A lot of people are talking about Lent right now, especially in terms of giving things up to focus on their relationship with God. I’ve never participated in this process, but this year I was caught off guard by a question from God about it.
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I have been reading Proverbs the last few months, and God is definitely talking to me about wisdom as I read this book. It is a pretty major theme throughout after all, but I’m seeing it differently than I ever have before. Someone asked me what I thought the difference between wisdom and knowledge was, and I’ve been asking God the same question.
Often we focus on knowledge, gaining information ad nauseum, hoping that enough will allow us to control our environment, to be acceptable to God, to prevent pain. But no matter how much we know, we can’t control our circumstances, we already are acceptable to God (based on His work not ours) and we can’t prevent pain. Now, there’s nothing wrong with knowledge, but I think it is only half the battle.
I would define wisdom as the revelation of God’s perspective on the information we have learned, and His definition of application to our lives. Wisdom, after all, is Jesus Himself. When we recognize we are in Christ and already have all of Him, we also can ask for wisdom at any time, knowing that He will give it. James 1:5 says, “And if anyone longs to be wise, ask God for wisdom and he will give it! He won’t see your lack of wisdom as an opportunity to scold you over your failures but he will overwhelm your failures with his generous grace.
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As I pray and soak in the presence of God these days, often the question that forms in my mind from Him is, “Do you trust me?” And generally my answer is, “Not really. But I want to. Will you help me?” What I’m discovering is that this continued building of trust by Him in my heart is a very slow process, and I feel like I’m moving backwards quite a lot. I know I’m in good company with that as well, so it’s not something that’s shocking to Jesus as He shepherds me.
Some days I feel like there are weights on my feet as I walk this road, and I am realizing it’s not pressure from God for He never demands trust. I get really down when I believe I’ve failed and disappointed Him again. But that’s not His perspective. He always invites—never demands. He doesn’t use condemnation or shame to get me to move the right direction. If any of these voices exist in my head it’s from the enemy, and I must dismiss it as a lie.
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I was recently traveling through western Colorado with my family, and noticed the beauty of the water cutting through rocks everywhere we went. In some places, it became a rushing waterfall, wildly dancing down massive rock walls. In others, it had caressed the rocks so many times it had made them smooth, carving out little bowls and baths along the way. Minerals and varieties of rock were revealed as well, as colors of all sorts showed through the places the water had run over so many times.
The beauty was everywhere, and God spoke to me about how the streams of living water flowing through us were just like that. This stream is love rushing over hard hearts, difficult circumstances and places of defeat and discouragement. His love cuts through the rocks, bringing forth joy, beauty and even gentleness. The rocks were no match for the steady faithfulness of the water as it continued to pour over every day.
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I have been praying a lot recently for God’s voice on matters in my life, rather than relying on my logic or experience. I tend to want to figure something out, thinking that I solve problems by making them make sense. But I have been meditating a lot on Proverbs 3:5-6, and realizing that’s exactly the opposite of what God wants me to do.
The thing is, no matter how much I know or think through something, it often is never going to make sense, and I will be limited in my ideas by my own creativity. If I, instead, trust Him completely and don’t rely on my own opinions, He promises to guide and lead. This isn’t about gathering more information about God, but rather going deeper in intimacy in relationship with Him.
This means that no matter what the situation, you are not limited to your perspective or what you can figure out about it. Rather, we get to rise above the circumstance, and see things from His perspective as we are already seated with Him in the heavenlies (Eph 3:1-2) What seems true right now is only a fraction of the truth, and we get to trust Him to guide us in all truth. He cares deeply for us, and His main goal in this life is that we go deeper in knowing Him—deeper in intimacy with our Father.
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I have spoken to several people through the years who are staring death in the face. I always want to ask them about it—how do you die well? How do you walk towards what feels like the biggest fear in life? What does God speak to you in those raw and vulnerable moments?
In the last email I received from my friend Debbie as she was put on hospice care, she said “Lots of emotions, lots of decisions, lots of walking uncharted territory with fear and trembling. But as always our God has proven himself faithful, he has proven himself to be true. It is so amazing to have the privilege of walking this journey. And I never, ever, ever thought I would say that about this cancer journey. God is good.”
That’s right—she just called walking a cancer journey a privilege. My response at the time was to look at my own circumstances and wonder how on earth they were a privilege? If she could see this, though, could I also?
The thing that Debbie understood, and so many others who are teaching me about dying, is that we are always dying physically, and it’s what we do with the life that we have that matters. She chose to count it as a privilege, and to squeeze out every drop of joy and peace from relationship with Jesus in the meantime. She saw the suffering, the pain, the separation as a chance to deeply taste the higher truth of God’s love through it all.
