Keep Me

The song

Singing a song in church on Sunday. The pastor doesn’t introduce it as a new one. He just plunges right in as if we should all know it. 

Wondering, why don’t I recognize this? Maybe I’ve never really paid attention to the words. That would be unusual for me. Maybe I tuned them out because I didn’t want to think about applying them in a personal way.

I don’t. I don’t want to sing them, to mean them, to ask God to make them real in my life. It would be too painful.

And yet those words reflect just what I should want. What I need. What Jesus encourages us to long for.

When I go online the next day to print out the words, I’m surprised to discover that it’s been about twenty years since they were first recorded. How could I have missed them in all that time?

The song: “Keep Me,” by the Crabb Family.

The part that I like

I can honestly sing and relate to some of the requests that it voices. “Keep me lost for words to praise you enough … Keep me praying, keep me trusting … Keep me coming back to you.”

I want a God who’s so big and mysterious and sublime that I can’t come up with all the right words to praise Him. I want a God who helps me to continue praying and trusting even when I don’t feel like it, who keeps drawing me back to Him when I wander.

I want a God who makes my life better in ways that I can see and understand. In ways that turn me from feeling lost to finding joy in Him.

The part that I don’t like

But keep me hungry, keep me thirsty, keep me falling, keep me broken? (That’s the one that really gets to me.) How can I sing these words and actually mean them?

Can I honestly say that I want God to keep me hungry for daily manna? No. I don’t want an ongoing hunger even after I’ve just eaten, as those words keep me imply. I want to be so satisfied that I don’t feel any hunger at all for at least a little while.

Can I honestly say that I want God to keep me thirsty for living water? No. I want to take another sip before my throat begins to dry out. I’ve heard that marathon runners are advised to start pre-hydrating a day or two before the race begins. Be prepared. Avoid the suffering and danger.

That’s what I want God to do for me spiritually. Don’t keep me thirsty. Keep me well-hydrated.

Can I honestly say that I want God to keep me falling on my knees in need of mercy? No. I don’t want to constantly carry such a deep sense of unworthiness that I actually collapse. I want to sit in my usual chair at my usual time of day, put my feet up, close my eyes, and go through my usual prayer routine, which sometimes includes a sentence or two regarding His mercy.

Besides, a need for mercy implies some kind of failure. Why can’t I be an overcomer instead? Isn’t that what God wants me to be, as John writes about in the book of Revelation?

Keep me broken??? Who would ever pray such a prayer? Not me. I pray, “Keep me safe. Keep me strong.”

This song isn’t asking God to see me through a tough time, like all the ones that I like so much do. It’s those two words that get to me: “keep me.” I don’t want Him to keep me in a needy state.

The benefits of the painful keep me’s

And yet there are good reasons for being kept in painful situations. Maybe the song hits me so hard right now because God has been reminding me lately that I can minister to others better in my brokenness. Instead of constantly praying for Him to take it away, He’s been encouraging me to appreciate the good that comes from it. To accept it. To be content. (Definitely not there yet.)

And when I’m hungry and thirsty and falling and broken, that’s when I see my dependence on Him most clearly. Somewhere inside, I know I need Him all the time. But when I’m feeling healthy and whole, I’m much less aware of that fact.

The Bible mentions other benefits to God’s keeping me longing and hurting. I’ve commented on them in my various articles, so I’m not going to try to list them here. What strikes me right now is how the thoughts I’ve just mentioned help me to defy Satan. Satan wants to keep me wallowing in self-pity and a sense of entitlement.

Finding balance

So yes, I should be praying the prayers in this song. Even the ones I don’t like. But maybe I could go too far in that direction, too. Just like I can go too far in asking for healing and strength.

It’s also good to nourish and hydrate my soul even in those times when I’m not aware of being hungry or thirsty. Like the marathon runner.

If I hadn’t started reading the Bible and becoming involved in my church as a baby Christian, I probably wouldn’t have had the strength to resist the suicidal impulses a few years later. I might have had a semi-conscious sense of hunger and thirst then, like when I take a sip of water before I really need it, but I didn’t have the constant feeling of deprivation that I’m hearing in this song. And that was okay.

And I remember the very simple truth that, when Jesus was walking this earth, He healed. He didn’t keep people in their physical pain and paralysis. Maybe what I was missing when this song hit me so hard is the idea that He can keep us continually hungry, and continually satisfy that hunger, at the same time.

Kind of like sitting down to an infinite banquet with a healthy appetite and enjoying every delicious bite forever. The hunger I’d feel wouldn’t be a painful thing. It would be a spur to take the next mouthful, which I could do without any of the negative consequences such as being uncomfortably full or gaining excessive weight.

A "keep me" prayer doesn’t imply that God stands back and lets us suffer in our brokenness without providing the relief that we long for. He still heals.

Maybe I need to pray in a more balanced way, like the song does. Keep me praying and trusting and coming back to You. I can’t do those things on my own, as much as I try to give myself credit for them. But also keep me aware of my intense need for You, even when that means being broken moment by moment and day by day.

 

 

 

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.