows to add Elijah to that number. “Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life” (1 Kings 19:3). The hunted prophet hides in the wilderness, sits under a tree, tries to sleep, and prays not to wake: “O Lord, take my life.”

Do you pray for death because you fear those living? Jesus tells us, “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do” (Luke 12:4). Beyond this, the story of Elijah invites us to survey our last year or our last week or our yesterday for reasons, often conspicuous, to continue entrusting ourselves to a faithful Creator while doing good.

God, again, deals compassionately with Elijah. He calls him to rise and eat, provides a fresh meal for him in the wilderness, and gives provision for the journey ahead (1 Kings 19:5–8). Notice also the smiling kindness of God to Elijah in that the prophet, though threatened with death and praying for death, never dies (2 Kings 2:11–12).

Paul: The Eager Apostle

My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. (Philippians 1:23)

God’s predominant response to those men of God who prayed for death is fatherly compassion.

Whether you be Jonah-like and tempted to despise God’s mercy toward others, or you cry out under your burdens like Moses, or run for your life like Elijah, or yearn for relief like Job, consider your gracious God. He meets Job with himself and a new beginning, Moses with seventy men to help, Jonah with a plant for shade, Elijah with food and drink for the journey ahead.

And God himself, after all, through the finished work of his Son and the recreating work of his Spirit, turns death into an eager expectation for us, does he not? That enemy death must ferry us into that world for which we were remade.

The apostle Paul, though not praying for death, shows us a redeemed perspective on our last foe.

To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. (Philippians 1:21–23)

We too can turn, face the monster in God’s perfect timing, and embrace it with a peace the world does not know. We too have a healthy longing to depart from this earth and be with Christ. We too have the Spirit, who inwardly groans as we await the consummation of our hope (Romans 8:23). We too pray, “Maranatha!” and long for this world’s last night because we long for this world’s new beginning.

We do not long to die for death’s sake, nor merely to escape our troubles, but we do ache for an unending life with Christ that lies on the other side of sleep, and which we can taste more and more, even now, through his word and Spirit.

If you are a Christian man, I know something about you. I know you want more.

You want more thrill in your walk with Jesus. You want more life, more wakefulness, more awe and wonder, more heavenly ambition, more consistency, more urgency, more sin lying slain at your feet. You want more of an inbreaking sense of God’s utter immensity, his total majesty, his relentless love for you by name. You want fewer clichés and unrealities, and more of the real thing.

You want to live for more, with more power and purpose. And if you have a family, you want more skill to lead them to Christ. You want to live in a world of worship and mission with them. You want your wife to increasingly blossom as she beholds more of Jesus. You want to hear your kids singing to Jesus. You want to pray real prayers together, and face difficulties as a family, saying as Jehoshaphat did to God: “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (2 Chronicles 20:12). And you want to see him answer mightily.

In other words, you want true, living, family religion that spills into your neighborhood and your local church. But is it possible? This desire, perhaps now neglected and starved, only visits with whispers of guilt as you look around at what your life is really like: a fight for survival. Maybe you have conceded to a listless and half-living expectation: just get through the day, enjoy a little entertainment in the crevices, sleep, and then repeat.

But just as you want more for yourself and your family, God wants and promises more too.

Family Alive to God

Christian man, you have a delightful duty to provide for your household, both physically and spiritually. Such a privilege was long foretold, given not just in the cultural mandate (Genesis 1:28) but in the great command to God’s covenant people:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:4–9)

“Christian man, you have a delightful duty to provide for your homes, both physically and spiritually.”

This vision for the family could not be higher: nothing less than a world submerged with God. God raised the ultimate banner, “Love the Lord with everything,” which is to fly in the wind over everyday life. He meant for all facets, every corner of family life, to be inscribed with reminders of God and his unchanging worth. He meant to be supreme in all things for the joy of all his people and their families.

Parents diligently passed this passion along to the next generation, praying that God would give new birth. The truth that made one wise for salvation was to be repeated, again and again, as a man strikes a blade repeatedly to sharpen it, in hopes that God would fashion children who also love him with their all.

