March 11--What it Looks Like to Trust God in-the-Clutch

Who or what I turn to in my low moments tells me who or what I really trust.  I may say I trust God, but do I really?  Today's passages help me:  Numbers 16, Mark 15, Psalm 55, Proverbs 11:5-6.

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Transcript

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March 11 How to Trust God in the Clutch I won't be reading the scripture references. For those, please check the written post. We went to a local park to splash in a spectacular new fountain. Its concentric circles rose and fell unpredictably. Our two year old played happily along the edges where the fountains were mildest. When he grew tired of those who moved closer to the middle, running in and out and pulling me behind him, but all of a sudden every fountain dropped into the concrete. He looked at me and ran to the center, laughing as if he were brave enough now that the hardest, highest water had stopped. The smaller fountains started up again at the outside edges, gentle water rising and falling in irregular rhythms, but he didn't notice. He was too busy with his happy dance. If he had noticed, he might have been prepared for what was coming. Within seconds the next ring of water fountains began rising. More forceful than the outer ring, they came higher and faster. He looked at me surprised, trying to add it all up, but his brain didn't calculate fast enough to move him out of trouble. The strongest, innermost geyser was certainly coming next and right where he was standing. While I'd brought a change of clothes for him, I hadn't thought to bring one for myself, and I didn't want to get soaked going in after him if I didn't have to. I also didn't want him to feel traumatized. Stone, look at me, I hollered just outside where he stood, trapped by the rising rings of rushing water. Come to mamma buddy, come now. And just like that he came, braving his way through the pelting spray that stung his cheeks and forced his eyes shut. The thundering centermost geyser shot up the very moment he stepped out. He escaped it, and just in the nick of time. What you trust in the clutch shows where your faith is. These passages say more about trusting like this. The Old Testament

Numbers 16

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chapter is number sixteen. You'd think everybody from that day on would be shaking in their shoes, minding their own business, thankful the troublemakers are gone. Here's what happened. Led by Korah and others, some of the Levites revolt against Moses and Aaron. The Levites are the tribe that God has set apart to assist the priests in the work of the tabernacle. Their complaint is this. They say Moses and Aaron have gotten big heads, thinking they alone can serve God as leader and priest. They say all of the Levites are just as holy as they are, and so is the entire community for that matter, since God lives in their midst. Everyone is qualified to be priests and to do what Moses and Aaron do. Moses says to show up the next morning, all two hundred and fifty of them, plus the ring leaders, and to bring their censors filled with incense. They'll see who God favors, since he's the one they're really challenging, quote. God will take his stand with the one he chooses, end quote. Next morning God tells Moses he's up for wiping everybody out right on the spot, but Moses falls down before him and begs for mercy. God instructs the Israelite community to back away from the ring leaders, and the earth opens up and swallows them alive, along with their families and everything they own. Then fire comes out from God and burns up the other two hundred and fifty troublemakers still holding burning censors. I'm reminded of the time Aaron's two sons, Nadab and Abihu, got confused about this very issue. They offered incense to God too, but since they weren't high priests, God refused it. They died for trying to come to God without coming the way he commanded through Aaron the high priest, who was a stand in for Jesus. God is quote a consuming fire, end quote, and his holiness is not to be trifled with. It's easy to forget this part of who God is because his love is easier to snuggle up with. But his holiness gives his love strength and teeth. His holiness makes sure that nobody jumps over Jesus' sacrifice to connect with him, but honors Jesus by depending on him. His holiness says we don't get to dictate how we come to him. We must come the way he's prescribed, by faith in his Son Jesus Christ, not by doing good things, saying religious words or personal acts of piety. Unbelievably, the very next day people are grumbling against Moses and Aaron again. You'd think they'd be careful about what they say after what's just happened to the complainers. The word on the street is that Moses and Aaron did the killing, but clearly God did it when the earth opened up its great big mouth and swallowed. Weren't they paying attention? What do you do when the people you're serving blame you for what's wrong, when they want to run you off, when they deliberately misrepresent the truth, when their perception becomes fact in their minds and doesn't match reality? In the clutch, when the chips are down, here's what Moses does. He falls on his face before God yet again and asks him to spare them. Turns out God does spare most of Israel, but he lets the guilty experience the consequences for blaming and accusing by sending a plague is judgment. In the middle of it, Moses tells Aaron to quit, get his censor so that Aaron is high priest can take it among the people to atone for them. Aaron stands between the people and the plague that day, between life and death. Even so fourteen thousand seven hundred Israelites die. I'm guessing the rebellion went this deep and wide, since God is always just. Aaron enacted what Jesus would one day come to do as the fragrant incense, the reminder of merciful judgment who shields us. It's as extraordinary a story as the manna that shows up every morning, as Israel's victory against Amalek because Moses' arms are propped up, as the Red Sea crossing, as the exodus from Egypt. Through events like these, God does miraculous things to show Israel his power to save them, things his people have witnessed firsthand. Even so, nearly fifteen thousand of them still have the wrong idea about who he is and how to live with him. The Levites rise up in rebellion because they think they're good enough to be priests. They don't need to respect what God's already said about how to come to him. They want to rewrite the rules to suit themselves, as if coming to God can happen any old way they please. Pride is sneaky. It rises up from its bed of unbelief. It doesn't search the heart or take time to ask God. It closes the blinds and thinks it sees, it makes its own plans, imagines its own self importance because it knows better than God does about what's going on. Pride tempts us to stop trusting God to be God, so we feel like we've got to step up and take charge. But what does Moses do? Moses falls down before God in prayer and asks God to spare these scalawags. He knows what God commanded about how to come to him, yet he still asks God for mercy on those who refuse to honor it. Moses trusts God and what he will do with all this trouble. Moses lays pride aside and looks to God first and only to keep them going. Big difference in trust, big difference in results. Like Korah, many of us are dissatisfied with our lots in life, whether it's with our spouse or children, our neighbors or income, our church or government, grumbling and complaining, pointing out what's wrong, pushing negative news and views on everybody in the name of justice and truth. It's a plague that can consume us. Negativity is contagious, and what's worse, it's deadly. It kills our thriving and flourishing, our praising and peace, our worship. Is your bell ringing or is that just mine? Like the Levites, I'm prone to look around and think things ought to be different. I'm tempted to disbelieve God's word that He's on His throne and handling the problems that pop up. I'm tempted to think I've got to do something, say something, or pick up everybody's slack at the least. But God is sovereign over where I live, who I live with, what my job is, who's in charge. My circumstances are hand picked for me, and no one's is ideal. There are sticky spots and peculiar people everywhere I am. I'm a little peculiar myself, to tell you the truth. When trials come, the best response is to fall down, fall off my high horse, fall off my desire to fix everything and everyone, fall down in prayer and worship. Hard people, hard places and hard circumstances are God's tools for growing me just the way they were for Moses and the Israelites. I'm learning to rest in God's almightiness, to pray and worship, to trust. These aren't splashy coping tools, but they promote my sense of well being and personal peace. The one the Lord loves doesn't strive through life. She quote, rests between his shoulders, end quote, because she knows her Father reigns and rules, and he's the one who carries her. Trusting God in the clutch

