sober-minded

A leper came to Jesus, imploring Him, and said, “If you will, You can make me clean.” Moved with pity, the Lord stretched out His hand and touched Him and said to Him, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was clean.

A father came to Jesus; “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. The disciples were not able to cast it out. This has been happening since childhood. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us!”

One man, the leper, came confessing ignorance of what he couldn’t know (”if You are willing”) but loads of faith in what he did know (”You can make me clean!”)  The other man, the father, wasn’t sure that God existed, or that He rewards those who seek Him. Jesus had no rebuke for the leper’s qualification, “If you will.” But He had one for the words of the dad: “If You can? All things are possible for one who believes!”

The words of Jesus pierced that father’s heart so that he immediately cried out and confessed his true state to Him, asking Him to help His unbelief. It was a cry, at last, of faith.

God doesn’t want us to come speaking presumptuously about His will for us and our requests. We don’t know His secret purposes. We implore Him to save our sons and daughters, we request that He heal our bodies of cancer, all the while resting in His sovereign design.

But He does want us to come to Him in full confidence that He is fully able to do, in a heartbeat, what we’ve asked of Him! And that no matter how He chooses to work, He has rewards in store for our audacious and settled belief in Him. He is the God who can. And so very wonderfully often, He is also the God who will.

   “In quietness and in trust”, says the Lord, “shall be your strength.” I’ve seen lately that this kind of strength will never come from my own efforts to maintain and exude a “quiet confidence.” My own efforts will never result in this true strength of trust and faith in God, the kind He is talking about here. No matter how many times I attempt this sort of quietness and confidence on my own, I fail.

The strength He promises here comes only when I am made quiet and confident by remembering what He has done, and what He has promised to do; by resting as I meditate on His past deeds and mighty acts, both those in the Bible and those of last week. He has never failed His people.

The children of Israel tested God at Meribah, complaining that no water had yet appeared to quench their thirst. No matter that they had seen Him deliver them out of Egypt with a great and mighty arm; that they had seen the Red Sea part before them, and had known His constant presence and provision in the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. Here at Meribah they discounted all that, forgot all about it, because they wanted to. They wanted to murmur; they wanted their unbelief.

So Lord, help me to remember, and so know You as You have revealed Yourself to be. In this way I’ll be still and quiet before your mighty deeds, recounting them often to myself and to my children, and my confidence will be in You. Keep me from the unbelief of Israel at Meribah; I have seen your mighty acts before, and I know I will yet again. May I not be unbelieving. You are the God who acts; You have promised never to leave me or forsake me.  In the quietness and confidence of faith in You, let my strength be found.

“For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,
‘In returning and rest you shall be saved;
in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.’

“But you were unwilling, and you said,
‘No! We will flee upon horses’…

“Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you,
and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for him.”   Isaiah 30:15, 16a, 18

“It will be said on that day,
‘Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.
This is the Lord; we have waited for him;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.’”    Isaiah 25:9

How much is “too much” when it comes to considering Satan’s influence over our thinking, our sins, and circumstances in our lives? I have known Christian groups who believe that they must always be engaged in certain types of spiritual warfare, even believing they should go head-to-toe with demonic principalities. I’m also familiar with the mindset that we shouldn’t give Satan much thought at all… that he is “bound” and our resisting him is really simply a matter of submitting to God and standing firm in our faith, with no further strategy required.

But God’s word gives us the right way to think about the issue, and it’s not *never* considering Satan’s involvement in a situation, and it’s not *always* thinking in terms of how Satan figures into a situation. Some reformed Christians tend to lean more toward the first mistake, some charismatics toward the second one.

I think 2 Corinthians 2:10 gives insight into this. Paul warns that in the situation he is addressing, care should be taken to avoid being “outwitted” by the devil ( he names names here, you’ll notice.) This war of “wits” implies that some prayerful thinking and wisdom are called for… in fact, a counter-strategy is being proposed against a very real strategist.

Other places we’re warned specifically to be mindful of how Satan can get the advantage over us are in Ephesians 4 and 1 Corinthians 7:

“Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,  and give no opportunity to the devil” (Ephesians 4:26, 27).

“Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (1 Corinthians 7:5).

Paul warns that the devil may take advantage of human, sinful weakness in these three specific situations: the zeal of the church and the sorrow of the repentant in a church discipline situation; righteous anger that goes on too long; and the prolonged sexual abstinence of husband and wife for the purpose of prayer and fasting.  In his cautioning them, Paul could have simply said, “Be careful that you don’t sin as you are handling these things.” But he uses the fact that the devil is seeking an opportunity as an explanation to them for their need to be watchful and careful.

We shouldn’t do less, though it’s kind of tricky in this day and culture to speak of these things. Many Christians who want to be Scriptural and who want to avoid giving the devil “too much credit” have erred too far on the side of not paying that kind of attention.  We are reluctant because the Bible shines the spotlight undeniably on the power and promises of our wonderful Lord and Savior to keep and deliver His people, and we are called to do the same. We are to “set our affections on things above” and to dwell on whatever is “lovely and worthy of praise.” We are definitely not called to dwell on what demons may or may not be up to! But we see from the Scriptures that we are called to be watchful and prayerful as we go through our days, daily asking the Lord to “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil (or ‘the evil one’.) We have an enemy who is watching for an “opportune time” (Luke 4:13.) Let’s learn from God’s word about this, asking the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom and discernment, as in all matters pertaining to godliness.

(This post is a response to some discussion on a much better article than this one !…)

First it was a blog, then it became a website, now it is both, but I’ve been thinking that the website content I posted a few years ago, now found here, needs to be what folks get to when they visit the sober-minded web address.  So in a few days or so, I am going to change things back so that that happens. I’ll still be blogging… trying, as usual, to do so with more regularity (never give up, you know!) but the content of my other pages seems to be helpful to people and I want it to be more accessible. You’ll still be able to bookmark this blog, of course, and access it directly.

All this is right in line with having a sober-minded view of myself and how I can be most helpful to God’s people. It’s neat how He will surely lead and guide us in answer to our sincere prayers for that guidance. In this case my husband’s good advice helped me out.

You can access the web pages I am talking about here, where I have posted stories and thoughts on living sober-mindedly since 2005, shortly after the loss of our son Joe in October 2004. (You can also click on the link “More Sober-Minded” on the sidebar at the right.)