Don't Get Used to it

Holy vs. common

The first time I heard a Bible teacher define “holy” as “set apart,” it really bugged me. Being set apart in and of itself doesn’t necessarily mean better or higher or deeper or richer. Or worthy of worship. I could set apart paper plates for casual dining. That wouldn’t make them more valuable than my fine china. I want something more, something bigger, in any definition of that very special word.

Many years later, my Sunday school teacher described holy as the opposite of commonplace. That’s when it clicked. In His holiness, God is the complete opposite of the commonplace. He is set far apart from all that is common.

The common doesn’t hold our attention. God is more beautiful, more gracious, more creative than anything we can imagine. We will spend an eternity with Him and still be unable to take our eyes off of Him.

The common is ordinary, mundane. God is extraordinary, full of surprises. His compassions are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23). We will spend an eternity with Him and still be delighted by His presence.

The common can easily be discarded and replaced when it wears out or when something better comes along. God will never wear out or run down. He is always the same gloriously perfect Lord whose years will never end (Psalm 102:27). There will never be anything better than Him.

We don’t worship the common things in life. In ancient times, people made idols out of the precious metals, gold and silver. One reason those metals are valuable is because they’re rare. Not common.

Our idols today are the best-looking actors, the most skilled athletes, and the most talented artists. They go so far beyond the ordinary that we recognize them as set apart from the rest of us.

Getting used to it

We worship God because of His greatness. He is the King above all kings, the Lord above all lords. We worship Him because of our sense that He is set apart from us. But as we grow in Him, He becomes closer to us. We see His hand working in our lives. We get used to having Him around. We begin to treat Him as common.

The most blatant example of this tendency is Israel’s journey from bondage in Egypt to the blessings of the promised land. God appeared in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide them (Exodus 13:21). Their clothes didn’t wear out for forty years (Deuteronomy 8:4). Manna supernaturally appeared six mornings a week to nourish them (Exodus 16:4-5).

But because all these signs of God’s presence and provision happened every single day, they became common in the people’s eyes. Ordinary. Expected. Deserved. The Israelites lost their sense of awe and wonder at the miracles that were happening all around them all the time.

Some professional athletes refuse to honor America while the national anthem is being played before a game. They accept our amazing prosperity and freedoms and legal system as ordinary, everyday, expected parts of life. Instead of being grateful for them, they focus on the faults that remain. They magnify those faults out of proportion to their actual size in comparison to our country’s strengths.

Brittney Griner, of the WNBA, made it a point to leave the basketball court during the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Then she went to Russia. When she arrived, customs officials found vape cartridges in her luggage. She was arrested for drug smuggling, convicted in a closed court with no jury, and given a nine year sentence. She spent ten months in prison before President Biden was able to negotiate her release.

Brittney now stands beside the basketball court during our national anthem (source: WORLD magazine Opinions, “Britney Griner finds gratitude for America,” June 19, 2023). She’s gone from seeing this country as common and ordinary and even despicable, to developing a sense of appreciation for the progress made in trying to offer freedom and justice for all.

As a Christian, it’s so easy for me to take my salvation, my answers to prayer, my many other blessings for granted. I might not say it out loud, but my attitude becomes something like this: Of course God saved me. Because He loves me so much. God is love (1 John 4:8). What else could He do? After a while, there doesn’t seem to be anything spectacular, anything beyond the ordinary in the extraordinary idea that I will spend an everlasting eternity in the presence of the most spectacular Being that exists.

It’s easy to think of God as my big buddy in the sky. In John 15, Jesus calls His disciples His friends. My friends are just like me. Common, everyday people. It’s easy to lower God to their level. Or raise myself to His.

It’s easy to get used to the idea that I can take all my burdens, all my pain, and all my joy to the Lord of the universe. Prayer becomes a routine practice, rather than an incredible privilege.

It’s easy to resent spending time reading my Bible when there are so many other things that I need to do. God’s Word becomes nothing more than an ordinary book, rather than the supernatural revelation of God Himself.

It’s easy to talk about salvation and Jesus and answered prayers as if they’re just common, expected parts of life. Shouldn’t we, instead, feel a powerful sense of wonder and awe every time words like God, forgiveness, and eternity pass our lips?

