Still Wondering What to Give Up for Lent?

In Christ’s second temptation, Satan took Jesus to the top of the temple telling Him that if He were the Son of God He should toss Himself down. Afterall, God would not let harm come to Him. Jesus refused, saying that Scripture says we should not put God to the test.

Here again, I see something I can give up for Lent. I can give up the habit of throwing myself headlong into plans of my own making and then asking God to help me, to keep me from crashing, to pick up the pieces of a mess I’ve created with my impetuous actions. How often do I do that--proceed happily along my way until I find myself in trouble? Then I suddenly remember to pray. I suddenly remember that I didn’t pray that God would guide me through the circumstance or the decision in the first place. The first time the option of prayer popped into my head was afterwards when I was freefalling.

During Lent, I’m going to ask God if I can follow Him, rather than asking Him to follow me.

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: 'He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" Matthew 4:5-7

The Faith of Joseph

I’ve been thinking a lot about Joseph this holiday season. Joseph, the forgotten figure in the Christmas story. Poor Joseph, whom the Bible describes as a good man, apparently cheated on by the woman he loved before they even were married. What did it take for Joseph to obey the words of God and assist in bringing Christ to the world that first Christmas?

First, he had to set aside his own plan. Joseph had already decided what to do—he would divorce Mary quietly--and apparently it was a reasonable and appropriate plan since it is in this connection that the Bible praises him as righteous. Second, he had to swallow his pride—public pride in front of a community who thought he was a fool to marry the woman who had made a fool of him, family pride in the sense that he would now raise a child who was not “bone of his bone” and “flesh of his flesh,” and probably his personal pride as a man before Mary. What had he said to her when he first heard she was pregnant? He obviously hadn’t believed her story of a virgin conception since he was planning to divorce her. I expect he owed her a big apology and had to go and humbly beg her forgiveness before he could marry her. Finally, he had to act despite his fears. Have you ever noticed that the angel said, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife?” Apparently Joseph was afraid to marry Mary. We don’t know exactly what Joseph feared but I can imagine: fear of marrying a promiscuous woman or a nutcase who thought she was bearing a god-child. Fear of raising another man’s child and bringing “bad blood” into his home. Fear of how his future children would be affected by their mother’s reputation and this illegitimate child living in their home. The only way he could obey was to trust fully and completely that what the angel had said was true (which would make his fears moot) or cast caution to the wind and say “OK, I’ll go for it. I think this is what God is telling me so I’ll proceed despite my fears” which of course is another form of faith.

There’s a lot of lessons we can learn from the attitudes of the characters in the Christmas story: the willing servant heart of Mary, the watchfulness of the Magi who traveled great distances to worship, and the shepherds who spread the word, but this year I think I’ll focus on Joseph who presents a perfect picture of "trust and obey." He quietly facilitated the introduction of Christ to the world at great cost to himself, his pride and his plans, despite his fears.

"Unanswered" Prayer

My daily email from Back to the Bible today contained an excerpt from Elisabeth Elliot which is exactly what I had been planning to blog about. Since Elisabeth Elliot undoubtedly writes better and with more experience and authority than I do, I'll let her say it:

News came one day which indicated that a matter I had been praying about had deteriorated rather than improved. "What good are my prayers, anyway?" I was tempted to ask. "Why bother? It's becoming a mere charade." But the words of Jesus occurred in my Bible reading that very morning (and wasn't it a good thing I'd taken time to hear Him?): "If you, bad as you are, know how to give your children what is good for them, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him?" (Matthew 7:11, NEB).

Are you as often tempted as I am to doubt the effectiveness of prayer? But Jesus prayed. He told us to pray. We can be sure that the answer will come, and it will be good. If it is not exactly what we expected, chances are we were not asking for quite the right thing. Our heavenly Father hears the prayer, but wants to give us bread rather than stones.

I know from other of Elisabeth Elliot's writings that what she is referring to in that last sentence are those verses in the gospels that say "If your son asks for bread will you give him a stone?" and "If your son asks for an egg will you give him a serpent?" No, we know that God would not do that. But what if what we ask for is a stone or a serpent and we are just too ignorant or short-sighted to realize it?

In that case, God will give us the bread or the egg and we will be disappointed. But we will not be unanswered. Faith is accepting what is put in our hands and accepting that it is good, and in fact, better than anything we could have asked for.

(The excerpt is from Elisabeth Elliot's Keep a Quiet Heart. To sign up for daily email excerpts from Elisabeth Elliot or other devotional writers, go to Back to the Bible. They'll also email daily Bible reading guides.)

Keep a Quiet Heart By Elisabeth Elliot / Baker Available at Christianbook.com for $9.99 (save 23%!) When you long for a quiet refuge away from the noisy, frenetic circumstances of day-to-day commitments--where do you turn? If you're Elisabeth Elliot, acclaimed speaker and author of many best-selling books, you look to one place alone: to the embracing arms of our omnipotent and infinitely loving Heavenly Father. This book is a unique collection culled from the lead articles featured in Mrs. Elliot's newsletter over the past several years. "Mostly they are about learning to know God," the author says. "Nothing else comes close to being as important as that. It's what we are here for." Join Elisabeth as she points the way to a deeper, more fulfilling--and restful--walk with God.

Praying with Faith in God's Answer

Elisabeth Elliot writes in A Lamp For My Feet:

Sometimes when I was a child my mother or father would say, "Shut your eyes and hold out your hand." That was the promise of some lovely surprise. I trusted them, so I shut my eyes instantly and held out my hand. Whatever they were going to give me I was ready to take. So it should be in our trust of our heavenly Father. Faith is the willingness to receive whatever He wants to give…

I don't know about you, but sometimes I find it hard to know what to ask for when I pray. Should I ask God to help me pursue this goal or that new direction? I torture myself with questions like “What if this thing I’m praying about is not in ‘His will?’” What if my requests are merely reflections of my own selfish desires? I feel very much like the double-minded man James talks about, who asks God for wisdom but doubts God even while he is asking, and is therefore unstable in all he does (James 1:5-8).

When I want to cut through these thoughts and get to the heart of what prayer really is, it helps me to take a deep breath, shut my eyes and picture myself as a very young child holding out her hand to her father. I think, “Whatever You have in store, I know it is good.” I open my mind to gratefully accepting whatever it is God puts in my hand that day. Praying this way takes the burden off me and puts it on God, where it is supposed to be anyway. It is a simple way to pray, “Thy will be done.”

I prayed this way just yesterday with surprising and reassuring results. I was busy preparing for a meeting about a new business opportunity. I really did not know how to pray. Should I ask God to bless the meeting and help me maximize this new opportunity? What if God really did not want me to pursue it? What if pursuing it would take time and attention away from other things He wanted me to do? On the other hand, what if my praying that God would eliminate the opportunity if it was not His will was just some spiritualized form of laziness or reluctance to work hard? What if the hours involved would impact my kids? What if? What if? (See, I told you I can torture myself.)

I stopped, closed my eyes and pictured myself as a child holding out her hand for a gift. I said, “God, I am happy to take whatever it is You have planned for this meeting and this opportunity.” I relaxed. Within 15 minutes, one of the parties involved called and removed what had threatened to be a fairly significant obstacle to me. This morning, the other party involved took the meeting in the direction I would have most wanted it to go if I was calling the shots. I could just lean back and thank God for His good gifts.

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for an egg, will give him a snake instead?” Luke 11:11