Life Lessons Part 3

Mark Dunagan
04/13/08 - Sunday Morning

 

Content with what I need today

 

“Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11); “Therefore do not be anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (6:34).

 

“Faith means having the confidence to ask God for our needs and to trust to ask Him for no more than we need. We must resist the hoarding instinct. It is enough that He gives us just the help we need today; we need not demand that today’s storehouse also be stocked with everything we might need tomorrow. Tomorrow’s needs will be tended to when the time comes, and faith is willing to leave all of that in God’s hands” (Diligently Seeking God, Gary Henry, May 30^th). In the story of God daily feeding the wandering Israelites manna from heaven note the similarity of the attitude we are to maintain toward our blessings and God’s providence.

 

“This is what the Lord has commanded, ‘Gather of it (the manna) every man as much as he should eat…When they measured it with an omer, he who had gathered much had no excess, and he who had gathered little had no lack; every man gathered as much as he should eat. And Moses said to them, ‘Let no man leave any of it until morning’. But they did not listen to Moses, and some left part of it until morning” (Exodus 16:16-20).

 

“Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none. And it came about on the seventh day that some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My instructions?’” (Ex. 16:26-28).

 

In both examples the instructions given through Moses were very clear and yet some still refused to obey. In spite of yet another set of clear instructions, some refuse to accept what was being spoken through Moses. Again, it appears that the attempt on their part is to hoard the manna, and to get themselves into a position where they could have a stockpile, so they did not have to get up early, gather it everyday, or depend upon God for their daily food. Like these Israelites, there are people today who are trying their best to become independent of God. These hoarders sure look ridiculous! God is giving them a day off, a day to rest, a break, and they refuse it!

 

“To take each day as it comes requires a trust that is truly childlike. This youthful willingness to be dependent is so simple, and yet as tough-minded adults, it is so hard for us to maintain. We lose far too many of today’s advantages worrying about the imagined disadvantages of tomorrow. God is not so wasteful of His grace---heaping blessing upon blessing simply to satisfy our shortsighted demands for ‘security’” (Henry May 30^th). In fact, often people spend so much time pursuing what they think they need that they miss the real and true blessings of life. The couple that headed out on the Sabbath looking for tomorrow’s security would be missing valuable time with family, friends, and time to mediate upon all that God had done for them that week.

 

Faith and Doubt

 

“But let him ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways” (James 1:6-8). “But he said to them, ‘Unless I shall see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe…Then He said to Thomas, ‘Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing’” (John 20:25,27).

 

From time to time all of us experience doubts, worries and fears. When we are experiencing a doubt concerning our faith, C.S. Lewis reminds us, “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods”. We need to remember that doubt or fear is a feeling that is far more often dependent upon a mood than upon facts. “There will be many days when unanswered questions seem to hinder us. God’s silence can be unsettling, it is true, and yet God has spoken on every issue which He deems needful for us, and this should make a difference in the management of our emotions”(Henry June 1^st). “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29). Carefully observe that this verse makes it clear that everything we need to serve God and please Him, including all that is necessary to have a strong faith, has been revealed. Verne Becker wrote, “In the midst of your doubts, don’t forget how many of the important questions God does answer”. When was the last time we attempted to list all the questions God has resolved?

 

• What must I do to be saved? Acts 2:38

• Is there a God? Romans 1:20

• Is there any absolute truth? John 17:17

• What is my purpose here? Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

• What is the secret to a good marriage and a happy family? Ephesians 5-6

• Is Jesus the Son of God? John 20:30-31

• What happens after this life? Luke 16:19ff

• What is heaven like? Revelation 21:4

• What does love look like? 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

• Can I understand the Bible? Psalm 19:7ff

• Can I know that I really know? 1 Timothy 2:4

• Can I really change? Acts 17:30

 

It would be very healthy to maintain a list of not only all your answered prayers over the years, but equally, of all your answered questions, faith is not afraid of a doubt or a seemingly unanswered question. “Faith recognizes that troubling questions are inevitable in a world where our sins have hidden God’s face from us” (Henry June 2^nd). Therefore, what often produces the confusing questions or doubts, is not a lack of information from God, but our own insensitivity to His instruction. When struggling with a thorny question, we must remember all the difficult issues in the past that we found a clear answer to after time spent in the Scriptures.

 

Avoiding Regret

 

“But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come about that those whom you let remain of them will become as pricks in your eyes and as thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land in which you live” (Numbers 33:55). “That you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6:12).

 

“It has been said that we face a basic choice in life: either we accept the pain of discipline right now, or we suffer the pain ofregret later on. If we take what seems to be the course of least resistance, ducking our difficult choices when they first come up, what we find in the long run is that our lives sink in a swamp of discouragement and deep sadness. Rather than accumulating a treasury of memories that enrich our later years, we find that we’ve built a museum of regrets. We live out our last days plagued with the pain of decisions unmade and duty undone. Contrary to the devil’s lie, there is nothing easy about laziness. It turns out to be the hardest taskmaster of all. The most troubled person in the world is often the one whose highest aim was to avoid trouble” (Henry June 15^th).

 

• Avoiding responsibility at the moment might feel like the easier choice, but beware, we are building future regrets every time we opt out.

• We are only making our lives harder when we postpone making painful yet right choices.

• Hiding from necessary confrontation will only bring us face to face with discouragement and feelings of inadequacy.

• Indecision will bring depression and regret.

• Remember, sin, error and the devil are not indecisive; none of them have the attitude, “Let’s wait and see what happens”. Indecision places us in a weak role, the role of always having to “react” and play defense. It’s time to stop playing defense and instead play offense.

 

“The question of our commitment to God is hardly a trivial matter. To delay dealing with this issue is dangerous, and perhaps even disastrous. Do we not see the dishonor that is done to God by our procrastination? If it turns out that God is God and we are indeed His creatures, we will want to have done more than stagger through life in a stupor. We will want to have lived, and lived decisively” (Henry June 15^th).

 

It is significant that often in the New Testament God’s people are admonished to “wake up”, that the lure of living in a stupor, or living in such a way that we don’t want to attract any attention to ourselves, stick out and be easily seen as a believer. Avoiding hard decisions and hard situations is another common, yet expensive temptation.

 

“And this do, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is almost gone, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:11-12). “So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober” (1 Thessalonians 5:6).