Some churches I’ve attended seem to try to overcome this tendency to get used to the miraculous and the holy by generating excitement. Worship turns into a pep rally. But pep rallies and excitement are common, ordinary things. We need something more, something different, something set apart from the ways of the world.

Near and far away

That’s one of the reasons why I’m thankful for my church. My pastor teaches about the God who loves us so much that He sacrificed His most precious and perfect Son to save us from our sins. Pastor encourages us to take all our troubles to a God who is near to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18). He reminds us that this God cares about every detail of our lives and is ready to forgive us no matter how many times we go astray.

But he also emphasizes the need to remember that we are not just slightly lower than God. By our very nature, there’s a great distance between Him and us. Even the angels in Isaiah’s vision, who are without sin, were so awed and humbled in His presence that they covered their faces and their feet (Isaiah 6:2). They recognized their complete unworthiness compared to His glory. Thank you, Pastor, for helping us to walk in God’s miraculous grace without just getting used to it.

What happens when we start to take God for granted? Sometimes only suffering can bring us back to a better appreciation of who He is and what He’s done. The Israelites’ journey to the promised land illustrates this reality. Every time they treated God as common and ordinary, every time they began to grumble against Him, He afflicted them in one way or another. Their grumbling stopped. Their awe and wonder were restored.

Brittney Griner is an example from the secular world of the way hardship can help us appreciate a blessing or privilege that we’re treating as common and expected and deserved.

God is holy. Set apart. The opposite of commonplace. I pray that we as believers would be better at fighting our natural human tendency to lower Him to the level of the ordinary and expected, to take Him for granted, to get used to having Him around. The consequences of losing that battle are always painful.

Enmity

A picture of enmity

“So the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘. . . I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers’” (Genesis 3:14-15).

God Himself actually placed a barrier of enmity between human beings and Satan.* Punishment for Satan for his role in the Fall. Protection for us.

What does that enmity look like on our side? Conscience. Repulsion or horror when we see people stepping over the boundaries that God’s given us. Discomfort and hesitation when someone asks us to do something that we know is wrong. Guilt.

Most importantly, that barrier looks like a heart turning away from evil, toward God. (One way we respond to physical barriers is by turning back and heading in the opposite direction.) Repenting. Believing Him, trusting Him, following Him.

Enmity with Satan results in a willingness to stand up for the weak and oppressed. To care for the helpless. To give generously to those in need. To sacrifice for others.

It leads to turning the other cheek when someone slaps us. Carrying their burden an extra mile. Providing a soft answer in the face of wrath. Forgiving. Loving those who hate us. Meekness. Mercy. Purity of heart.

Much of spiritual warfare consists not in our acts of bold defiance and aggressive attacks, but in apparent weakness. The weakness of a Savior dying on a cross.

Life without enmity

What would life be like if that enmity didn’t exist?

It would be too easy to think of Satan as our friend. He’s so willing to give us the things that God doesn’t want us to have. Isn’t that what a friend does—gives us all we want?

Without that enmity, it would be much harder to resist our natural bent toward defying God. Doing wrong can feel so good. At least for the moment.

Selfishness would reign supreme. Every one of us would be lying, stealing, hating, and betraying others far more often than we do now. Few (if any) good, healthy, loving relationships would exist. Most of us would be unable to work together in harmony. Civilization might never have developed. Human beings might even have killed each other off within a few generations.

We need enmity with Satan to protect us from our own evil desires. We need that barrier to give us any hope of turning to God.

Rebelling against enmity

And yet, what have people done regarding God’s curse, especially in modern times? Worked hard to find ways around it.

Using anesthetics to minimize or do away with pain in childbirth. Denying the roles God ordained for husbands and wives. Reducing the aching toil of cultivating crops by using fertilizers, irrigation, insecticides, and machinery. Developing ways of prolonging life in hopes of defeating death. Suppressing and defying clear signals from our consciences.

There's nothing wrong with using some of these methods to relieve suffering and bring greater health to many. Doing so is consistent with God’s love and Jesus’ life on earth.

But we Americans are living in a time and place where freedom is being defined as overcoming all our natural God-given inhibitions. Breaking down that barrier between the woman’s offspring and Satan’s.

That’s not an easy thing to do, or the world would have crumbled into chaos long before now. It takes a real effort.

