Ten years ago, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2012, could you have predicted where we would be on Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2022? Some surely foresaw a number of our present sorrows. But who could have foreseen Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown, and Charlottesville, and Confederate-monument debates, and Trump, and national-anthem kneeling, and George Floyd, and the outrage of 2020 — to name just a few of many tragedies and controversies? And who could have imagined that the events of these ten years would so severely tear the fabric of our Reformed world?

Even by 2017, John Piper could mourn the “improbable constellation of [racial] sorrows” unknown in 2012. The last five years have only added to the improbable constellation, splintering a once-unified Reformed evangelicalism into groups that often struggle not only to partner with one another but even to understand each other.

And that struggle to even understand touches on one of the many dysfunctions beneath our divisions: in our thinking and talking about race in recent years, many of us have failed to engage the issues and one another Christianly. Many conversations, especially online, have savored less of Solomonic wisdom and more of political savvy (no matter how apolitical we may feel otherwise). Too easily, many of us have adopted and advocated for positions not because we have thought through them carefully, prayerfully, with open Bibles and in thoughtful dialogue with Christians who think differently, but simply because these positions are not what the other side holds (whoever the other side may be).

The dysfunction would be easier to brush aside if it characterized only the most extreme among us, the most militantly “woke” and most virulently “anti-woke.” But too often, such a dynamic has characterized my own thought and talk. Even those who generally strive for patience and fair-mindedness are falling into these ditches. With a topic as fraught as race in the American church, almost everyone has an “other side,” a group whose thoughts and sentiments feel not only troublesome but threatening — and therefore a group we struggle to hear, much less learn from.

Healing such dysfunctional engagement would not heal all our divisions, not by a long shot. But it may soften our various prejudices, nurture deeper understanding, and (on the micro scale if not the macro) lead us toward a less fragile unity. Or, if nothing else, we may simply become better at talking when the temperature rises over other tense issues.

Talking in the Boxing Ring

In many ways, the deck of the last decade was stacked against Christian habits of thought and talk. Even as we faced the constellation of sorrows, information overload accelerated, social media colonized public discourse, and our society’s typical partisanship seemed to swallow steroids. Often, the context of our conversations has felt less like a living room and more like a boxing ring. And it’s hard to engage as Christians when the rules of the game are punch or be punched.

Many of us have learned to think and talk on the surface of things. Once, a phrase like systemic racism offered an invitation to ask, “What do you mean by that?” and then consider whether the description fits biblical and experiential reality. But our communicative climate rarely encourages such engagement. Now, systemic racism has become a badge for a particular team — one that, depending on your side, either cannot be questioned or cannot be considered. The phrase (and more like it) no longer spurs thought, but replaces thought. Meanwhile, we fall deeper into our own silos, less able to hear truths that might counterbalance our perspectives. We learn to parrot whatever voices are loudest or most immediately persuasive, and parroting, by nature, inevitably leads to partisanship and polarization.

The danger for many Christians is not that we will disown manifest biblical concerns, but that we will so underemphasize some biblical concerns (that is, the other side’s) that they become functionally denied in our theology and practice. Where we now stand, some of us don’t want to talk anymore about God’s care for the oppressed (Exodus 22:21–24; Psalm 103:6); others no longer want to discuss the necessity of due process (Deuteronomy 19:15; Matthew 18:16). Some are nervous about acknowledging the prejudice that power can bring (Deuteronomy 16:18–20); others are wary of admitting the fallibility of wounded feelings (Proverbs 18:17). Some are slower to condemn American slavery and Jim Crow (1 Timothy 1:10; James 2:1–7); others are slower to denounce the unjustly disproportionate black-abortion rate (Psalm 139:13–16).

In each case, however, the balance and emphasis of Scripture is no longer setting our theological and ethical agenda. The other side is.

Four Postures for Christian Conversation

On one level, we cannot help but think and talk from our subjective perspectives. But by God’s grace, we can avoid thinking and talking more like political people than Christian people. We can unlearn the reflexes and rhetoric of the city of man. And to that end, we can pursue four Christian postures for thinking and talking about race (or any contentious subject), adapted from the framework creation-fall-redemption-restoration.

Embodied

To be human is to be wonderfully and inescapably embodied, a creature among creatures in God’s physical world. Most of our communication technologies, however, treat us as an avatar among avatars in man’s ethereal world. And much of the time, an avatar thinks and talks differently from a creature.

Martin Luther King, looking upon Southern segregation, once observed, “Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they do not know each other; they do not know each other because they cannot communicate; they cannot communicate because they are separated” (Free at Last?, 68).

Today, of course, we actually can communicate in real time while separated. But to King, our technological talk would hardly look like the kind of communication he had in mind — the kind that erases ignorance, eases fears, and melts hatred. To him, our social media platforms may seem more like anti-communication technologies.

When we take our complex racial conversations onto social media, we take them into an environment that forces three-dimensional topics into a two-dimensional mold, that rewards slander and belligerence, and that (contrary to James’s counsel) teaches us to be slow to hear, quick to speak, and quick to anger (James 1:19). Image-bearers become little more than “mouthpieces of positions we want to eradicate,” as Alan Jacobs puts it (How to Think, 98). And eradicate we try.

I know proximity is a buzzword in some circles. Even still, nothing has mitigated my own tendency toward unthinking aversion of “the other side” more than looking some of the other side in the face. Something changes when your ideological opponents are no longer two-dimensional representatives of a barbarous idea, but instead living, feeling, speaking beings — and perhaps even friends.

Fallen

The doctrine of the fall has not experienced the same neglect that the doctrine of creation has in recent years. Few doctrines have been so universally emphasized, even among non-Christians, than the fall of humanity. But too often, the emphasis has landed on the fall of other humans, of those humans over there.

“A pattern of hurling blame usually reveals more of our own fallenness than of the people we accuse.”

Ironically, a pattern of hurling blame usually reveals more of our own fallenness than of the people we accuse. Few instincts are less Christian and more devilish than turning the blade of God’s word against everyone’s sins but our own (Zechariah 3:1; Revelation 12:10). The doctrine of the fall, rightly grasped, does not put a spotlight in our hand so we can expose the sins of others; it reveals the spotlight in God’s hand, exposing us all (Hebrews 4:13).

Of course, to say “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23) is not to say all have sinned in the same way or to the same degree. And so, in conversations about race, we need not assume the same kind or same level of guilt on all sides. Some of us have more reason than others to suspect ourselves.

But all of us have some reason to suspect ourselves. Given all that God has said about sin, it would be astonishing indeed if anyone in these conversations had nothing to learn and, from time to time, no fault to confess. God’s regenerating work does not make fallen people flawless people. Therefore, we exercise not false humility but biblical realism when we enter most conversations assuming we don’t see everything clearly and that this other human, ideological opponent or not, has some truth to shine on us.