More than simply passing truths along, however, we see how a faithful man creates an atmosphere into which he draws his children. The home stood as a place where discussions of God continue:

as you sit down
as you walk by the way
when you lie down
when you rise up

When at home, or when traveling away from home — from the early morning to the laying down at night — conversation was to revolve around God. Israel even decorated themselves and their world with physical reminders of God’s word: “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes,” and, “You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

I tremble myself to write this to you in Christ: Not a day should pass when God’s ways, God’s gospel, and God’s return should go uncontemplated and unspoken in our families.

Men with Burning Hearts

The point is that this vision for family religion wasn’t something to check off a list; it was a lifestyle. Not merely a devotional squeezed in the cracks, but a consistent disposition to worship. The God worthy of our all devotion fills the believer’s sphere, especially his household. A vision that matches the secret desire.

If you are a Christian man, you especially bear the responsibility of this — and again, you desire it, heavy as it is.

How do I know? Because the text says so.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

“This vision for the family could not be higher: nothing less than a world submerged with God.”

You will be convinced — Christian father, Christian son, Christian brother — to give yourself to cultivating a world full of God, whether or not you have your own family yet. And not because you read an article or good book, but because God has inscribed his great blazing commandment on your heart. No one needs to twist your arm to want to live for Christ to greater and greater stature. “For they shall all know me” (Jeremiah 31:34).

Does Your Spirit Burn?

In the old covenant, getting the commandments on one’s heart entailed memorization, meditation, prayer, obedience. In the new covenant, these means are likewise employed but from a very different starting place:

This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Jeremiah 31:33)

Does your spirit not burn within you? You may feel guilt for past laziness, you may feel convicted about current neglect, you may need to fall to your knees and beg God’s forgiveness for leaving him forgotten in the attic, but one thing is sure if you know Christ: You long to provide spiritual blessing to your home. Perceive the Lord Jesus extending more grace and providing fresh opportunity. No longer resist plunging into this promised sea of blessing: “those who honor me I will honor” (1 Samuel 2:30).

If you are real, brother, his law is already etched on your heart: You want to care for your family. You want to put away trivialities and live for Christ. You want to build your home and fill it with great thoughts and loving deeds. You want Bethlehem’s star resting above your roof, indicating the King’s presence. You want to provide spiritual meat and everlasting drink to those you love most. You want to truthfully and continually say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

As the ancient Israeli soldier gazes across the field of battle, he sees a sea of chariots and horses and soldiers far outnumbering his own. His hands tremble. His mouth dries. His breathing shortens. The gentle burn washes over him: fear. He struggles in vain to combat the thought, Will today be my last?

Since a child he has read, “When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 20:1). Now, in war, God didn’t feel as near as the soldier imagined as a child. Visions of glory are giving way to heat and stench and hoards growing fiercer under a blinding sun. He blinks back lightheadedness.

The enemy’s taunts grow louder as the cobra smiles at the mouse. Secret doubts begin to unman him. Even if the battle is ours, he reconsiders, the promise doesn’t ensure that I will live to share its victory.

A distant figure approaches. The men gather. The priest of God speaks to the soldiers,

Hear, O Israel, today you are drawing near for battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, for the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory. (Deuteronomy 20:3–4)

To his dismay, this word does not shake his mounting suspicions of dying a horrible death. What if God does not show up and fight with Israel?

Next, an officer’s voice barks,

Is there any man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it. (Deuteronomy 20:5)

He has no new house to dedicate.

The officer continues,

And is there any man who has planted a vineyard and has not enjoyed its fruit? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man enjoy its fruit.
(Deuteronomy 20:6)

Never did our soldier envy those with new vineyards like now.

And is there any man who has betrothed a wife and has not taken her? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man take her. (Deuteronomy 20:7)

He had been married for years.

Three groups of men turn from battle — he remains — with less horses, and less chariots, and less fellow soldiers than before. What little courage remained rides off with them.

His heartbeat drums in his ears, nearly drowning out the officer’s last word:

Is there any man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go back to his house, lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own. (Deuteronomy 20:8)

He hates himself for sighing. His heart calms, his legs regain feeling. As his breathing settles and the army fades behind his back, he comforts his questioning conscience, At least I’ll live to see tomorrow.

Seeing Tomorrow

The real-life scene illustrates cowardice in ancient Israel that still plagues professing Christian men today — a fear that keeps them from mission and manly conviction. Soldiers today turn away from battle before Philistines who won’t slash throats as much as gossip about them. For centuries, many have feared the flaming stake and hungry lion; today, we fear the shaking head and disinvitation to the friend group.