I read an article many years ago (I think it was in WORLD magazine) about our inborn inclination against killing a fellow human being. If my memory of what the article said is accurate, there are three specific aspects of our created nature that all have to be overcome before someone can take another person’s life. Armies must put their newest members through a variety of exercises and experiences in order to accomplish this goal, to break down that part of the barrier between Satan and us.

Reigning vs. serving

In Paradise Lost, John Milton wrote the famous line, “Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.” That quote is used today to justify rebelling against God. God is oppressive because He demands that we serve Him, even in heaven.

But how much does anyone other than Satan reign over anything in hell? Jesus always describes it as a place of punishment and suffering (e.g. Matthew 25:30, 46).

And Satan doesn’t have complete control, even there. God still has total power over him. He’s allowing Satan some freedom for a limited time, but in the end He’ll throw him into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10). Satan’s reign is far more limited than he’s willing to admit.

Some think Milton’s statement portrays Satan as taking a heroic stand, so of course we should follow his example. But it’s dangerous to glamorize Satan and view his actions as ones that we should imitate. God placed that enmity between us to protect us from this danger.

Satan is not heroic. He’s a greedy, self-centered destroyer. His sole purpose is manipulating others to increase his own power. True heroes are those who sacrifice themselves to save others.

Heaven and hell

What’s the real difference between heaven and hell? Is heaven really a nice place but one of constant servitude, while hell offers at least some people an opportunity to reign over their fellow sufferers?

No. Heaven is full of beloved children who serve their Father with joy as they receive the greatest possible blessing, the fulfillment of all their deepest hopes and dreams. Our shallow earthly appetites are mere shadows of our intense longing for a more profound kind of beauty and refreshment and intimacy. A longing that will be abundantly satisfied in heaven.

Psalm 16:11 says, “You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” Hardly a picture of resentful service. Or of a stern God who denies us any form of pleasure. According to John’s vision of heaven in Revelation 22:3-5, God’s people will serve Him, but in addition “they will reign for ever and ever” (italics added).

In contrast, hell is full of despised slaves being used and abused by one who cannot love. Even if Satan was, by nature, capable of caring about others, it would be impossible for him to do anything other than hate us because of the enmity between him and us.

I tend to think of God as pronouncing only curses in Genesis 3. But there are blessings hidden behind some of those curses. When God deliberately put enmity between people and Satan, He was protecting us more than we can ever imagine or appreciate. We can fuss and complain about how He places all those annoying restrictions on our freedom. Or we can praise and thank Him for His tender loving kindness.


*Some commentaries limit that enmity to the conflict between Jesus and Satan (and his followers). The verse is understood as a prophecy of the virgin birth. Jesus is the only person who could ever be described as the offspring of a woman, without a man contributing to His conception. Others include a broader application, as I do here.

 

Compassionate Anger

Jesus wept

“Jesus wept” (John 11:35). I love that verse. I’ve used it in several of my posts, including one of my first and my last one, to illustrate how much God cares for us.

Here’s the very Son of God walking down the dusty road to Lazarus’ tomb, surrounded by the dead man’s grieving friends and family. And what does He do? He joins them in their sorrow and their tears. That’s what love does.

That was always my understanding of the verse. That’s how many commentators interpret it.

But in recent years, I’ve heard a different explanation for this scene. A Bible teacher I know said that, in the original language, the phrase “he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled” (verse 33) implies anger. Jesus was irate at death and suffering. Mad enough to be brought to tears.

I didn’t like this angle as much as the thought that He cried because of the pain Lazarus’ loved ones were going through and because He’d just lost a dear friend. (Verse 3 calls Lazarus the one Jesus loves.) I want a God and Savior who can feel what I feel when someone close to me dies. I want a God and Savior who weeps with those who weep (Romans 12:15 ESV).

But recently I was going through yet another period of lower energy as a result of overdoing. At these times, my emotions get kind of out of whack. The best way to cope is by honestly and openly bringing my frustration, fear, and discouragement to God. Then I feel guilty for obsessing about myself.

Question: Why can’t I just let go and give it all to Him? Permanently. Answer: Because of a health issue that messes with my brain.

Finding myself repeating angrily, “I hate this weakness. I hate this life.” (Not in the sense of being suicidal, but in the sense of longing for something better and knowing that He can provide it.)