Redeemed

If the fall means we should expect to find our ignorance and sin exposed in conversations about race, redemption means we can. Those who wear the robe of righteousness can bear to see the stains beneath (Isaiah 61:10). Those who hear God’s pardoning voice can handle his reproofs (Hebrews 12:5–6). Those forgiven of much can go ahead and weep their repentance in public (Luke 7:36–50). If the fall compels us to suspect ourselves, redemption frees us to reveal ourselves: we are unafraid to be seen as the sinners we are.

“Every Christian conversation about race happens beside the spilled blood, torn flesh, and cursed cross of Jesus.”

We can easily feel like conversations about race happen beside the cliff edge of condemnation, with an admission of fault casting us over. But no: every Christian conversation about race happens beside the spilled blood, torn flesh, and cursed cross of Jesus (Ephesians 2:13–16). And all our guilt casts us onto him who preached peace to Jew and Gentile, privileged and oppressed, and whose gospel speaks a stronger word than all our racial sins (Ephesians 2:17–18).

Many of us would do well to briefly pause during tense interactions and remind ourselves of Psalm 130:4: “With you there is forgiveness.” With God there is forgiveness, even when there is none with man. A new humility may come from embracing such a promise. And humility has a way of opening doors for understanding that self-righteousness never can.

United

Through redemption, Jesus has united us — to himself, first and foremost, but also to all others in him, no matter how differently they understand race in America. And so, whatever team or tribe we affiliate with for practical purposes, let it never be forgotten that our true team and tribe reaches far as redemption is found.

What might happen if we began to identify more deeply with the whole church of Jesus Christ than with our particular pew? We might renounce the old Corinthian folly of finishing the sentence “I follow . . .” with any name other than Jesus (1 Corinthians 3:4). We might recover the true sense of the word prophetic and gain courage to reprove our own friends. We might find new freedom in pursuit of truth, knowing that a genuine win for “the other side” is a win for us all. We might live up to our identity as sons of a peacemaking Father (Matthew 5:9).

Joining the Needlessly Divided

The road of racial harmony still stretches far ahead of us — in our friendships and churches, in our denominations and broader networks. And if the last ten years have taught us anything, they have taught us that no one can really know where we’ll be a decade from now. But oh that John Wesley’s praise for John Newton might rest upon many in that day:

You appear to be designed by Divine Providence for an healer of breaches, a reconciler of honest but prejudiced men, and an uniter (happy work!) of the children of God that are needlessly divided from each other.

Such healers of breaches will not arise from the knee-jerk opposition that has become so common. They will carry the hope that “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3) forms a stronger tie than the unity of political party, cultural similarity, or any ideological kinship. They will arise from the ground of Christian thought and Christian talk — embodied, fallen, redeemed, united.

Audio Transcript

Good Monday morning, everyone. We start this new week talking about gambling, and not for the first time. Of course, Pastor John, we have a handful of helpful episodes on this theme already in the podcast archive. Elsewhere, you’ve talked about how lotteries prey on the poor. That’s a point you made in a 2016 article titled “Seven Reasons Not to Play the Lottery.” Reason number five was that it preys on the poor. You made the point, but only briefly. I want to dwell on this point here on the podcast. How does the lottery prey on the poor? And why we should care that it does?

Let me begin with a few observations taken from various studies. First, just a quotation from that article that you mentioned that I wrote on this some time ago. I said that the lottery supports and encourages “a corrosive addiction that preys upon the greed and hopeless dreams of those entrapped in poverty.” Then I gave this example: “Those earning $13,000 or less spend an astounding 9 percent of their income on lottery tickets.” Now, that was a statistic from maybe six years ago or so.

Here are a few more recent things. People who make less than $10,000 a year spend on average $597 on lottery tickets — that’s 6 percent of their income. Another observation is that the odds of winning a state Powerball lottery are considerably less than being struck by lightning. For example, the odds of winning the January 21 Powerball drawing in Tennessee was 1 in 292.2 million, while the odds of a lightning strike death hover in the 1-in-2.3-million area.

Pull-Tabs and Scratch Games

So, it’s a pretty weak possibility to say the least, but let’s clarify what we’re talking about. We’re not just talking about Powerball with its million-dollar payout. There are many different kinds of public gambling, lotteries, some far more destructive for the poor than others. Lotto America, Mega Millions, Lucky for Life, Instaplay, pull-tabs, scratch games — all of these created by governments to help pay the bills.

So when we think of how the poor spend money on public lotteries, we must not just think about Powerball. In fact, even poor people recognize that the chances of winning millions are so remote that that’s really not the main draw. That’s not where poor people are spending their money.

The main draw is pull-tabs and scratch games. You buy a ticket — so you can go online and just type in “Scratch Games Minnesota” and find what the offerings are. In Minnesota, the $1 ticket that you can buy online or at the gas station is called Rake It In. That’s the name of the ticket for $1. You scratch it off and you’ll know immediately if you’ve won, and the payouts are like $1, or $10, or $50, or right up to $5,000.

So, in Minnesota, the extent for the scratch-offs are from $1 all the way up to $5,000. These kinds of games are less attractive to middle-class people and upper-class people because adding $10, or $100 dollars even, to your bank account really doesn’t make that much difference to a middle-class person. But to a poor person — $10, $100, or $500 — that’s like a windfall. Therefore, the more frequent payout and the greater the likelihood of winning draws in disproportionately more poor people for these kinds of games than for, say, the big Powerball payout.

53 Cents to the Dollar

The poorest one-third of American households purchase one-half of the lottery tickets. The lowest one-fifth of earners in America have the highest percentage of lottery players. One study showed that the introduction of scratch-offs grew three times faster in poor areas than in others.

“The lottery did not become a million-dollar industry due to its large output of winners.”

But study after study has shown that, across the board, players lose on average 47 cents for every dollar. Or to say it another way, what you purchase, on average, when you spend a dollar on the lottery is 53 cents. And of course, that statistic is highly misleading because, to arrive at that average of millions of people investing, you overlook the fact that millions of those people got exactly nothing. To bring the average up to getting back 53 cents on your dollar, you have to reckon that some people have won a million dollars — a very, very few people. So it’s a truism to say the lottery did not become a million-dollar industry due to its large output of winners. That’s not the way it works.

It’s true that states have created lotteries to help pay for social services that aim at benefiting everyone, but there are ironies. Most states allocate some of the lottery income to providing services for gambling addiction, and some try to provide a good kind of education, which creates, supposedly, habits of mind and heart that are the opposite of the habits they exploit by the lottery itself. Very ironic. Addictive behaviors are more common among the poor, and living by immediate rather than deferred gratification is more common among the poor. Publicly funded gambling feeds these kinds of habits, which are destructive to people’s lives.

Regressive Tax

Now, for all these reasons, the lottery has regularly been called a regressive tax on the poor. Here’s what that means: it’s a way of luring the poor, who pay almost no taxes for social services, to pay a kind of tax in a way that worsens their situation rather than making it better, which is what taxes are supposed to do. They’re supposed to make life better for us, so this is a regressive tax in the sense that it may make life worse for the poor rather than better. Now, it would be easy to sarcastically say, “Well no, actually it’s not a tax on the poor — it’s a tax on the stupid.” I know there are a lot of people who think that way about the poor, as if the only factor in making a person poor is all their bad habits, or they might say stupid habits.

