This time of year often brings with it the rumblings of worry and anxiety. About every other year we know a move is on the horizon. People begin to ask us where we are going next, or when we will find out where we are going … and the answer is we have no idea!
So I am inclined to worry. To stress. To shoulder the burden of anxiety over something I have no control. As I fall down the spiral of worry, my words and actions quickly follow. If you were a fly on the wall overhearing some of my conversations, you would notice cracks in my trust as doubts flood my mind.
It reminds me of Sarah and Abraham. Sarah doubted the faithfulness of God to His promise of a son. She recklessly gave Hagar, her servant, to Abraham as his (second) wife. Hagar birthed a son, and even if you don’t know the entire story, you can imagine just how messy this was for everyone.
There was another time that someone was tempted to doubt God and act recklessly.
We find the story in Matthew 4. After 40 days of fasting, the Devil took Jesus to Jerusalem and “set him on the pinnacle of the temple.” The sweeping view of the city lay before him, and the devil taunted him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.”
With steadfast trust, Jesus responds, “It is written, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”
Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy 6:16, which reads, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.” So what happened at Massah?
When the Lord split the waters of the Red Sea and led the people of Israel through on dry ground, they were greeted on the other side by wilderness. Not surprisingly, they were thirsty. So the Israelite people did no differently than my children might do, they quarreled and grumbled against Moses. So intense was their grumbling that Moses told God, “They are almost ready to stone me.”
God gave Moses instructions to stand on the rock of Horeb and strike it with his staff. So Moses did and water came out. But “Moses called the place Massah…because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
Isn’t this question at the root of all our worry, anxiety and fear!? We doubt God is among us, so we wring our hands and act recklessly, both in our thoughts, our words and our actions.
If you are God, I would not have this diagnosis.
If you are God, my child would not have died.
If you are God, I would not have lost my job.
Don’t get me wrong, there is room for doubt and dialogue within steadfast faith! But we must delineate between trustful doubt versus reckless thoughts, words or actions.
The next time you are tempted to jump off the edge of trust into doubt, remember Jesus’ last trip to Jerusalem.
Although this time Jesus was not tempted to throw Himself off the pinnacle of the temple, He would choose certain death. As sweat like blood fell from His body, He prayed, “not my will but yours be done.”
Jesus modeled steadfast trust, honest prayer and selfless surrender.
So trust the love of Jesus and His Father, “who did not spare His own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)
As I look into an unknown future, I want the song of my soul to move from doubt to steadfast trust. As Jesus showed us, I can wrestle with God in honest prayer, but I will choose surrender as my last words.
Will you join me?
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