One day realizing that, in a way, God hates it too. He hates sin and its consequences—suffering and death. And all of a sudden the second interpretation of the scene on the way to Lazarus’ tomb brings me comfort.

Holy and compassionate anger

Too often, I imagine a God who’s either harsh or complacent. Either He judges sin in His wrath and inflicts terrible suffering on us as a result, or it doesn’t really bother Him to see us suffering because He knows how much we deserve it. Both of these options seem to make sense. What other explanation could there possibly be?

But maybe there’s a third way. Maybe the God of the Bible is both holy and compassionate. Maybe He can be mad at sin and its consequences (even though He allows us to choose sin and decrees the consequences that will follow) and yet grieve when we suffer from those consequences. Kind of like a parent saying, “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you,” before punishing a child. Maybe that’s where parents get it from.

Maybe both interpretations of John 11:35 are true. Maybe Jesus’ tears were a result of both anger and sympathy. Maybe He experienced the anger because of His sympathy. Maybe part of the fury that I feel when my own suffering goes on and on and prevents me from doing all I long to do for others is a reflection of God’s compassionate anger.

My anger vs. God’s anger

I have to be careful here, though. I know the main reason I’m mad comes from my fallen human nature. I want what I want and I want it right now. Frustration at my limitations leads to wrath. Wrath at anything and anyone (including God) that prevents me from having my own way.

But I suspect that at least part of my anger is in sync with God’s. His anger at sin and death and  evil. His anger, not toward me, but toward my suffering. His anger toward the evil that’s attacking me. His anger is on my side. I can find real comfort in that image.

Especially when I consider how His wrath differs from mine.

My temper flares up quickly. God is slow to anger (e.g. Exodus 34:6). If He’s slow to anger and yet He’s angry at my suffering, what does that say about the depth of His love for me?

My ire is aroused when I feel helpless against injustice or unfairness. God’s wrath is never a result of helplessness. His is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, including right now. Everything that happens in this universe is either caused or allowed by God. Nothing happens apart from His will. He is never helpless, even against the greatest evil we can witness.

My rage can lead to a loss of self-control. I can say hurtful things that I later deeply regret. Even as the words leave my mouth, I know it’s wrong to fling them at my target, but I can’t seem to stop them. God never experiences a loss of self-control. Emotions cannot overwhelm Him to the point where He fails to do what’s absolutely right and best.

My anger is usually focused on a particular person, regarding him as my enemy. But Ephesians 6:12 says, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

Maybe when God is expressing His wrath against an individual in the Bible, that emotion is directed more toward those spiritual forces of evil (as in John 11) than toward the person himself. Not that He feels no righteous anger against sinners. But Scripture places far greater emphasis on His love and compassion for His enemies.

“He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked” (Luke 6:35). “Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). Surely the ungodly are God’s worst enemies. And yet the depth of God’s compassion for those enemies is so great that He sacrificed His own Son for us “while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8).

Thank You, Jesus, for Your tears of both grief and anger, as demonstrated on the way to Lazarus’ tomb. Thank You for feeling the pain of the loss of a friend. Thank You for weeping with those who weep. And thank You for Your anger at my own personal, painful, day-after-day suffering.

 

 

I Believe; Help my Unbelief*

Painful doubts

Is there a single Christian on this planet who doesn’t suffer from doubt at least occasionally? I doubt it.

One of the greatest sources of doubt that Western Christians face: The clash between biblical and natural explanations for everything that exists. I struggled with this issue for many years after being saved.

I became a Christian as a freshman in high school. Up to that time, I’d been steeped in the certainty of evolution and the Big Bang. During an open discussion on origins in my eighth-grade science class, a fellow student had had the audacity to suggest that God had created all that we see. My intense, automatic, internal reaction was, “You can’t say that in school!”

As a young Christian, I knew I was supposed to believe in the Genesis account of our beginnings. But evolution made so much sense. There was a convincing logic and a sort of beauty to it. The evidence appeared overwhelming.

Shortly after graduating from college, an agnostic friend asked me point blank whether I believed that God had created all that exists in six days. I had to honestly say that I believed that He could have done it, but I was still uncertain about what had actually happened.

