Only God Is Perfect

There are people who constantly belittle themselves and respond to every compliment by stressing their flaws. And there are people who seem so sure of their infallibility that they take personal offense at the tiniest correction. It's hard to say which type is more annoying.

Most of us are one or the other to some degree--even as we relate to God. Many people claim to be praying for forgiveness when they're effectively trying to explain to God why what they did wasn't that bad; many others fall into "I'm totally worthless for doing this so much and I don't know why You would ever think of forgiving me" groveling. Either way, it comes back to expecting ourselves to be naturally perfect--a quality found in God alone.

Don't try to convince God you're infallible nor expect Him to hate you because you aren't. It is possible to be humble and still remember He has compassion on our weaknesses.

You who hate yourselves for failing,
Sure each stumble means disgrace,
Know that only God is perfect,
And compassion fills His face.

You who hate the least correction,
Sure you stand above the crowd,
Know that only God is perfect,
And He surely shames the proud.

Know that only God is perfect.
Great or small may be your sins--
Come to Him in humble weakness,
And learn where true strength begins.

Humility

Here's another item from the "Christian books I've recently read" department: Jean Fleming's Between Walden and the Whirlwind is for the busy Christian who's fed up with not being able to get her life in order. Not because the book solves your organization problems once and for all (how many books, Christian and secular alike, have made that claim?), but because it helps you come to peace with disorganization. More specifically, it emphasizes accepting that the ultimate order of life is in God's hands alone, and that our best planning skills--or intentions--can't earn us the right to grab the controls.

"Jesus has not asked me to have it all together," writes the author. "Here on earth no one arrives. All Christians are en route.... Even after we get God's direction for our life... we sometimes end up living out God's will to the wrong audience [ashamed to admit, even to fellow Christians, that God has called us only to "humble" tasks].... In our ardor to serve, we often overlook a critical truth: The servant doesn't choose his task. Our concept of serving God may be doing what we would like to do--for God. We tell God what we'll do for Him, and what we won't do; where we'll go for Him, and where we won't go. We even tell Him what mustn't interfere with our plans to serve Him" (1985 hardback edition, pp. 17, 31, 88).

Can you say "Ouch!"?

However obviously a task seems to be "God's work," God will not be pleased if it is done in a prideful spirit. This doesn't apply only to the "showy piety" Jesus condemns in Mt. 6; it includes deliberate or thoughtless disregard for seeking God's will in our decisions. How many times do we rationalize something just has to be God's will for us because we want it so much? ("I've realized my first marriage was really against God's will, so the only Christian thing to do is end it and be united with the person God wanted me to marry in the first place.") Some of us even presume to tell others what God's will is for them: "I don't care if you prayed about it with fasting for three weeks, dear; I'm your mother, and I know God couldn't possibly want you to take a dangerous job like that." "You have to marry me; God told me we're meant to be together, even if He didn't tell you." But true servanthood is being willing to accept God's will as He reveals it, not to try to change it to fit our wishes or our logic.

Where would we be now if Jesus had convinced Himself the Cross was not God's will?

Lord, I would like so much
To do great things for You:
But may "greatness" not overwhelm my power
To stay humble through and through.

Lord, I have glorious plans;
My heart is full of dreams;
But may they come true only if their glow
Never blinds to Your Truth's gleams.

Lord, minds so quickly stray
When they have pride to chase;
If I turn away, please do trip me up,
Lest I fail in faith's great race.

Lord, I still long to stand
With those who can achieve:
But please never let me achieve those things
That would weaken my belief.

Lord, all my days are Yours:
May what I gain and do
Never be so great as to tempt to pride,
Or distract my eyes from You.

Control

My daily prayer for this week begins, "Lord, free me from the obsession of trying to stuff every task into a predetermined neat little time slot." I can get so fixated on "keeping the schedule" that I'd hesitate to leave my work if the room caught fire.