And of course, it’s true. Personal responsibility and the failure to act with righteousness, integrity, and dependence on God through grace, through patience, and through trust in Jesus Christ is a huge factor in why many people are poor. But there are many other factors as to why, say, a widow might be stuck economically — earning $20,000 a year working full time, and spending half her income on her apartment, and unable to afford a car, and facing physical and mental challenges few people know about that make advancement for her, of any kind, unlikely. There are more factors.

“When you already feel hopeless, then arguments against gambling lose most of their force.”

The number-one reason why people in such seemingly hopeless situations purchase scratch-offs is because things already look so hopeless for improvement that the so-called “stupidity” of wasting this dollar won’t really make anything worse. So why not try? That’s, I think, basically the mindset that drives most of the purchases: a sense of hopelessness. It’s not going to make things worse because there’s no hope that they could get better. And when you already feel hopeless, then arguments against gambling lose most of their force.

Consider the Poor

Now, from a biblical and Christian point of view, then, I don’t think we are the least bit encouraged by God’s word to stand aloof and roll our eyes at the stupidity of millions of dollars that roll into the state coffers from people who can barely pay their bills. I don’t think that is basically a Christian standpoint. When I read my Bible, I see a different disposition — a different heart, a different mind. For example,

“Blessed is the one and who considers the poor! In the day of trouble the Lord delivers him” (Psalm 41:1).
“Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker; he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished” (Proverbs 17:5).
“Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him” (Proverbs 14:31).
“Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy” (Proverbs 31:9).
“He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap” (Psalm 113:7).

So, I think the upshot of all of this for Christians is that we should disapprove of and resist every form of gambling. I’ve written about that elsewhere. We’ve talked about that on APJ on several occasions. Just gambling itself is a major biblical problem. So, I think we should resist all forms of gambling, all forms of lottery, which fly in the face of how God intends for his creatures to use the resources he has entrusted to us. You don’t gamble with somebody else’s money. It’s all God’s, and we wittingly or unwittingly prey upon the vulnerabilities of the poor, and we should resist that kind of institution.

Instead, we should give our thinking, and praying, and advocating, and investing, and planning toward the removal of unnecessary barriers to productive work and gainful employment among the poor, the removal of incentives and allurements toward waste and squandering and irresponsibility, and instead seek to put in place encouragements toward deferred gratification, and finally, the creation of responsibility and hope, especially through the gospel in people’s lives.

How do works of obedience relate to the free, unmerited gift of God’s grace in the life of a Christian? This has been a recurring controversial and confusing issue since the earliest days of the church.

If we are justified by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ’s sufficient substitutionary work alone, and not by any work of ours (Romans 3:8), then why are we warned and instructed to “strive . . . for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14)? If our works don’t save us, then how can our not working (like not striving for holiness) prevent us from being saved?

Before we turn to the apostle Peter for help, hear a parable of an unhealthy soul.

Diligence Reveals Real Faith

There was a man who was forty pounds overweight. Despite knowing it was dangerous to his health, for years he had indulged in too much of the wrong kinds of foods and neglected the right kinds of exercise.

One day, his doctor told him he was in the early stages of developing type-2 diabetes. Not only that, but his vital signs also pointed to high risks of heart attack, stroke, and various cancers. If he didn’t make specific changes, his doctor warned, the man would surely die prematurely.

So, the man heeded his doctor’s warnings. He made every effort to put new systems into place that encouraged healthy habits of eating and activity and discouraged his harmful old habits, preferences, and cravings. After twelve months, the man’s health was beginning to be transformed. He had lost most of his excess weight, felt better, had more energy, and no longer lived under the chronic, depressing cloud of knowing he was living in harmful self-indulgence. When his doctor next saw him, he was very pleased and said to the man, “Well done! You are no longer at heightened risk of premature death.” The man continued in his new ways and lived well into old age.

Question: Was the man’s health restored through his faith in the gracious knowledge provided to him pertaining to life and healthiness, or was it restored through his diligent efforts to put this knowledge into practice?

How Faith Works

Do you see the problem with the question? It poses a false dichotomy. The man’s faith and his works were organically inseparable. If he didn’t have faith in what the doctor told him, he wouldn’t have heeded the doctor’s warning — there would have been no health-restoring works. If he didn’t obey the doctor’s instructions, whatever “faith” he may have claimed to have in his doctor would have been “dead faith” (James 2:26) — that faith would not have saved him from his health-destroying ways.

This parable, imperfect as it is, is a picture of the biblical teaching on sanctification. In a nutshell, the New Testament teaches that the faith that justifies us is the same faith that sanctifies us. This faith is “the gift of God, not a result of works” (Ephesians 2:8–9). It’s just that this saving faith, by its nature, perseveres, and works to make us holy.

We passively receive this gift of faith freely given to us by God. But faith, once received, does not leave a soul passive. It becomes the driving force behind our actions, the way we live. By its nature, faith believes the “precious and very great promises” of God (2 Peter 1:4), and the evidence that real faith is present in us manifests, over time, through the ways we act on those promises. The New Testament calls these actions “works of faith” (1 Thessalonians 1:3) or the “obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5). True works of faith don’t “nullify the grace of God” (Galatians 2:21); they are evidence that we have truly received the grace of God, and are themselves further expressions of grace.

Now, let me show you one place where Scripture clearly teaches this. And as I do, imagine yourself as the unhealthy soul in my parable sitting in your doctor’s office — and your doctor is the apostle Peter. Dr. Peter has just examined your spiritual health and has some serious concerns. So, as a good physician, he gives you a firm exhortation.

Escaping Through Promises

[God’s] divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. (2 Peter 1:3–4)

Dr. Peter begins by telling you that God has granted to you all things. He agrees with his colleague, Dr. Paul, that God has granted you life, breath, and everything, including the day you were born, the places you’ll live, and how long (Acts 17:25–26). God has granted you regeneration (Ephesians 2:4–5), the measure of your faith (Romans 12:3), spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:7–11), and capacity to work hard (1 Corinthians 15:10). And God has given you his “precious and very great promises so that through them” you may escape the power of sin and be transformed into his nature.

Everything, from beginning to end, is God’s grace, since “a person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven” (John 3:27).

Make Every Effort

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. (2 Peter 1:5–7)

Notice Dr. Peter’s words: For this reason (because God has granted you everything), make every effort (act with faith in all God has promised you).

In other words, prove the reality of your profession of faith, by doing whatever it takes to actively cultivate habits of grace, that nurture the character qualities necessary to live out the “obedience of faith” through doing tangible acts of good to bless others.

What Negligence Reveals

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. (2 Peter 1:8–9)

“Diligence will reveal genuine faith because that is how faith works.”

Dr. Peter’s prescription is clear and simple: if you cultivate these holy qualities, they will foster spiritual health and fruitfulness; if you don’t, you will experience spiritual decline and demise. Diligence will reveal genuine faith because that is how faith works: it leads to action. Negligence will reveal your lack of faith because “dead faith” doesn’t work.