Evidence for creation

Over the next five years or so, God kept confronting me with this question—and with evidence for biblical creation. For the first time, I heard the argument that if humans came into being through evolution, there was no explanation for the Fall. No original sin. No need for Jesus to come and save us. No basis for my faith. That was pretty scary.

Another fact that hadn’t really registered in all my years of reading the Bible: Jesus always spoke about the events in the Old Testament as if they were literally true. Always. For example, when the Pharisees questioned Him about the laws governing divorce, Jesus asked them whether they had read that “at the beginning the Creator made them male and female” (Matthew 19:4). Jesus clearly supported the Genesis account. Who was I to question it?

God sent a brother in Christ to provide a good role model for me. He was an engineer, a critical and logical thinker, and a firm believer in creation. He was rarely able to accept something simply because the Bible says it’s true. He had to wrestle with it, to think it through and examine the evidence. If he could trust God’s Word in this area, maybe I could too.

I attended a class at my church on the case for creation. One night, we watched a video showing fossils with dinosaur and human footprints side by side, followed by an interview with an atheistic scientist who had examined the rocks and was asked for his analysis. After admitting that no animal other than a human being could have left such distinctive footprints, his feeble explanation was that they must be a product of erosion.

Which takes more faith: To believe in the pretty much impossible possibility that wind and water carved out several obviously human footprints in a perfect human stride next to equally clear dinosaur footprints—or to accept the evidence that people and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time? This experience was my first taste of the powerful bias of a supposedly objective scientist when confronted with facts that contradicted his own set views.

The class also addressed a sticky question: Why would God create a universe where it looks like natural processes have been at work over billions of years? Isn’t that deceptive?

They called it “apparent age.” Adam didn’t start out as a single cell. Plants and animals weren’t all seeds and embryos on the first day of their creation. Many of them were fully formed, mature beings. They had apparently passed through all the previous ages and stages.

In the same way, all that exists—rocks, planets, the light coming to us from distant stars—was created instantaneously, but appearing as if it had arisen through natural processes over time. This strategy provides the continuity we need to be able to study God’s creation scientifically.

Eventually, my faith grew strong enough to trust the Bible’s explanation for my existence. And I hope I’ve learned from my own experience to exercise loving patience toward other Christians who are struggling with painful doubts.

God’s goodness

One thing still bugged me, though. Our universe is expanding. The most obvious explanation for that expansion is the Big Bang. Why would God intentionally design a universe with something as seemingly unnecessary as its expansion, something that would undermine faith by pointing to a nonexistent Big Bang? I didn’t like that.

Sometimes God asks us to trust Him. Sometimes He wants us to accept what He says even when we don’t understand it as well as we’d like to. It’s called faith. But sometimes He graciously gives us a glimpse of the answers to our questions.

I was doing research for my last post when He unexpectedly provided one of those answers. All this time, I’d imagined that a stable universe was a real option. I had no idea that God knew better. The truth is that this universe must be expanding at just the right rate or it couldn’t exist.

I could have gone through the rest of my life without learning that fact. After fifty years as a Christian, I’ve reached the point where I can say that I don’t have all the answers, but I know that God does. When something puzzles me, I might face temporary doubts. I might even remain uncomfortable with it for years. But I know deep down inside that He has a perfectly good reason for it. Yet God, in His grace and love and kindness, granted me this opportunity to delight in His design.

Satan is always sending painful questions into my life to try to shake my faith. But God frequently responds with fascinating answers to build it up even more. (For another example, see “The Crucifixion.”)

*Mark 9:24 ESV. One of my favorite verses.

 

Choose Life!

 The biblical meaning of “life”

“Choose life and not death!” (2 Kings 18:32).

Yes! This is what God calls us to do. It’s the choice that Moses encouraged the Israelites to make as they prepared to enter the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 30:19).

I’ve always been fascinated by the Bible’s concept of life. Man does not live on bread alone (Deuteronomy 8:3). Life is more important than food (Matthew 6:25). But food is necessary for my survival. How can life be more important than that which sustains it?

There’s a hint here of something bigger, something greater than my literal understanding of the word “life.” In each of these brief sentences, God sweeps away my human view that I need to be thinking every moment about the physical aspects of my existence. Focusing, planning, fretting, anticipating good food, good drink, nice clothes, today’s to-do list, tomorrow’s adventures.

