Category: God

Posted on

Father, Help Us To See

img_7476

This article was featured at The Baptist Convention of New England blog.

Father, help us to see.

Father, help us to see you. We are spiritually blind without your Spirit giving us eyes to see (Ephesians 1:18) and we need to see you, first and foremost. If we can see you in all of your glory, all of your power, all of your justice, and all of your grace, then we will know that you are at work in us, for us, around us, and through us.

Father, help us to see the work you are doing in us. We so often feel like we take one step forward and two steps backward in our pursuit of you. We so often end up needing to learn the same lessons again, or struggling to believe what you have promised us in your Word. Help us to see the little victories, the little inclinations of our hearts when we lean towards you more quickly than we used to. Help us to see temptations overcome hour by hour. Help us to see that you are committed to us. Help us to see that you will complete the work you have begun in us (Philippians 1:6).

Father, help us to see the work you are doing for us. In this fallen world it is often hard to believe that you are working all things together for our good (Romans 8:28). Help us to adopt your definition of good, the highest goal of becoming more like Jesus (Romans 8:29). Help us to see that there is no greater love than your love that will never let us go (Romans 8:38-39). Help us to see how you are working for us in ten thousand ways, because as John Piper says, we can only see about three of them right now. Like the Israelites standing on the edge of the Red Sea in front of them with enemies coming at them from behind, help us to see that you will fight for us if we are still and will trust you (Exodus 14:14).

Father, help us to see the work you are doing around us. Just as you opened the eyes of Elisha’s servant to see that you were working all around them when it seemed so dark (2 Kings 6:17), open our eyes to see that you are always working for the advance of your Kingdom around us. We so often can’t see it, but you are working around us every day. People are reading the Word and coming to an understanding of who Jesus is. People are finding out they have cancer and coming to grips with their mortality. People are asking questions about you and your Son because of something they heard when they were children. Father, we need your help to be able to see the work you are doing around us, because without your light we only see darkness.

Father, help us to see the work you are doing through us, for the advance of the gospel. We are laboring in your vineyard but the sun is hot and we are weary. It seems that often where we plant seeds, weeds spring up. Father, help us to see that you are at work through us for the advance of the gospel. Help us to see that you are more zealous for your own glory than we are (Isaiah 48:11). Help us to see that you don’t just work in those places and those times, but you are at work among us and even through us today. Help us to see the single mom coming to church and growing in her love for Jesus. Help us to see the teenager sitting in the same pew he has been in since he was a baby, who is beginning to believe–really believe–that Jesus is his Lord and Savior. Help us to see the tired married couple beginning to love each other the way you tell them to for the first time, as they are discipled through your church. Help us to see the friend beginning to ask questions about the gospel, the friend we never expected would ever be interested in Jesus.

Father, help us to see you, and help us to see what you are doing in us, for us, around us, and through us. Just as Jesus touched Blind Bartimaeus when he called out to him and he gave him his sight (Mark 10:51-52), we are calling out to you and asking you to restore our sight, so we can see you and your work in our time and place. We await your touch. Father, help us to see.

Posted on

Don’t Be Afraid to Question What We’ve Been Told

Photo by asoggetti on Unsplash

This article was featured in the Opinion section of The Manchester Journal.

It used to be that it was countercultural to question what we had always been told about God by the Bible. But today, it is countercultural to question what we have always been told about God by our culture.

My wife and I recently brought our kids to see the movie Smallfoot and by the end of the movie I found myself thinking about the countercultural claims of Christianity. The movie is about a community of Yetis who live high up in the mountains. One day, one of them discovers a “smallfoot,” a human. Even though the human is carried away by his parachute, the discovery won’t leave the Yeti’s mind and he begins to tell everyone. That is when the community stone keeper comes out of his cave and reminds everyone of what the stones say. He wears a huge robe of stones that have certain “truths” engraved upon them. One of the stones proclaims that there is no such thing as a smallfoot–end of story.  Another stone says that Yetis shall never go below the clouds. Eventually, however, the Yeti finds a human below the clouds, at a village at the base of the mountain. It is then discovered that the stone keeper has been protecting an elaborate cover-up and that even the clouds that surround their mountain community are not real. The Yetis discover that there is a whole different world below the clouds.

Any American with religion on his or her mind who watched this movie maybe even fifteen years ago, would have thought of religious leaders as the stone keepers of our own communities. Christians were often seen as people who believed in an elaborate cover-up. But today, things have changed.

The “stone keepers,” the keepers of “truth,” in our communities are usually not seen as Christians anymore, but rather anyone who proclaims that there is no God. From before we are even able to read or write, we are now told over and over and over by the media, by textbooks, and by government officials, not only that there is no God, but that he is a topic that is off limits.

If anyone brings up God in a public discussion, that person is immediately told something along the lines of “separation of church and state forbids that.” But the lines of community life and state life are so often blurred in our public conscience now. People are more and more afraid to even say “God” in public anywhere, let alone discuss him.

However, there are curious minds who are questioning what they’ve been told. The Bible talks about this. Romans 1:19-20 explains, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” God says in the Bible that everyone knows that he exists, even if we like to say that he is not up for discussion anymore.

So don’t be afraid to question what we’ve been told. As we come up to Thanksgiving, don’t be afraid to think about the fact that what you have been told may be wrong, and there may be a God who does need to be thanked. As we come up to Christmas, don’t be afraid to crack a Bible open and read in the Gospel of John about a man named Jesus whom we are told was not only a man but also God in the flesh (John 1:14), and in fact “God with us” (Matthew 1:23).

Don’t be afraid to peek beneath the clouds and see that there is a whole different reality out there that you may be missing. You might have your mind blown. And your soul saved.

Blog at WordPress.com.
%d bloggers like this: