Category Archives: Submitting to God

Do the Opposite

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Many times the will of God runs contrary to the will of us. He comes at problems from a different angle than we do, and we all know his thoughts are nothing like ours. So why are we surprised when he doesn’t want to do things like we want him to do?

George

I remember a Seinfeld episode years ago in which everything went wrong for one of the characters. Once he figured out that his repeated failure was a result of his own poor decision-making, he decided to try a new approach. From then on he would do the opposite of what he thought he should do, hoping for success in that way.

Strange as it may seem, that do-the-opposite approach actually worked for him. And as I’ve been thinking about God’s ways vs. ours, maybe the same tact could work for the rest of us, too.

In the middle of pondering this, my son Nelson’s newest blog post arrived to my inbox. He’d written it in one of the many airports he’s passing through on his way from the Youth With A Mission base in Hawaii to Thailand. Two quotes from him:

Airport line

  1. When I don’t have enough money, I should give some away.
  2. When I feel like there’s not enough time, I should let someone go before me, making me even more behind than I already was.

And there it was, the do-the-opposite living that seems to connect with the Lord. Why would a logical God ask us to do such illogical things? Nelson gave us the answer: because it leaves the outcome up to him.

The scriptural Paul studied this same dilemma and by sheer will power determined he’d live by a do-the-opposite philosophy. He very much wanted to please God and tried hard, but white-knuckling his way through didn’t work: “I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do.” (Romans 7:19) Thinking like God was the opposite of what his heart wanted.

His conclusion was that mankind has no natural goodness in him, which is probably the reason we all find it difficult to think like God. After all, if we have no natural goodness in us and he is all goodness, we’re exact opposites.

So, what hope do we have?

Paul says our hope is in knowing that God is a willing partner in our efforts to live-the-opposite of our natural tendencies. When we’re short on money, he’ll empower us to give some away. When we’re in a rush, he’ll give us the will to let another go ahead. And when we live this way, God will take care of the outcome.

There’s one other benefit, too. To quote Nelson again: “Mastering this kind of attitude actually brings a whole lot more peace than the alternative.”

Paul said, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me? …. Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25)

Verbiage

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Back in high school I took a journalism class that nourished my love for writing. Our teacher repeated several basic principles again and again such as, “Don’t use words that tell me. Use words that show me.”

American International School of Kabul (AISK), Senior English class. Peg Podlich is on the left.

He wanted us to select words that were bursting with visuals, putting an emphasis on choosing good verbs. “If you pick the right verb, you can cut out all the extra words, which enhances the reading.”

After that I watched for interesting verbs in my school books and noticed how they livened up a paragraph. And then one day I decided to check the verbs God used in his book.

No doubt an English language version of Scripture doesn’t give proper credit to the way God originally breathed life into the words of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and some of his brilliance has been lost to us in translation. But as I read my copy of the Bible, one thing was certain:

God loves verbs.

In doing a quick study of the 100 most often-used verbs in the Bible, I saw that he ignored the writing principle (in relation to verbs) that I was taught in my journalism class. Instead he kept things simple and easy to understand: come; remain; hear; turn; meet; confess; rejoice.

And here are a few more off that list of 100: give; guard; stand; see; deliver; find; love. Studying these verbs reveals something special about God-the-Author. These action words are person-to-person: humanity to humanity, and divinity to humanity. They describe a wide variety of actions that can be taken to have a relationship with him and live our best lives.

And that’s the key: actions. God took the initiative and acted first, then followed that by inviting us to act in response. If we choose not to, we’ll waste his remarkable gifts and promises.

God didn’t write a book with the hope that a clever choice of individual words might pull people in and then hold their attention. He wasn’t interested in producing the perfect “beach read” or a pleasure novel. Instead he wrote out “the words of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15), encouraging us to decide for ourselves whether or not we’ll read them and/or act on them. He used: do; go; choose; serve; remember… words that are clear and simple.

God makes it known in several places in his Bible that this Word is totally complete the way he first wrote it, and nothing needs to be added, subtracted, or altered. My journalism teacher might not have agreed, wanting to circle those simple verbs with his red pencil, but when it comes to perfect communication, I think God would get the A+.

“When you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.” (1 Thessalonians 2:13)

 

Ready and Waiting

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In the New Testament when children joyfully referred to Jesus as the Messiah, the religious rulers of the day were incensed that he didn’t stop them. Instead he did just the opposite: “Don’t you read your Bibles?” he said. “From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise.” He was telling them, “These youngsters get me, and you don’t.” (Matthew 21:16)

How did those children become that devoted to Jesus? They were so sure about honoring him that they went against powerful local authorities without blinking an eye. How do we cultivate such certain faith in ourselves and in our children?

Hmmm...

Last night I received an email from our firstborn, Nelson, with some interesting thoughts about “signing on” with Jesus as Lord of our lives. He wrote about our natural reluctance to cooperate when the Lord directs us to move in his direction. Then, when we’re finally ready to comply, we do so only “little by little.” What Nelson said next gave me a new way to think about that, not from a human perspective but from the Lord’s.

Some of us, reluctant to step toward God, say, “But I’m still waiting on him,” and Scripture definitely encourages that kind of waiting. It’s possible, though, that when we say we’re “waiting on him,” it’s just a ploy to procrastinate on making a difficult change he’s already asked us to make.

Nelson wrote, “Funny how we sometimes get that mixed around, saying that we are ‘waiting on God.’ I think he’s waiting on us much more of the time, ready to bless us and move us to the next thing. God is ready. We are not.”

His words rolled around in my head for a long time, statements that were well-put and truthful.

In thinking about the scriptural children honoring Jesus with their words, we Christian parents think of our own children and how important it is to us that they one day choose to follow Jesus. We spend unnumbered hours praying to that end, and we take them to church, grill them on Bible memory verses, pay for Christian summer camps, and do our best to live Christian-ly in front of them. But sometimes children choose a different path anyway.

Though that saddens us, we should never despair. As Nelson wrote, all of us can be slow to walk in God’s ways. The good news is that he is always ready, whenever any of us steps even slightly in his direction. He is thoroughly prepared to bless us, and we’ll never have to stand waiting on him once we’ve come to the point of willing surrender. He’s already there, waiting on us… and our children. He wants all of us to come, and he looks forward to hearing “words of praise from our lips.”

None of it, however, happens on our timetables or through the circumstances we dictate. As Nelson wrote, “God often works in ways we don’t expect.” But one thing we know for sure: he is always ready and waiting for us.

“Honor the Messiah as Lord in your hearts.” (1 Peter 3:15)