Biblically, “life” means even more than all these things put together. Salvation isn’t just about the perfect bliss of heaven. God is also deeply concerned about my quality of life here on earth. What does that look like when I’m working, when I’m cleaning up after my dog, or when I’m hurting from a painful loss? How do I live as if this is true?

I’ve been trying to figure that out for decades. Don’t know that I’ll ever get there. But I think of the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). Rather than finding my greatest pleasure in consuming foods that are soon gone, God wants to produce fruit in me that continues to multiply. Fruit that not only nourishes me, but feeds others as well. That’s life.

I also recall the Bible’s reminders to be content (1 Timothy 6:6, Hebrews 13:5). To my human mind, contentment leans toward grudgingly accepting something that I don’t really like. How often have I thought with a sigh, I guess I’ll just have to be content? As if being content is some kind of burden. True contentment lightens my heart with joy and peace. Even when I’m cleaning up after my dog.

Other views

The world around me shouts the same message as the verse above: Choose life! But the biblical meaning is missing here. In this context, life means everything that Jesus said is less important. Eat the tastiest foods. Drink the most intoxicating beverages. Wear the latest styles. Have sex as often as possible, with as many different people as possible. Get high. Put your own needs and desires ahead of everyone else’s. That’s what life is all about.

Sometimes Christian groups urge me to seek the wrong kind of life, too. In our lists of prayer requests, most of them concern physical healing or material needs. They reflect a genuine compassion for those who are suffering, as Jesus displayed. But that emphasis can imply that the physical and the material are the most important aspects of our lives.

We tend to forget the greater blessing that comes with accepting His will in all circumstances, and the truth that affliction can bring bountiful spiritual riches. Comfort takes priority over spiritual growth. The prosperity gospel, with its emphasis on health and wealth, is the most extreme form of this kind of thinking.

A godly response

That desire for worldly goods and pleasures is actually the side of human nature that the “Choose life!” verse is appealing to. The speaker isn’t urging his listeners to reach for a higher goal. He’s using crafty words and references to the God of Israel in an attempt to persuade King Hezekiah and his people to give themselves up to the invaders from Assyria.

A large army is standing outside the walls of Jerusalem, ready to destroy the city. The field commander is taunting its inhabitants, intentionally speaking in their language, trying to turn them against their king, trying to persuade them to surrender. Otherwise, they’ll die.

A group has gathered on the wall. Their backs are turned to God’s temple as they gaze at the threat in front of them and listen to a voice promising a way to safety. They’re frightened and vulnerable and oh-so-tempted to choose the meager physical life that the Assyrians are willing to provide, rather than seeking the true life that consists of more than bread alone.

Isn’t that where I sometimes find myself? Standing on a wall with my back to God. Seeing only the vast army of the enemy. Hearing words in my own language offering me life, not death.

What do the people of Jerusalem do? They obey their king. They remain silent when the Assyrians demand an answer, because that’s what Hezekiah had told them to do. Their faces may be turned away from the temple, but their hearts remain firmly dedicated to their God.

Their leaders respond by tearing their clothes, a symbol of anger and sorrow (BibleGateway.com). They report to Hezekiah, who also rips his robes. He goes to the temple, while sending others to the prophet Isaiah to ask him to pray. Isaiah’s first words to these messengers are, “Do not be afraid.” He then describes how the Lord will miraculously deliver them.

God doesn’t expect me to stay sheltered in His house, protected from the seductive words of an enemy who urges me to choose life, not death. Words that can sound so reasonable and attractive, so much like God’s own words. He puts me up on that wall with my back to His temple, listening to appeals in my own language.

But if I’ve already chosen the life that He offers, I can depend on that life to nourish and grow me over time. I’ll develop the wisdom and the faith to obey my King even in the face of fierce opposition and tempting invitations. I can rely on that life to provide the resources that allow me to go to the King and His prophets and His temple with its torn curtain. I can trust in that life to relieve my fears as I ask for prayer for His guidance and strength.

The Lord doesn’t promise me a miraculous physical deliverance in every situation, but He gives me the ability to choose life—a life that’s far greater than mere food and drink and clothing and all the other pleasures that this world has to offer.