Now, this is a warning, not a condemnation. Peter knows well that all disciples have seasons of setbacks and failure. But he also knows, with Paul, that some disciples “profess to know God, but they deny him by their works” (Titus 1:16) — their profession of faith is not supported by the “obedience of faith.” Peter doesn’t want you to be one of those statistics, so he ends his firm exhortation to you on a hopeful note.

Pursue Diligence by Faith

Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:10–11)

Just so you’re clear, Dr. Peter emphasizes the organic, inseparable relationship between God’s grace and your “works of faith.” He says, “Be diligent to confirm your calling and election.”

You don’t call yourself to Christ; Christ calls you by his grace (John 15:16). You don’t elect yourself to salvation; God elects you by his grace (Ephesians 1:4–6). But you do have an essential contribution to make to your eternal spiritual health. You confirm the reality of God’s saving grace in your life through diligently obeying by faith all that Jesus commands you (Matthew 28:20) — or not.

“You can confirm the reality of God’s saving grace in your life — or not.”

This is Dr. Peter’s prescription for your assurance of salvation: your diligent obedience through faith, your making every effort to pursue holiness, is evidence that your faith is real and that the Holy Spirit is at work in you to make you a partaker in the divine nature.

This is why Scripture commands us, “Strive for . . . the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). It’s not that our striving, our “making every effort” to obey God, somehow merits us salvation. Rather, our striving is God’s gracious, ordained means — fed by his promises and supplied by his Spirit — to make us holy as he is holy (1 Peter 1:16) and to provide us “entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

God’s grace is no less gracious because he chooses to grant it not only apart from our works (in justification) but also through our diligent “works of faith” (in sanctification) — especially since these works are evidence that our faith is real.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15009540/how-does-gratitude-serve-the-will-of-god

As I sat atop my lofted dorm-room bed and turned the page from Romans 8 to Romans 9 in my small, tattered Bible, I went from a chapter familiar enough to be easily skimmed to a chapter that I had no recollection of ever reading before.

Both chapters emphasized the sovereignty of God — his sovereign love and his sovereign power. At 19 years old, I had not thought much about God’s sovereignty. I believed what I’d been taught as a child — that God was in control, that he knew every hair on my head, that he had the whole world in his hands. But I also believed that salvation was a choice I had made — that God chose me because he knew I’d someday choose him.

When I entered college, however, the issue became inescapable. My college campus swirled with discussions about whether God elected people to salvation and whether he could know the future at all. Even my theology class was getting ready to host a debate between an Open Theist (someone who believes God doesn’t fully know the future until it happens) and a Calvinist (someone who believes God knows and ordains the future, including who will believe and be saved).

It was only by chance that I had been reading Romans 8–9 the night before this debate. Or was it?

God in Control

That night, my beliefs began to change. I read of God’s relationship with his chosen people:

Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Romans 8:29–30)

Could it possibly be true that this foreknowing, predestining God didn’t know the future? It could not.

Or was it conceivable that the God who said, “It depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy,” was merely looking ahead in the future to see who would and wouldn’t choose him (Romans 9:16)? It was not. And furthermore, God declared that he was working all things together for the good of those he’d called (Romans 8:28). Could God work all things together for good if all things were not genuinely under his control?

My 19-year-old heart began to swell with joy and relief. This God was not back on his heels, trying to figure out what to do, nor was he waiting for me to figure him out. He was bringing his good plans to pass. He called me, he saved me, and he would keep me in every circumstance.

Does God’s Goodness Miscarry?

My understanding of God’s sovereign grace grew as my knowledge of God’s word grew. And I loved his sovereignty — in theory at least. I loved that my God was so powerful and big and in charge. When I saw others go through difficult circumstances, I sympathized with them, but I also had a settled sense that God had a plan born from his love. It wasn’t until I was up against my own difficult circumstance that the thought flashed in my mind: perhaps God was working something not good in my life.

As a young wife and mom, I never considered the possibility of miscarrying. So when it happened, I was shocked that my own womb could become a place of death. All I knew of God flooded my mind, almost as a reproach.

As I faced the loss of our little one, I wasn’t tempted to doubt his power but his love. I knew he could have kept our baby alive, so why didn’t he? Yet Romans 8 was there to keep me grounded, reminding me that not even death could separate us from his love. Paul’s words were an anchor:

I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38–39)

As the years rolled on, God’s sovereignty over all things was the buoy that kept me afloat in every season. I was learning to trust God’s love as he carried us through job loss, babies received and one lost, moves, and new ministry. Yet it was the birth of our youngest son that brought the deepest challenge to my trust in God’s power and plans.

With our son’s arrival, we faced uncertainty regarding his future, a future that, in the best case, would involve disability and health difficulties. During the chronic trials that ensued, including our son’s sleep disorder, seizures, and eating difficulties that involved years of almost daily vomit, a different sort of temptation occasionally crept in — the thought that God might love us, but he maybe couldn’t help us. Night after night after night, year after year after year, we would pray for relief. But relief didn’t come.

Different Sort of Power

I was looking for God’s power to come in the form of physical relief from our trials. I was tired and worn. I wanted to be free of the difficulties of nighttime G-tube feedings and regular vomit clean-up. If God answered those prayers, I reasoned, that would be a sign of his power. Yet which is more difficult: to change someone’s circumstances from hard to easy, or to change the person in the circumstances from floundering to flourishing despite it all?

Would God have shown more of his sovereign power if he had put down all his enemies once and for all, preventing the cross and the resurrection? Or is God’s power more greatly displayed through his planning from before time to crush his Son, defeat sin, and then raise his Son from the dead, so that he could make his enemies his friends? Any tyrant with a large army can squelch his enemies, but only our gracious and powerful God turns enemies into sons through the folly of the cross and the empty tomb.

As Paul testifies, God often manifests his power through our weaknesses. It was Paul’s thorn in the flesh that occasioned God’s sovereign power resting upon him:

I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9–10)

“The sovereign power of God rests on his people, not to remove their thorns, but to teach them of a stronger power.”

In a world where almost everyone seems obsessed with power — whether they have it, how they can get it — God’s word shows us the deeper power: the power of his Spirit.

God’s power is ours when we entrust ourselves to him amid weakness. We need not demand power from the world. We need not seek position or platform. The sovereign power of God rests on his people, not to remove their thorns, but to teach them of a stronger power — the power of God that contents us with trials, so long as we have Christ’s Spirit.

No Trite Slogan

All those years ago as a college sophomore, Romans 8 and 9 showed me the sovereign love and sovereign power of God.

In Romans 9, I met a God to whom back talk was not permitted:

You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” (Romans 9:19–20)

In Romans 8, that same fearfully powerful God was also utterly committed to my good in all things, so much so, that his Spirit intercedes for me as he works on my behalf (Romans 8:26–28).

Some believe that Romans 8:28 is a trite way to comfort the afflicted — that it shuts up the grief of the hurting, as though telling a suffering saint that God is working their hardship for good makes a mockery of the pain. As we are imperfect people, we should consider that possibility. But for me, no truth is as precious.