A more likely danger is that fretting over what should be done (and in what order) could lead to an ulcer or something worse. Insisting that everything be planned perfectly down to the last millisecond is the sort of thinking that nervous breakdowns are made of. Many of us make things worse by trying to fit in more than sober thinking tells us we can handle. But even for the world's top time managers, it's literally impossible to ensure that things will always go according to plan, that there will never be an unexpected power failure or phone call or flash flood. Only God is never surprised by a sudden need to make adjustments.

And here as everywhere, our fleshly appetites try to usurp His rights--and complain when He overrules us. We cling desperately to the delusion that we must be in control, that we must have that security.

The saddest part is that, in the process, we cheat ourselves out of the true security that comes with faith that God is in control.

All our lives we chase control:
Fixed within each human soul
Is the urge for mastery,
Drive to grasp the things we see
And desire. We fret and plan
For each tiny thing we can,
Thinking this will make us whole:
All our lives we chase control.

But this longing for control
In the fallen human soul
Still believes the ancient lie,
"Be as God; you shall not die."
No one can cheat death for long;
Nor is anyone so strong
Just to meet each earthly goal.
We are not in full control.

God alone is in control,
He Who makes the oceans roll,
He Who lit each fiery sun,
He Who has for everyone
Better things than those we chase,
If we quit this frantic race.
"Know the Lord" should be our goal;
Rest, and let Him take control.

Perspective

Two weeks running, my church's Sunday sermon has touched on the idea that "the reason most of us are worriers is that we see God as no bigger than our biggest problem." My own"problem with problems" isn't so much their individual weight as their combined volume. Lately it seems that something new goes wrong every day: an unexpected expense pops up just as a client hits tough financial times and can't pay a bill on schedule; a much-anticipated appointment cancels at the last minute because something important came up; I remember almost too late that I need extra input for a project and then my potential source gets huffy because I asked on such short notice. At least once a week, I was grumbling that God may be bigger than our problems, but He doesn't seem to be nearly as visible.

I thought it was His responsibility to step directly into my line of vision. It was some time before I considered that maybe I was looking in the wrong direction. Or that maybe I found problems more visible because--like a bird watcher who has her binoculars set for a clear view of a house sparrow ten feet away and then complains that the eagle soaring overhead is a blurry speck--I was too lazy to "adjust my focus" for the better vision.

Actually, human nature is so self-centered that it hardly needs an obvious problem to get itself, God, and the world out of perspective. Each of us is prone to one of two wrong attitudes toward everyday life. On one side stand the worriers and the workaholics, desperately trying to anticipate and head off everything that might spoil their plans; on the other side are the egotists who confidently assert that the human race is smart enough to deal with anything.

Both sides (and, sadly, both include a fair number of Christians) have the same root issue: thinking of themselves and/or humanity in general as responsible for "getting things right." If God gets factored into the equation at all, He is seen as a 911 number to be ignored during everyday concerns and called on only in direst emergency. When the emergency comes, it's not surprising that we can see it better than we can see God--because it's standing directly between us and what we'd already put in front of God.

Many of our problems really are bigger than we are. So if we also see them as bigger than God, we've likely gotten into the habit of seeing ourselves as bigger than God.

We may boast as we learn to treat cancer
And to stretch a life's total span;
But each human breath and each day of death
Are still subject to God's own plan.

We may think ourselves masters of science
Who could probe the most distant sun;
But each star was lit, and each orbit set,
By the Only Eternal One.

We may think we are brilliant achievers
If we guess where the snow will fall;
But the sun, the rain, and the hurricane
Are all still at God's beck and call.

We are constantly learning and dreaming,
And predicting a day when we
May see nature's all at our beck and call:
"Then," we think, "just like gods we'll be."

Since that line worked its mischief on Adam,
The appeal of its siren call
Has wrecked countless souls on the rocky shoals
Known as Pride and as I Am All.

But if you would be someone important--
Truly wish to achieve your best--
Turn away from pride, and let God inside,
For His servants alone are blessed!

