Category Archives: Submitting to God

Snapping toward Zero

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Friday while driving from Michigan to Chicago, I saw a van painted like a can of Coke Zero, black with red writing. Since I love Coke Zero and was enjoying one at the time, I thought I’d pull alongside and hold up my can. The driver would see how enthusiastically I endorsed his product, and it might make his day.

But as I leveled off with him, I glanced at the driver who, it turned out, was far too busy to notice my raised can. With one hand holding a phone to his ear and the other texting on a different phone, I figured he was probably driving with his knee. I decided the wisest thing was to distance myself from him and his no-handed driving.

Multi-tasking is one thing, but being stretched too thin is something else. A perfect illustration is our age-old childhood friend, Silly Putty. We all played with this rubbery stuff as kids, shaping and reshaping it endlessly without it ever becoming dry or hard.

If we rolled it into a ball, it bounced around the room energetically, never running out of pep. But if we stretched it slowly side-to-side, it thinned with impressive elasticity that seemed to go on forever. Until, that is, it broke in two.

Each of us can take only so much stretching-thin before we fall apart. It’s true God gives us work we must do, just like he gave jobs to Adam and Eve. Scripture says we’ll also have tasks to accomplish in heaven. But the work of Eden was deeply satisfying, and the work of heaven promises to be rewarding. Meanwhile, present-day work between those two ends isn’t nearly as good. Because of that it can quickly stretch us thin and bring on a snap.

Of course we’ve all been told to choose work that leans into our natural giftings. Nate told our children, “Try to make a living doing something you love.” That’s wise counsel but doesn’t always work out. So what do we do if we can’t work at what we love? Is there another way to keep from cracking under frustrating workloads?

There is.

Proverbs says, “Commit your works to the Lord, and your thoughts shall be established.” (16:3) Scripture tells us that even those tasks that don’t use our natural skills can take on rich meaning if we’ll first dedicate them to him. I learned this years ago in reference to the endless, messy work of motherhood. If we’ll pull God into whatever job we have to do, we’ll do well at managing it, and more importantly, we’ll change the way we think about it. The NLT version says our plans will actually succeed. That’s a pretty good deal.

I’m not sure, however, if God will ever make it easy to talk on the phone, text a message, and drive with a knee, all at the same time.

“Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.” (Psalm 37:5)

Door to Nowhere

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When my 74 year old cottage got new windows a year ago, we came around to the back of the house and decided to substitute a door for one of the windows. It seemed crazy, since there was nothing but thin air on the other side, no porch, stairway or other surface for feet to stand on, but we hoped one day to build a deck there.

If anyone were to sleepwalk through that door, they’d either wake up during their rapid descent or go unconscious when they hit the concrete 12 feet below. For now, though, we’re careful to keep the door closed and double-locked.

Nobody likes to have doors closed against them. Our kids, grandkids and even Jack have fervently wanted to open that door to nowhere and walk through it. I guess we all view an open door as a symbol of opportunity. To walk through it is to have an adventure.

Open doors are usually a good thing, like when a friend opens her home and invites us to “C’mon in!” Some churches even use the open door image as part of their name, The Church of the Open Door, hoping friends and strangers alike will all “C’mon in.”

Although we like doors to be open, sometimes walking through them leads us to places we don’t want to go – a dentist’s office, a hospital, a funeral home. But even then we walk through, knowing that what’s on the other side is important.

Some open doors have eternal significance. Jesus labeled himself “The Door” to eternal security. (John 10:9) He was trying to give his listeners a word picture of the most crucial door they could ever open, making sure they understood that he was the way through to heaven. He also told them a knock on that door would cause it to open up, and he invited everyone to knock. (Matthew 7:7)

My favorite scriptural door, though, is the one mentioned toward the end of the Bible. God describes a door with the Lord on one side and us on the other. This time he’s the one knocking, and we’re the ones deciding whether or not to open up. He’s also using his voice to get our attention, hoping we’ll hear and open up. Incredibly he says that if we do, he’ll enter our lives. Not only that, but he promises to share a close relationship with us much like sharing a meal with those we love, in intimate fellowship.

Why does he have an interest in coming to us at all? When I’ve asked him, his answer has always been the same:

“Because I love you.”

So, unlike my cottage door to nowhere that’s closed and double-locked, I’ve swung wide the door to my life, and Jesus has come in.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20)

Longing to Help

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Children love to do whatever we’re doing. They see it as helping. We see it as extra work for us. Once in a while, though, we need to make time for them to try.

Recently Skylar saw me spreading peanut butter on a rice cake and pleaded to do the same. I tried to hand her the one I’d already fixed, but she wanted to make it herself. Since grandmas love to say yes, I plunked her on the counter and gave her a knife, the PB, and a rice cake. Although she eventually got it done, her effort was clumsy at best.

When children try to do what we do, they approach the project feeling capable of accomplishing adult work with adult tools and getting adult results. In their minds, they bring sophisticated competence to every task and could take the place of any one of us.

God describes a spiritual parallel much like this. We come to him to “get saved” and he saves us. Then we promptly begin a program to “save ourselves,” after the fact, trying to earn our salvation. It makes no sense but is as common as children believing they’re as skilled as adults. In terms of our relationship with God, we’re as unable to help him as a young child is to help us.

Does God see our behavior the way I saw Skylar’s? He says, “I’ve done it already and am trying to hand you the finished product.” But we want to do it ourselves, just as Skylar did. From his perspective, our assistance toward getting saved is but a clumsy mishandling of the perfect gift he wants to give us.

As I watched Skylar’s small hands struggle to manipulate her adult-sized knife, I knew she was in a learning process. Experience was teaching her, and she would do a little bit better next time. But in the case of our salvation, no amount of trying, even with better and better effort, can get the job done. God has seen to it that everything’s already been done, through the death of his Son.

To put ourselves in the role of assistant to the Almighty is improper and, from his perspective, laughable. Of course in reality, there’s nothing funny about trying to make ourselves good enough for God. Actually, it’s the opposite of funny. It’s a serious mistake.

When Nate and I were raising our family and the children misbehaved, he would snap his fingers to get their attention and say, “Act right.” It’s a good command, and it’s something God is hoping all of us will do, all the time. But applying right deeds as credit toward salvation is like asking Skylar to spread PB on 500 rice cakes in 5 seconds. It can’t be done.

“At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” (Romans 5:6)