Why be too salty in a bland world, they reason, shine too brightly in this cave full of bats? Why go forth and risk the awkward silence, the chill of disapproval, the loss of this world and all its comforts? Rubber bullets suffice on their sins, and they see no need to cause a disturbance. These too say under their breath — albeit it, metaphorically — “At least I’ll live to see tomorrow.”

I believe that this scene of Israelite warfare and the exemptions God provides has something to teach us about God, cowardice, and ourselves.

Exemptions of Grace

First, it is noteworthy that God made special exemptions from military service for four groups of men. The first three pairs go together: Those who have not enjoyed their house, the fruit of their vineyard, or the love of their wife.

These three exceptions prevent the Israelite man from experiencing the covenant curses, which read, “You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall ravish her. You shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it. You shall plant a vineyard, but you shall not enjoy its fruit” (Deuteronomy 28:30).

In this, the Israelite was to learn about his gracious General. The God of Israel was no Pharoah, whipping his soldiers into compliance. He cared for his men. None would go forth to battle who had untasted joys at home. Each exemption spared from the curse and ensured each knew blessing (Isaiah 65:21–22). Israel’s soldiers had households growing with family, friends, and feasting, before the possibility of dying on the battlefield arose. They had something at home to defend.

Men of Melting Hearts

But a fourth provision is given, separate from the other three: one for those of melting hearts. Though God commands over and over to his men, “Do not be afraid, for I am with you to fight for you,” these weaker souls cannot be comforted. Their hearts tremble within; their sweat beads without. They do not yet trust the God of their fathers with so much on the line. They consent to a release of duty, turn their backs on their brothers, and ride away to soft beds and supple securities.

In Israel’s history, such men went home by the thousands. When Gideon approached his army with a similar proposition — “Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home and hurry away from Mount Gilead” — we read, “Then 22,000 of the people returned, and 10,000 remained” (Judges 7:3). For every man that stood fast, two of his intimidated brothers turned and hurried home.

God Fights One-Handed

What can we learn from this surprising provision to the cowardly?

First, we learn what Moses previously said, “The Lord (Yahweh) is a man of war; the Lord (Yahweh) is his name” (Exodus 15:3). The supreme Man of War needs no help from men. Moses saw God singlehandedly bring the world’s greatest power to its knees without one human warrior. Other armies and other gods fed men to war — searching the highways and byways for any able-bodied man, setting soldiers behind the army to kill deserters — our God needs no big army or many chariots or terrified soldiers to conquer his foes. Our God puts himself at disadvantage but is never at disadvantage.

“Our God puts himself at disadvantage but is never at disadvantage.”

And he does so to humble his people. The Lord dismisses 22,000, reasoning to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me’” (Judges 7:2). He ties one arm behind his back, so to speak, and topples gods and nations to prove, “Yahweh your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory” (Deuteronomy 20:4). The weakness of our God, ever since the beginning, is stronger than men (1 Corinthians 1:25).

Contagion of Cowardice

Second, though, we see that cowardice is a sickness that calls for quarantine.

Is there any man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go back to his house, lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own. (Deuteronomy 20:8)

Warfare in ancient Israel was a contest of faith. A man before the swarming foe quickly discovers what he truly believes. Are the unseen promises, and presence, of his God real? Before a massive army, the soldier meant something different when he called texts “life-verses.”

“A man before the swarming foe quickly discovers what he truly believes.”

These men heard God speak through his priest: “Let not your heart faint. Be not afraid. Tremble not nor succumb to terror. Yahweh himself goes out with you. He fights with you. He will save you.”

But this does too little for the unbelieving man. He does not trust that his King is with him. And notice: his unwarlike spirit disheartens his brothers. His cowardice is contagious. His questions make others question. His hesitations cause more to hesitate. His timidity rusts blades beside him. His long journey home is better for the army as the leper dwelling outside the camp spared the rest. Israel’s forces were stronger without panicked soldiers.

Word to Collapsing Hearts

So how shall we profit from this word to ancient Israel?