Many Words

Those who revel in the sound of their own voices are frequently left to enjoy themselves free of competition. "If you want to know how to make people shun you," notes Dale Carnegie's classic How to Win Friends and Influence People, "here is the recipe: Never listen to anyone for long. Talk incessantly about yourself. If you have an idea while the other person is talking... bust right in and interrupt." Proverbs 10:19 predicts even more serious consequences than losing all one's friends: "When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise" (NIV). (See also the blog entry for 4/21/08.)

For all that--and for all our quickness to agree that nonstop babblers are horrendous bores--"talking too much" is a near-universal fault, probably because human nature easily recognizes it in everyone but ourselves. Even in prayer, the majority of us do nearly all the talking: "We dictate to God our shopping list and say 'Amen,'" as one writer put it. Then we complain that God "doesn't answer our prayers," when in fact we aren't listening for answers--we just want God to give us what we want and then step back until we think of something else to ask for. And we seldom seem to make room for any idea that He might want--or deserve--anything from us.

If somebody said straight out, "I don't think God or anyone else is important except as a means to serve my interests," we'd be shocked at such arrogance. Yet through our other words--our incessant talking about how much we know and how important our needs are and how we never get enough respect--many of us say the same thing daily.

That's why talking too much can't be dismissed as a relatively harmless personality flaw. Considering ourselves more important than even God is the worst of sins.

To make endless talk is an easy thing--
Thousands chatter in mindless ways--
But to know when the time for silence comes
Is a skill worth the highest praise.

To write countless words is a common thing,
Seeming often to have no end;
But to read the words of God's Holy Book
Is a way few their time will spend.

Our Lord's priceless words seek our minds and hearts,
Yet so many stop up each ear.
Please, today turn from your own empty words,
And take time God's great voice to hear!

Not the Gift But the Giver

The parable of the talents is among the first Bible stories taught in most Sunday schools. A rich man entrusted sums of money to three of his servants, apparently instructing them to make wise use of the gifts. Two of the servants doubled their holdings. The third was afraid to make even the most cautious investment, so he hid his share away where it would be "safe"--and useless. The master, upon receiving their reports, angrily removed the third servant from any further position of responsibility.

What comes as a surprise is the rationale behind the master's anger. The servant wasn't simply cowardly and indecisive to act as he did; he was "lazy" and "wicked." In other words, failure to make use of the master's investment was on the level of the indictment in James 4:17 (NIV): "Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." We like to think that if we do nothing, we can't be doing anything wrong; Jesus says that there are times when God expects positive action, and if we refuse to take it, we are committing the sin of defying God.

Why did the servant in the parable commit this sin? For one thing, he apparently lacked confidence in his ability to bring in a profit, and feared that any attempt to invest the money would mean loss instead of gain. Moreover, he didn't really know his master; he apparently thought he was working for a tyrant (Matthew 25:24-25) who would be furious if the money returned was less than the money given, so he decided it would be safest to make sure that at least the exact amount would remain available. And there may have been another reason as well: perhaps the servant was secretly resentful because he got the smallest amount of money. "One talent" was a sizable enough sum; but another servant had received twice as much and still another five times as much. Perhaps the third servant really felt that "if my master thinks I'm worth so much less than the others, why should I make as much effort as they?"

The parable, of course, is an analogy: God is the Master Who gives each of His servants gifts (money, time, circumstances, abilities) which He expects us to put to good use advancing His Kingdom. Some of us look at the Christian author whose books are bestsellers even in the secular world; the Christian musician who gives fifty well-attended concerts a year and has released a dozen top-selling CDs; or the pastor whose church is growing by the hundreds and thousands of members--and we think, "I'll never be in their league; I can't possibly do anything major for God, so what's the use of even trying?"

Like the servant in the parable, we badly misjudge our Master. We not only imply that He didn't know what He was doing when He chose what gifts to give us, and that He doesn't really care whether we use them or not; but we fail to see that it isn't the size of the gift that matters. It's the size of the Giver. The God Who turned five loaves of bread into a hearty meal for thousands (Matthew 14:14-21) can certainly show us how to turn a single talent into great profit. Because our Master isn't really away on a trip. He's right here with us, just waiting for us to ask for guidance.