“God is good. God is strong. Not one thing happens to us apart from his perfect plan.”

Knowing that God is working all things for my good has been the dearest and deepest comfort, even, and especially, in the darkest of seasons. God is working all things for my good when our son is in the hospital (again), or when my husband is dealing with chronic pain (still), or when betrayal and slander touch my life or the lives of those I love. It’s a reality that keeps my heart whole even as it’s breaking, and my mind clear even in the fog of confusion.

He is good. He is strong. Not one thing happens to us apart from his perfect plan. God’s sovereign love and power mean that we can trust him — now and forever.

Audio Transcript

We end the week with a question from Isaac, who listens to us in his hometown of Nairobi, Kenya: “Pastor John, thank you for your encouragements in APJ 1611, “How Does Chronic Pain Glorify God?” I resonate with this episode deeply, and I carry those promises for myself.

“I have a question concerning the story, or parable, of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19–31 — specifically about Lazarus. Please help me make at least some sense of his life. He lived all of it poor. He died poor. It shouldn’t bother me, but it does. I carry neurological, physical, and mental disabilities, and have for many years as an invalid, unable to create any life for myself. I’m now thirty. I feel I should have become a productive, self-reliant man by now. I’m not, and may never be. But we also don’t see a definite purpose or self-will or self-drive in Lazarus’s life either. I also lack those very same things. How would you motivate a disabled man — disabled nearly to the degree of Lazarus — to not waste his life as his physical life wastes away?”

Well, of course, this is a dangerous thing for me to do — to venture to give counsel to someone whose condition I know so little about, especially when he says, “I carry neurological, physical, and mental disabilities.” So, please understand, Isaac, that what I say here is tentative as far as its specific applications to you go, even though I do want to stand by the biblical things I’m going to say. So, a warning, and I want to defer to you to know yourself.

Accountable According to Capacity

First, I would remind you of the parable of the talents, in Matthew 25:14–15. “It will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants” — and he represents Christ. “To one he gave five talents” — now you know that a talent is an amount of money in those days, not an ability to do something, but I think it does represent any kind of resource that we have as a gift from God that he expects us to use for his honor. “To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one” (Matthew 25:15). And when came back, he called them to account to see whether they had wasted their lives and his resources.

“God will call you to account in accord with what he’s made you capable of.”

Now, two things seem relevant from this parable for your situation, Isaac. One is that God clearly recognizes that different disciples have different capacities. Five, two, one — that’s a great difference. He doesn’t expect that the person with fewer resources will produce the same amount as the one with the greater resources. He says, “Well done” to the man who turns five into ten, and he says the same “Well done” to the man who turns two into four. So, you should infer from this that God will call you to account, not to be as productive as someone with a different set of gifts and limitations, but simply in accord with what he’s made you capable of.

Hard to Satisfy, Easy to Please

The second thing that this parable says to your situation is that the third man who basically did nothing with his single talent was not scolded because he didn’t turn one into two. He was scolded because he didn’t even put it in the bank. In other words, it sounds like the master is saying, “Look, you say I’m a hard man — hard to please. I’m not the hard taskmaster you think. All you had to do was put it in the bank and get interest for it, and then tell me that I had it with my interest and why you put it in the bank.”

He would’ve been commended, I think, for that. I think C.S. Lewis is right when he said that God is hard to satisfy but easy to please. So don’t feel helpless that you are going to be judged by a standard beyond what God has equipped you to do.

Grace in Weakness

The next thing I would point out in Scripture is that Paul was given a thorn in the flesh in 2 Corinthians 12:7–10. And the point of giving him a thorn in the flesh was to weaken him. You might say that he gave him a disability. He pleaded with Christ to take it away, and Christ said, “My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

“God is not mainly looking for powerful people who can lend him their strengths. God needs nobody’s strength.”

Now that is an amazing statement. God is not mainly looking for powerful people who can lend him their strengths. God needs nobody’s strength. He gives and he takes according to his will. All strength is from him, through him, and to him. What he’s looking for is trust and a deep contentment in his fellowship in the situation that he gives us, because that will make him look more precious in our lives than any health, or any wealth, or anything else.

That’s what he’s after: “Make my power, my sufficiency, look great. If I have to make you weak in order to make me look strong, I will.” So, don’t measure the usefulness of your life by productive capacities. God has given you what he has given you in order that in your weakness you might rely upon his strength, and in that way magnify his worth.

Strength for Every Good Work

Then I would mention, Isaac, 2 Corinthians 9:8: “God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you [Isaac] may abound in every good work.” Now, what I take away from this verse is that every good work that God expects me or you to do, he will give us grace to do it. That’s what he says.

For some, that will be a lot of productive activity. For others it will be less — far less. And the older and the weaker we get, the less productive we are going to be. Some are assigned to be weak all their lives, but what this verse implies is that you and I should wake up in the morning and ask God to grant us the grace, the promised grace, to do just those good works that he calls us to do. Now that may be a smile directed to a passerby, or a quiet freedom from murmuring in the midst of misery, or a healthy performance of some technical task. God decides what good works we are assigned to do, and he promises to give grace to do them.

Learning from Lazarus?

The last thing I would say is a comment on Lazarus and the rich man. This is not a parable about the character of Lazarus. We know virtually nothing about his state of mind or heart. He’s not held up as a person of faith, though we can infer that he was a person of faith in God, in Jesus, because he goes to heaven while the rich man goes to Hades.

But Jesus never mentions his faith. We do not know how resourceful Lazarus was. Be careful. You say he didn’t have any resourcefulness. Well, I don’t know that. It says in Luke 16:20 that he was laid at the rich man’s gate. So someone is carrying him from where he lives, maybe out in shantytown. Someone’s carrying him and putting him down at a spot where there might be some hope of crumbs.

Now, did Lazarus arrange for that? Did he use the little tiny bit of resourcefulness that he had to arrange each day to be put in the place where there might be some little bit of food for him from the rich man’s table? We don’t know. It’s all speculation. So don’t use Lazarus as a model either way. He may have been a great model of resourcefulness.

I have seen great resourcefulness in mentally ill people in my neighborhood who make a living and live in their car. No matter how I try to help them, they want to live in their car because they have proved their resourcefulness to make it by a certain kind of panhandling, a certain check from the government, and a certain use of a dinged-up old truck. I’ve sent them to every conceivable manner of helping institution, and they just want to prove their own resourcefulness. In other words, it’s just not simple to know when you look at a poor person what measure of resourcefulness they may be exercising.

Limitations are No Mistake

So, Isaac, the sum of the matter is that God knows your neurological, physical, and mental limitations. You are not a mistake. There is a reason for your existence as you are. Join the Christians around you by seeking God’s wisdom for what that reason is — your reason for being. Then, as much as lies within you, by grace give yourself to that.