A word to those men with melting hearts today (and a reminder to our own hearts in the process): To those who would swallow their tongues, who blush for God and his gospel, who have no stomach for conflict — whether in confronting untruth or killing their own sin, who hold no faith that God can yet bring about the unlikely victory, to those who count their lives more dear than their King’s cause, who prize this world above the next, who roar behind avatars and whimper in person, who mumble at Christ’s promises and who are ready to fight when society is on their side

but shrink when devils and Philistines draw swords against their Master — to you it might be said, sheath your sword and go home.

God Almighty does not need your half-hearted, quaking service. He is never at a disadvantage. We wish you to find your valor, your faith in our conquering Captain, and remain among us — it would be your great privilege to do so. We wish to see a lionhearted trust in our God. We would find new strength rising in us to hear you respond as Leonidas’s general did when the countless enemy threatened to shoot enough arrows to block out the sun: “Then we shall have our battle in the shade!”

We wish you would stand firm as God’s men and believe, “Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, for Yahweh your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you victory.” We welcome you, desire your assistance, call you to entrust yourself to a trustworthy Savior and live for him — but if you will not have him decidedly as General, we cannot have you.

The cowardice of only ten spies soon proved so contagious, as to keep a whole nation from a victory they were “well able” to achieve (Numbers 13:30). You, in their lineage, unwittingly discourage God’s people and dampen his cause. Go home until God gives you a certain heart to venture on in his promises. But do not do so lightly. Buying a new field, purchasing new oxen, marrying a new bride, or being afraid will not discharge anyone from accepting and following Christ (Luke 14:16–24).

A courageous heart we earnestly pray for you since “cowards” will not finally inherit eternal life. “Do not fear what you are about to suffer,” Jesus charges his army in the vision at Patmos,

Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. (Revelation 2:10)

Our generation is disconnected, not merely from one another but from the past. How many of us know our great-grandfathers’ names? Our great-great-grandfathers? We perch ourselves on the highest branch in the family tree and tend to be unconcerned with that below. Our gaze is upwards. Functionally, we are the great-grandsons and granddaughters of no one — physically or spiritually. We wander the world, rootless.

Because of it, we struggle with more sin than we should, have smaller faith than we might, blow in the cultural winds more than we would, and shrink back before opposition more than we ought. We do not keep before us of what people we come, and this hinders our endurance traveling home.

Or so thought the author of Hebrews.

To a church that started off so well but now limped dangerously along, he rides his horse up and down the frontline with a foreign war cry to Western ears: “We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls” (Hebrews 10:39).

Bloodline as Battle Cry

Instead of writing, “You got this!” Hebrews roots them in a family history of those who, by faith, had already done it. The “Hall of Faith” is not a list of demigods who did what we cannot. They are forefathers and foremothers, painfully human and made strong in God, and their stories are recorded to motivate us toward the same perseverance.

Hebrews asks us if we remember how, by faith, Noah prepared the ark, or Abel offered an acceptable sacrifice to God, or Abraham went out, not knowing where he was going — and implies, You, in reliance upon the same God, can do likewise. Or, do you recall Sarah, who believed God’s word and conceived a child, or Moses, who by faith esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt? This is your lineage — these are your people. You, if you are a Christian, are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who live by unseen realities and preserve their souls.

He concludes the brief tour of theirs and our spiritual family history,

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1–2)

Because these are our family members, because they surround us as we run, let us lay aside weights and sin and run with endurance looking to Jesus. Do you read the Old Testament this way?

Family of Faithful Witnesses

Such an experience should greet us every time we open our Bibles, whether in front or in back. Sixty-six books, Old and New, introduce us to spiritual fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters who stumbled as we do, but who finally conquered by faith as we hope to. We turn page after page and watch how they finished their race, how they kept the faith, how they overcame temptation, repented their failings, trusted, hoped for, and hungered for God in their trials and sufferings. Their lives captured in Scripture to encourage us — their spiritual descendants — to run, without reserve, as the King’s people to the King himself. In other words, we press on today because of both whom we come from and whom lies before us.

Do we think of the redeemed men and women this way? Job, Moses, Abraham, Sarah, David, Elijah, Rehab, Ruth, Jeremiah, Joshua, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego, Gideon, Hezekiah, Josiah — as family. If you serve the Living God, your God is the God of John, Paul, Andrew, Mary, Barnabas, the thief on the cross, Peter, Lazarus, the man born blind, Apollos, Timothy, Thomas, Pricilla and Aquilla, the formerly demon-possessed girl, the Philippian jailer, Cornelius, Philemon, Jude, James, Elizabeth — and on and on — each with different examples of Christ’s power to keep us by resilient faith.