Mark 15

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means believing He gives what's best for you and He will carry you through it. The New Testament chapter is Mark fifteen. We don't have to look any farther than to Jesus to see how to live with hard circumstances, a rigged trial, an unjust verdict, a foolish mob, a crucifixion with common criminals, heartless bystanders with scathing insults, abandonment by those who were closest. Jesus left the sequence of events of this awful day in God's hands. He could have influenced how it all went down. He had power at his fingertips to call angel armies if he wanted to, but he didn't. He chose to let God make those decisions from trial to tomb. This was God's plan, and he accepted it as what was best for everyone, himself included. Trusting God to be God, Jesus could step down from his glory and bear all the humiliations that happened. He was a willing participant because he trusted in God's goodness no matter the misery, and look how it turned out. He reigns with God now, and one day every knee will bow. If even sinless Jesus

Psalm 55, Prayer, Proverbs 11:5-6

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needed to trust like this, surely I must. Trusting in the clutch looks like leaving your hard and hurtful circumstances in God's hands to manage from Psalm fifty five. How do you handle the betrayal of your closest friend? David deals with bad guys of all kinds, but the betrayal of his closest friend had to hurt most. Three times a day, while in the midst of enemies, David calls out to God, and he finds his life to be quote well and whole, secure in the middle of danger, even while thousands are lined up against me, end quote. He asks God to take immediate action to the tune of slitting their tongues and taking his enemies out, but David doesn't do it himself. His advice, pile your troubles on God's shoulders, he'll carry your load, he'll help you out, end quote. It's human to want to see the rabble around us get what's coming, but it's not our job to make it happen. God can throw bad guys out with the trash, but we don't get to toss them. I've watched as God's brought his hammer down on my enemy. It's been painful enough to sober me into repentance rather than to gloat. I don't want to bring about any hard knocks upside my own head. Trusting God in the clutch looks like leaving your enemy who might be your closest friend to God to deal with. Prayer. God, you hear my calls and sighs. You answer and hold me up. Help me trust you when the fire gets hot and I want to hop out. Give me trust in your clutch. In Jesus' name, so be it. From Proverbs 11, 5 to 6. Good character gives a good life. Bad character brings a bad one. Integrity is its own insurance, while evil traps crooks like fly paper. By the way, the opening photo of this post is an aerial view of Coolidge Park in Chattanooga, where Stone and I played that day. Passages in numbers, mark, psalms, and proverbs are selected for today in the yearly Bible. This is Eve de Bartleaban Roebuck.