And I wonder, Isaac, if you are aware of the great poet from the 1600s named John Milton. He wrote the most famous poem in the English language, probably: Paradise Lost. And in the midst of his amazing, productive life, he went blind, and he felt that God had taken away from him the one gift that he had to be useful. But eventually he wrote a sonnet about his loss, and he called it “On His Blindness.” I want to close by just reading it to you because of how encouraging it’s been to me over the years and to others who feel their limits and their fading powers.

When I consider how my light is spent,Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,And that one talent which is death to hideLodged with me useless, though my soul more bentTo serve therewith my Maker, and presentMy true account, lest he returning chide;“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”I fondly ask. But Patience, to preventThat murmur, soon replies, “God doth not needEither man’s work or his own gifts; who bestBear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His stateIs kingly: thousands at his bidding speedAnd post o’er land and ocean without rest;They also serve who only stand and wait.”

Recently, I completed a long journey with my twin 11-year-old boys. The trek took us months, yet required no planes, trains, or automobiles. In fact, we never left the house for this particular voyage, though we did venture outside once to sit by an autumn fire.

This was a journey of over one million words — 1,084,170 to be exact. And it was a trek on which we traveled every mile, every chapter, and every word together.

Over the course of about 18 months, beginning when COVID “lockdown” descended in the spring of 2020, and ending in September 2021, I read aloud to my sons the seven books of the Harry Potter series. We invested two or three bedtimes each week to it, pausing for a few weeks between books. But we kept plodding forward a chapter (or two) at a time.

My best estimate is that it took us, in all, about one hundred hours.

Read-Aloud Revival

As a new dad, reading aloud more than a million words, for one hundred hours, would have seemed not only daunting but impossible. Perhaps you feel the same way right now. I get it; I’ve been there. But please don’t give up yet. Reading aloud, especially to our children, is a skill worth developing — one that is honed not just over weeks and months, but over years.

“Reading aloud, especially to our children, is a skill worth developing.”

My dear wife, with input from friends and a podcast called Read-Aloud Revival, first bent my ear to consider what an opportunity and joy it could be to read aloud as a habit to our children — not begrudgingly, but eagerly. We decided early on as parents that we would spare expenses in other areas to be able to invest well in good children’s books. And that we would do our best to limit and say no to other activities — especially ones involving screens! — to put life on pause, sit down, slow down, and enjoy reading aloud to our children.

Ten years ago, with no read-aloud experience, I felt almost winded to read a longish children’s book to our toddlers after a tiring day of work. I had not yet developed any read-aloud stamina. I hadn’t done any significant, regular reading aloud in my life. But most critically, I had not yet discovered the joy it can be to be present, and engaged, and contagiously happy with your children in these moments gathered around an open book.

There and Back Again

One on-ramp for some dads is that we love to do voices. This brought me particular pleasure once the boys were old enough (I think it was age 5) to read them The Hobbit, using my amateur British accent for Bilbo, gruff voices for the dwarves, and (of course) my best impressions of Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis for Gandalf and Gollum. Now, this was no board book — it took weeks, and patience. At times, the boys were bored (Tolkien doesn’t do candy), but we pressed through. There were life lessons in that for all of us. And in the end, we felt like we had accomplished something significant together. We read a big book together — and my concerns that Gollum might be too scary, and show up in nightmares, were addressed by my being there with them, reading to them, and talking to them about their fears. I was there to mediate the scariest moments, like riddles in the dark.

So too, my uncertainty about whether the boys, at age 10, were ready to handle the whole Harry Potter series was a good reason to make the trek with them. Being unsure, I had two lazy options in front of me. I could have shelved my concerns and just turned them loose to read for themselves or listen to the audiobooks. Or I could have erred on the side of caution and kept telling them, “Not yet, not yet.” Instead, I decided to make the trek with them. What they were ready for, we enjoyed together. What they weren’t, I was there to mediate, ready to pause and give context, ready to stop and explain, ready to answer questions, and ready to ask how their minds and hearts were receiving it. Most of all, being there, I was ready to process out loud how I myself was receiving the story with Christian eyes, ready to highlight not only pointers to the gospel (and there are many, especially in the final book!), but also important life lessons (there’s no lack of those either, particularly in Dumbledore’s monologues).

And all the while, with kids aged 3 to 6 to 11, Dad’s stamina for reading aloud was increasing. And as my read-aloud stamina and experience have increased, so has my joy.

God’s Word, Read Aloud

As my wife so helpfully prodded me to read aloud to our children, I would encourage other Christian moms and dads to do the same — to discover for yourself what an opportunity and joy reading aloud to your children can be. Reading aloud is, after all, a remarkably Christian pastime.

For twenty centuries, reading aloud has been critical for how the people of Christ have heard his voice. The printing press has been around for only a quarter of church history, and only recently have our shelves at home been filled with multiple Bibles. Christ has spoken to his people across history through the reading aloud of Scripture, at the heart of the gathered assembly of the church. As the apostle Paul directs his protégé and delegate in Ephesus, “Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture” (1 Timothy 4:13). Without personal copies of the Bible at home, and on smartphones, how else would the people of Christ hear his word in the words of the apostles? The pastors had to read it aloud.

So Paul wrote his letters to be carried to the churches and read aloud (Ephesians 3:4; Colossians 4:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:27). So too, the apostle John wrote down his apocalyptic vision, anticipating its reading aloud (Revelation 1:3). And this, of course, happened in a first-century Jewish context, in which the people of God had long been people of a Book, and at the center of the life of the synagogue was the reading aloud of the Scriptures (Acts 13:15, 27; 15:21, 31; 2 Corinthians 3:14–15), as Jesus himself did on that memorable occasion in his hometown of Nazareth (Luke 4:16).

Joys of Analog Life

As parents who cherish these quickly passing years with our children, we love how reading aloud together builds our kids’ vocabulary, teaches them about the world and the experiences of others, and develops bonds and relationship with us. And of course, time spent reading aloud to our kids is time not on screens — which can be good for both them and us.

And for dads in particular, Jim Trelease, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook, now in its eighth edition, notes “the important role of fathers in developing boys as readers.” Trelease says when he wrote the first edition in 1982, “I thought we had a bit of a male reading problem. Not anymore. Now it’s a huge problem.” His first edition had a few pages for dads. His latest edition has a whole chapter called “The Importance of Dads.”

Not Too Late

For moms and dads who are not currently reading aloud with regularity to your kids, I’d encourage you to try it, and stick with it for the long haul, despite the initial friction. Once or twice, or a few weeks, won’t be long enough for you to really see the effects, develop your stamina, and learn how to enjoy what a real habit can produce.

Perhaps my main piece of counsel would be to read with energy. When Dad and Mom put more into it, the whole family gets more out of it. Even after a long day, it’s worth pushing yourself to not just go through the motions and read monotone. Put energy into it. Pour in more enthusiasm than you first think is needed. Read with color and warmth. Do voices, if you’re that type. Pursue contagious joy, not infectious boredom. You are the teacher, not the book. The book is your prop, your medium, your context for relationship with your children, and your opportunity to invest in them, their maturity, and their personality.