We join this family of audacious ancestors through union to our brother, Jesus. “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham” (Galatians 3:7), and, “if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29). Even if we suffer the loss of earthly ties because of allegiances to Christ, each of us has inherited a hundredfold — mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers along with eternal life in Christ (Matthew 19:29). For so goes the promise to our father Abraham, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them. . . . So shall your offspring be” (Genesis 15:5).

Not of Those Who Shrink Back

Do not miss that this spiritual family is a holy family; like Father, like sons. Our family believes and lives and acts from belief in God and his promises. And this, the author of Hebrews thinks, is vital for us to consider.

So do you struggle with the glittering things of this world? Reintroduce yourself to your great uncle, Moses, who considered the reproaches of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt (Hebrews 11:26).

Does a Potiphar’s wife tempt you to an adulterous affair? Count yourself a descendant of Joseph who, by faith, fled, exclaiming, “How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9).

Do you feel God calling you to the great unknown? Remember Abraham. Do the promises of God feel inconceivable? Remember the story of Sarah. Do you feel pressure from an ungodly family to forsake Christ? Consider Rehab who, by faith, received the Israelite spies (Hebrews 11:31).

Does your confidence waver concerning whether God can overcome this present darkness? Consider afresh that kingdoms bowed, mouths of lions shut, justice reigned, fires quenched, children resurrected, swords broke, that the weak through faith were made strong, the fainting grew valiant, foreign armies fled, and leave instructions with Joseph that your bones` be buried in a land yet unconquered (Hebrews 11:22, 33–35).

And do you fear persecution might one day overwhelm your faith? Don’t forget your family members “of whom the world was not worthy” (Hebrews 11:38). These wandered the world as outcasts, waded through mocking, whippings, imprisonment, and brutal deaths, by faith, awaiting the resurrection of the dead (Hebrews 11:35–38).

Are you growing tired or neglectful or sluggish of hearing? God does not leave you to yourself as a lone twig to figure it out. He gives you a tree of Lebanon to belong to. Relearn your great grandfathers’ and grandmothers’ names. As you look fully to Christ, remember that “we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.”

A line in the book of Job detained me: “The thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me” (Job 3:25). The chief fear arrived. The one that kept him up at night found him. The worst to visit his imagination befell him.

As a result, he welcomes death, but it tarries. He sighs and moans in anguish, cursing the day of his birth (Job 3:1). Arrows from the Almighty sink into him; his spirit drinks their poison (Job 6:4). He finds no rest in the rubble (Job 7:4). His eyes search and see no good (Job 7:7). He loathes his life, and is glad not to live forever (Job 7:16).

Few things in life can lay us this low.

I imagine the dread that caught him was the death of his ten children. Of the few glimpses of him before his misery, we see his fatherly concern for them, continually offering sacrifices on their behalf. “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts” (Job 1:5).

Perhaps he feared that he cared more about their sin than they did. Perhaps he now lay buried beneath sorrow because they very possibly died in unbelief. Regardless, this father of ten lost all his children in one day, and this horror strangled his will to go on.

In a World of Threat

What do you dread? What would have to happen for you to say, “What I have feared has come upon me”? Having your mother die of cancer? Never finding a spouse? Discovering your wife has committed adultery? Seeing your parents get divorced? Hearing the specialist say that your child will not have a normal life? Witnessing a child die apart from Christ?

Fears that I did not know as a single man have crept upon me: losing my wife, or one of our children. As a family man, I realize how much more vulnerable I am to new depths of pain. The drawbridge of my heart has lowered; calamities and despair have more inroads now.

“The line between my life and Job’s rests upon a spider’s web.”

The line between my life and Job’s rests upon a spider’s web. The worst case can arrive in countless ways. Car accidents, disease, a fall, a crash, a swallow, a moment’s lapse in judgment. Chaldeans do not need to raid and destroy; violent winds do not need to collapse the house to make me know Job’s anguish. A run into the street, a doctor’s phone call, a fall from the slide, a toy in the mouth can bring my world down — at any moment, in any place, by nearly any means.