Crowning Jewel

For parents like me, who want to make the most of reading aloud not just to entertain our kids but to disciple them, one caution might be not to preach or moralize too often — and on the other hand, not to miss the important teachable moments altogether. I try to be sensitive to my children’s hearts, alertness, and levels of interest. When they’re bored or grumpy or the tank is low, I lean on the book, and read for shorter spans. When they’re enraptured in the story, I consider it a better time to pause and impart key principles or life lessons, and read for longer.

“The crowning jewel of reading aloud is not Tolkien, Lewis, or Rowling. It’s God.”

Similarly, I’d encourage both funny books, where you laugh together (like Silly Tilly, or Caps for Sale) and serious books. Kids are ready for different stories at different ages. Because of my special love for Middle-earth, our first big, serious book was The Hobbit. Then we started Narnia, and then went on to another series. When COVID came, time finally seemed right for Potter. Now, with that journey behind us, we’ve started Lord of the Rings for our 11-year-olds, and The Hobbit with our 7-year-old daughter.

But the crowning jewel of reading aloud is not Tolkien, Lewis, or Rowling. It’s God. All along, from board books to storybook Bibles, to reading the Real Thing, we are training our children to hear the very words of God himself in Scripture, and receive them with joy.

The greatest read-aloud privilege of all is reading aloud the Bible.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15005095/how-to-speak-to-the-spiritually-dead

The habit of quiet may be harder today than ever before. Don’t get me wrong: it’s always been hard. The rise and spread of technology, however, tends to crowd out quiet even more.

Now that we can carry the whole wide and wild world in our pockets, it’s that much harder to keep the world at bay. Our phones always promise another update to see, image to like, website to visit, game to play, text to read, stream to watch, forecast to monitor, podcast to download, headline to scan, article to skim, score to check, price to compare. That kind of access, and semblance of control, can begin to make quiet moments feel like wasted ones. Who could sit and be still while so much life rushes by? Even if we don’t immediately pick up our phones, we’re often still held captive by them, wondering what new they might hold — what we might be missing.

As hard as quiet might be to come by, however, it’s still a life-saving, soul-strengthening habit for any human soul. The God who made this wide and wild world, and who molded our finite and fragile frames, says of us, “In quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15). In days filled with noise, do you still find time to be this kind of strong? Or has stress and distraction slowly eroded your spiritual health?

How often do you stop to be quiet?

What God Does with Quiet

What kind of quietness produces strength? Not all quietness does. We could sell our televisions, give away our phones, move to the countryside, and still be as weak as ever. No, “in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” The quiet we need is a quiet filled with God. Quietness becomes strength only when our stillness says that we need him.

Be still, and know that I am God.     I will be exalted among the nations,     I will be exalted in the earth! (Psalm 46:10)

This still, trusting quietness defies self-reliance. Quietness can preach reality to our souls like few habits can. It says that he is God, and we are not; he knows all, and we know little; he is strong, and we are weak. Quietness widens our eyes to the bigness of God and the smallness of us. It brings us low enough to see how high and wise and worthy he is.

You can begin to see why quietness can be so hard. It’s deeply (sometimes ruthlessly) humbling. For it to say something true and beautiful about God, it first says something true and devastating about us. Our quietness says, “Without him, you can do nothing.” Our refusal to be quiet, on the other hand, says, “I can do a whole lot on my own” — and that feels good to hear. It just robs us of the real strength and help we might have found.

God strengthens the quiet with his strength, because quietness turns weakness and neediness into worship (2 Corinthians 12:9–10). We get the strength and help and joy; he gets the glory.

But You Were Unwilling

The context of Isaiah’s words, however, is not inspiring, but sobering. God says to his people,

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling . . . (Isaiah 30:15–16)

Quietness would have made them strong, but they wouldn’t have it. Assyria was bearing down on Judah, threatening to crush them as it had crushed many before them. And how do God’s people respond?

“Ah, stubborn children,” declares the Lord, “who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction.” (Isaiah 30:1–2)

Even after watching him deliver them so many times before, they cast his plan aside and made their own. They sought help, but not from him. They went back to Egypt (of all places!) and asked those who had enslaved and oppressed them to protect them. And they didn’t even stop to ask what God thought. They did, and did, and did, at every turn refusing to stop, be quiet, and receive the strength and support of God. I would rush to help you, God says, but you were unwilling. You weren’t patient or humble enough to receive my help.

“How often do we choose activity over quietness, distraction over meditation, ‘productivity’ over prayer?”

Why would they refuse the sovereign help of God? Deep down, we know why. Because they felt safer doing what they could do on their own than they did waiting to see what God might do. How often do we do the same? How often do we choose activity over quietness, distraction over meditation, “productivity” over prayer? How often do we try to solve our problems without slowing down enough to first seek God?

Consequences of Avoiding Quiet

Self-reliance is, of course, not as productive as it promises to be — at least not in the ways we would want. The people’s refusal to be quiet and ask God for help not only cut them off from his strength, but also invited other painful consequences.

First, the sin of self-reliance breeds more sin. Again, God says in verse 1, “‘Ah, stubborn children,’ declares the Lord, ‘who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin.” The more we refuse the strength of God, the more we invite temptations to sin. Quiet keeps us close to God and aware of him. A scarcity of quiet pushes him to the margins of our hearts, making room for Satan to plant and tend lies within us.

Second, their refusal to be quiet before God made them vulnerable to irrational fear. Because they fought in their own strength, the Lord says, “A thousand shall flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you shall flee” (Isaiah 30:17). A lone soldier will send a thousand into a panic. The whole nation will crumble and surrender to just five men. In other words, you will be controlled and oppressed by irrational fears. You’ll run away when no one’s chasing you. You’ll lose sleep when there’s nothing to worry about. And right when you’re about to experience a breakthrough, you’ll despair and give up. Fears swell and flourish as long as God remains small and peripheral. Quiet time with God, however, scatters those fears by enlarging and inflaming our thoughts of him.

The weightiest warning, however, comes in verse 13: those who forsake God’s word, God’s help, God’s way invite sudden ruin. “This iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant.” Confidence in self drove a crack in the strongholds around them — a crack that grew and spread until the walls collapsed on top of them. All because they refused to embrace quiet and trust God.

“In quietness and trust would be our strength; in busyness and pride will be our downfall.”

For Judah, ruin meant falling into the cruel hands of the Assyrians. The walls will fall differently for us, but fall they will, if we let busyness and noise keep us from dependence. In quietness and trust would be our strength; in busyness and pride will be our downfall.

Mercy for the Self-Reliant

In the rhythms of our lives, do we make time to be quiet before God? Do we expect God to do more for us while we sit and pray than we can do by pushing through without him?

If verse 15 humbles us — “But you were unwilling . . .” — verse 18 should humble us all the more. As Judah hurries and worries and strategizes and plans and recruits help and works overtime, all the while avoiding God, how does God respond to them? What is he doing while they refuse to stop doing and be quiet?

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. (Isaiah 30:18)

While we refuse to wait for him, God waits to be gracious to us. He’s not watching to see if he’ll be forced to show us mercy; he wants to show us mercy. The God of heaven, the one before time, above time, and beyond time, waits for us to ask for help. He loves to hear the sound of quiet trust.

Blessed — happy — are those who wait for him, who know their need for him, who ask him for help, who find their strength in his strength, who learn to be and stay quiet before him.

For half a generation now, we’ve watched people use the internet to announce their disillusionment or deconversion, or most recently, “deconstruction.” We may be growing less surprised to hear of another person abandoning Christian faith. You probably know someone. Maybe it’s someone you looked up to. Maybe it’s your best friend. Maybe it’s you.

I almost did. Let me tell you my story of why I didn’t deconstruct, even if I fit the profile.

I grew up in a ministry family. I was a sheltered homeschool kid who wasn’t allowed to watch most Disney movies. I learned all the Awana verses. I wore the WWJD bracelet. I read all the purity books. I could sing all the popular CCM hits.

Then one day a gunshot shattered my world.

When My World Fell Apart

I was fourteen when a beloved family member committed suicide. He was a father figure for me, one of the strongest men I knew. Or so I thought. I had talked to him just two hours before he shut the door of his office and shot himself.

When the initial numbness wore off, my mind became a cauldron of questions. If this man I loved and admired couldn’t make it, could I? If his Christian life ended this way, what hope is there for me? With so much pain around me, and in the world, how can God be good? Does he really exist?

Shortly after, hidden sexual abuse began to surface in the lives of people around me — none of it reported, all swept under the rug. Around the same time, several trusted spiritual leaders fell as their sexual sin was exposed. One church I attended saw the head pastor, assistant pastor, and youth pastor all resign within a span of six months. Two were addicted to pornography, and one had an affair. I could see death in their eyes, hypocrisy on their faces.

I could say more, but these experiences offer reason enough to expect that I might assume the whole of Christianity to be a sham. But that’s not what happened. I still love Jesus, am still committed to my local church, and still draw hope from my faith. Why?

God Met Me in My Doubt

In the wake of my family member’s suicide, I felt a strong temptation to tear down all my previously held religious beliefs. I spent long hours in my room with all those questions swirling. Most nights I wept. My prayers seemed to fall on deaf ears. God felt distant, and at times completely absent. I wondered if he even cared.

During this dark season, I watched others in similar situations leave the faith. Some preached their deconversions far and wide, seeking to make other de-converts. In my crisis of faith, I saw two paths before me: walk away from Jesus, or persevere in hope.

As isolated as I felt in my struggle, however, I didn’t withdraw from church, but leaned into the very community I struggled to accept. I didn’t realize at the time how important this step was. In that community, I discovered how God often meets the needs of his people through his people.

God met me through conversations with my faithful youth pastor and his wife. For months, they listened and let me ask hard questions. How do I reconcile society’s new norms with the Bible’s teachings? How do I not doubt when I hear people say that the Bible is racist, pro-slavery, anti-woman, or anti-gay? What do I do when scientific theories appear incompatible with biblical revelation?

One night, after a midweek church service, God moved in my heart, and I went from predominantly doubting to predominantly believing in God’s existence and the Bible’s reliability. I found that Christianity could handle my tough questions, and that if I would bring all my doubts and fears to God, he would patiently teach me.

Still, I felt a deep ache inside — an ache I thought had no cure. I was still disillusioned.

God Met Me There

My disillusionment ran deep. Looking back now, I can see what was wrong: I had placed my deepest faith in people, not in God.

I misplaced my faith in family, pastors, and friends. I felt deeply disappointed when I discovered they were not as good as I believed them to be. When they fell into grave sin or acted hypocritically, I was crushed and tempted to ditch everything they taught me.

“Looking back now, I can see what was wrong: I had placed my deepest faith in people, not in God.”

I also put faith in my own goodness. I was caught up in the absence of particular sins, thinking that because I didn’t get drunk or sleep around that I didn’t really need grace. I wasn’t one of those people. I shunned the world and its stains. Like Rapunzel, I locked myself away from the world out there, only to find that I needed to confront the demons within.

I had to fall flat on my face to realize that my own squeaky-clean moral record couldn’t save me. Staying sheltered from the world couldn’t save me. My Christian family, my Christian education, and my Christian church couldn’t save me. My natural conclusion was to give up on everything I had trusted. And in a way, that’s what I did. But instead of walking away from everything, God helped me to press in even further — beyond myself, beyond my family, beyond my friends, to Jesus himself.

One Tender Word

One night, everything came to a head. Still limping with doubt and disillusionment, I had a vivid dream. I saw heaven’s courtroom, where my soul was being called to account. I tried to escape, but as I ran away, my pastor stopped me on the steps of the courthouse and gave me instruction. My eyes blinked open. I realized that I needed to hear what my pastor would preach that coming Sunday.

I carried all my striving and fear into church, not knowing what the Holy Spirit had prepared for me. As our pastor preached from Matthew 8:23–34, he described two demonized men. I saw their misery, death, and oppression. I saw men out of their minds and unclean in every way, held captive by their deception. And suddenly I knew this was a picture of my condition. I was acting like a crazy person: in anger, I had accused God of wrong; in unbelief, I had judged God guilty. I saw my utter depravity and uncleanness.

But as soon as I saw this truth about myself, I saw something else — someone else. I saw Christ standing before me through the preaching of the word. I saw “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), my “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13). God pulled back the curtain, and Jesus came into focus. He crossed every boundary, cleansed every defilement, and shattered every bondage. He came for me.

In a moment, God overcame Satan’s blinding power, lifted me out of my pit, and put me in my right mind. He was not at all how I expected him to be. He was kind. Though my sin was thoroughly exposed, with one tender word, he brought me to himself.

If You Want to Throw It All Away

Yes, I’ve doubted, and yes, I’ve felt disillusioned. But I’m not “deconstructing,” though the circumstances in my life could easily have led in that direction.

Perhaps yours do too. Perhaps you’re wrestling with significant doubt and disillusionment. Perhaps the framework of your faith feels like it’s falling apart, and you’re tempted to throw it all away. If so, I understand. But as someone who’s been where you are, my counsel to you is to walk toward, not away, from Jesus and his church, even if you feel like you want to walk away.

“As someone who’s been where you are, my counsel to you is to walk toward, not away, from Jesus and his church.”

As I sought him in my wreckage, Jesus met me. In my crazed condition, he put me in my right mind; in my defiled condition, he made me clean. He won the battleground of my heart; by his gospel, he transformed me into what I was meant to be — a daughter of God, an emissary of his kingdom.

Deconstructing into a more “progressive” theological stance, or into full deconversion, may look inviting, but only Jesus offers the kind of freedom and hope you desire and seek. And Jesus extends his invitation to you with open arms: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). To reject the easy yoke of Christ is to become the slave of a harsher master. But to receive Christ’s yoke is to find true authenticity, true freedom.

If you really want rest from all your doubt and disillusionment, come to Jesus. Don’t abandon your faith. Press on to know the Lord. For “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).