Paralyzed with Peril

Before Job lived in a world of sorrow, he lived in the world of what if. . . “The thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me” (Job 3:25). He dreaded before it came, feared before it actualized.

I do not wish to usher you into this world if you’ve never thought this way. But I know people who live in this world, one I am tempted to frequent more than before. A world where catastrophe lurks; a world that envelopes like quicksand: If I can just envision how my life could crumble, I think, maybe I prevent it, or at least inoculate myself against some of the sorrow.

The story of Job teaches us that neither works.

As he sits, cutting his boils with shards of pottery, his anguish reminds us that no degree of dread beforehand can avert our greatest fears. And imagining them beforehand does not ease the pain should they arrive. The anxiety, the fret, the darting eyes to and fro cannot do as we often hope. As Jesus asked, “Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” (Matthew 6:27) — or, he might add, to the lives of those we love?

Help for Panicked Hearts

How are we to go on living in a world where risks threaten us at every turn? I have found three answers from C.S. Lewis helpful to navigate through this dangerous and unpredictable world.

Writing amidst World War II — in a time when explosions demolished cities and citizens knew any day could be their last — C.S. Lewis answers the question, “How are we to live in an atomic age?”

Just as Your Ancestors Lived

Lewis begins,

“How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents. In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation.” (Essay Collection & Other Short Pieces, 361)

The first point in Lewis’s response is that we must not imagine that our situation is new. Horse-drawn carriages could be fatal, just as cars and buses can now. World pandemics are nothing new (and comparatively, we have been spared the severest plagues thus far). Worst-case scenarios struck then as they do today. The world has been menacing since the first day out of Eden.

This does not draw out all the venom, but it does take some of the isolation out of it. If we come to weep, we know that we join many already weeping. Other mothers have lost their precious sons, other husbands have lost wondrous wives. We are not alone. Peter reminds hurting Christians of this, writing: “Resist [Satan], firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world” (1 Peter 5:9). Your situation, though collapsing, is not singular to you.

Knowing Death Is Certain

In the second place, he reminds us what we all know but often don’t consider (especially in the West): Death, whenever it comes, will come.

Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors — anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty. (Ibid.)

Against all naturalistic explanations to the contrary, men die because men have sinned. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). The result of our sins, our greatest terror, will strike. Sin, not fate, tucks us in the grave. Iniquity digs our plots and gives our eulogy. As part of Adam’s lineage, we die.

Bad things are certain to come to us as Christians. The Bible never shies away from the fact. We are “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:17). Fiery trials ought not surprise us (1 Peter 4:12). We are destined for affliction (1 Thessalonians 3:3). After Paul gets stoned so brutally that his attackers leave him for dead, he gets right back up and returns to the city, bruised and bloodied, “strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).

Bad things are certain in this life, but we take heart, for the next life is also certain. In Christ we know that neither life nor death, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:37).

With Minds Set on Living

The third point Lewis makes is that we must not stop living, even in a world where so much has, can, and will go wrong.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things — praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts — not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds. (Ibid.)

“We must not stop living, even in a world where so much has, can, and will go wrong.”

If atomic bombs or Chaldeans or tornados or illness or accidents or injury or our worst-case scenario finds us, let it find us living — not curled up in a ball in the corner. Lewis called it “sensible human things.” Let calamity find us, if our all-wise Father deems it “necessary” (1 Peter 1:6), fully alive brimming with hope in God and love for people.

What we most fear may find us — whether we worry about it or not. But as Christians, we need not be anxious about our lives or obsess over every possible calamity. Our dread does not match the world’s dread (Isaiah 8:12–13); rather, we fear God and trust him. We live our lives in atomic ages — or any other — entrusting ourselves to a faithful Creator while doing good, testifying,

Through many dangers, toils, and snares,I have already come;‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,And grace will lead me home.

The secret to happiness, some have wisely said, is to want what you already have.

How many of us can truly say with C.S. Lewis’s character in Shadowlands, “You know, I don’t want to be somewhere else anymore. I’m not waiting for anything new to happen . . . not looking around the next corner and over the next hill. I’m here now. That’s enough.”

Instead, unhappiness finds us wanting a life we don’t have. If this, this, and this happens, then I’ll be content. The easiest loves are the ones we don’t have. Our neighbor’s grass grows greener as we keep staring at it. If our desires could remain on our own property, we would be happier. We would better love the life we have.

This secret to happiness is not a new one. Centuries ago, puritan Jeremiah Burroughs (1599–1646) wrote in The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment that “A Christian comes to contentment, not so much by way of addition, as by way of subtraction” (45). He meant that the Christian achieves happiness not by adding more to life to satisfy his gaping desires, but instead by subtracting from his desires, bringing them down to the situation God has placed him.

Paul practiced this when he sought to curb young Timothy’s desires for money, reasoning that we come into the world and leave it with nothing and that many have apostatized by this love. The apostle gives us a window into his own happiness, saying, “If we have food and clothing, with these we will be content” (1 Timothy 6:8). With just the basics of what we need for an adequate human existence, Paul will find what many kings with lavish palaces could not: contentment.

You Shall Not Covet

Long before Burroughs, the great Architect of man’s happiness wove this happiness principle into creation itself. He etched instructions for his creatures’ gladness in stone, saying, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:17). In other words, keep your desires at home, want what you have, not what your neighbor has.

And he reiterates this word to the Church, yet adds something we cannot afford to miss. The writer of Hebrews begins with the command,

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have.” (Hebrews 13:5–6)

Here again, want what you already have. Don’t slave to make your bank account rise to match your desires, but bring your desires down to match what God has put in your bank account. He reminds us that the answer to happiness is not bigger and better, but simpler and more grateful. “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have.”

Be Content with Who You Have

But the verse continues:

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)

You might need to read the verse again. Did you see the shift?

God changes the focus for the Christian from what he has, to who he has. God tells us to do more than match our desires to our circumstances; we reconsider our circumstances based on the promise of enduring relationship with our God: I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Dissatisfaction has a voice. You should have that car. . . . You would be happy with his job or her husband. . . . If only you made double what you make now. . . . To this internal proposal, God means to add his own voice: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

When discontent suggests, Your current job is okay, but you would be happier to have one that grants more recognition. . . .

God says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Your car does fine, but imagine how you would look if you had that one. . . .

“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

This church is technically faithful, but the pastor could be more entertaining — and the children’s program . . . .

“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Why don’t I have a husband or children like she has?

“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

When we hear temptations to desire more and better, which voice do we listen to?

Shallow Wells

Now, getting a new job, a new car, or even a new church — or longing to be married and have children — these are not the issue. The issue is the internal restlessness and misguided search that leads us to climb from hill to hill expecting happiness just atop the next one. As we ascend the hill called “prestigious career,” or “beautiful wife,” or “bigger house,” we keep climbing, keep mumbling, keep searching for what we haven’t found.

“God gives himself as the grand punctuation to end our search for more.”

And while the world, the flesh, and the devil tempt us to chase and chase, God offers himself as the end of our satisfaction. He gives himself as the grand punctuation to end our search for more. Wonder of wonders, God does not merely say to his child, “The secret to happiness is to want what you already have.” He says, “The secret to happiness is to want what you already have in me.”

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,” Jesus promises, “but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again” (John 4:13–14). The only search that remains is to go deeper in communion with him.

All We Could Want

As sons and daughters of Adam, we ache under the dim memory of a forgotten past. A time when man walked with God, communing with him in perfect fellowship. Of gardens full of fruit, of a mission bestowing purpose, of pleasure and delight and satisfaction — none more than in the King of that realm.

“God says, ‘The secret to happiness is to want what you already have in me.’”

And though we have exchanged such knowledge and such glory for mere trifles of earth, for a life elsewhere, it has not worked. We look this way and that in vain for the kind of happiness our sin and Satan promised. In such condition it is not enough to scale back our desires to our circumstances. The darkness, the thirst, the sense of something else, the lost stare out the window will not subside on their own.

Jesus himself must be the Vine to withering branches, Living Water to parched places, Bread of Life to starving souls, Resurrection to lifeless bodies, the Way to lost wanderers, the Truth to deceived minds, the Shepherd for missing sheep, our Light in this present darkness. The secret to happiness is to be in union with this Christ, forgiven by this Christ, welcomed and forever belonging to God in this Christ. A Christ who promises that he will never leave us nor forsake us nor ever tire of being all we could ever want.