One more thing: if you consider yourself to be in the "ten talents and growing" pool, rather than the "one-talent" one, it's still the size of the Giver that counts. God doesn't discipline only those who neglect their talents; people who become arrogant and take all the credit for their success--as if they had created themselves--are if anything headed for a harder fall.

Lord, keep me from the sin of sloth
And also that of fear,
Lest I be like the wicked man
Who held Your talent in his hand,
But hid it in a piece of cloth,
And kept it useless there.

But keep me also safe from pride,
Lest, gifted from Your hand,
I think, "It all depends on me,"
And work not for eternity
But turn my thoughts from You aside,
And build success on sand.

"As We Forgive Our Debtors"

Many Christian virtues are easy to commend until the time comes to practice them. Patience is one of the top contenders. Generosity is another. The ability to cope with tragedy is a third--compare C. S. Lewis's matter-of-fact approach in The Problem of Pain with his reaction to personal pain in A Grief Observed.

Lewis also wrote, referring to another easier-in-theory virtue: "Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive." The sins committed against us personally always seem to be the worst sins in the world. A grudge can easily become a best friend--there are people who, twenty years after some trivial offense, can still be counted on to complain about the matter during the first five minutes of any conversation on any topic.

Whether the actual "crime" is small or horrendous, the reason we find it so hard to forgive is usually that we ourselves are harboring some degree of the worst sin of all--pride. We all want to believe we are too important to be hurt or inconvenienced. So when others disprove that notion, we hate them for it.

While in cases of serious hurt we may not sin by being angry--even with God--for a time, our broken hearts can all too quickly become hard ones. Once "I don't see how I can ever forgive" crosses the line into "I refuse even to try to forgive," we are on the way to becoming like the servant who, in Matthew 18:21-35, forgot how much he himself had been forgiven as soon as he remembered that someone still owed him.

The best cure for "I will not forgive" is to stop and take a good look at Jesus on the Cross: the one Person Who truly never deserved to have anything bad happen to Him, battered, despised, taunted--yet praying, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34, NIV). Who are we, by comparison, to say we are too important to forgive?

Especially when we were among the ones He prayed for. Every angry thought we ever entertained, every selfish act we ever thoughtlessly committed, helped put Him on that Cross.

If you would accept the forgiveness God offers,
But still have Him punish the ones who wrong you,
Your heart is too proud to be cleansed in completeness;
Your soul is too selfish for peace to be true.

The one who's forgiven of millions of dollars,
Then stops to demand that a thousand be paid,
Will forge his own prison of bitter resentment,
And lock himself in with a key he has made.

Our Christ, Who was sinless, forgave those who hurt Him;
Our God, Who is pure, offers cleansing to all.
Who are you, to claim to forgive is beneath you?
Beware of the pride that precedes a great fall!

When I See the Stars on a Country Night

Pride is the most insidious and universal of sins. It actually is the original sin, the one that led Eve to try the forbidden fruit through the attitude, "I have a right to be everything God is." Whenever we think we know better than God--whether we express this idea through blatant disobedience or through silent despair over His not giving us our own way--we reenact the Fall on a smaller scale.

Few of us fully appreciate how evil pride is. We even speak of it positively: "You've got to take some pride in your work." "Don't you have any pride?" Perhaps the general idea of self-respect, for which "pride" is often used as a synonym, isn't entirely bad; it has kept many people from violating their consciences. But when our reasoning progresses from "I couldn't stoop so low" to "I am incapable of ever doing that" to "I am too good for certain work/people/circumstances," we quickly start sliding toward serious trouble.

The best way to avoid disaster is to get in the habit of chopping down prideful thoughts before they get the chance to take over our heads. And the best "ax" for the job is forged by constantly reminding ourselves how great God is.

And how He, Who actually was too good for us, was never too proud to give His best in the face of our worst.

When I see the stars on a country night,
Or look on in awe at a swallow's flight,
Or see wildflowers bright with a hundred hues,
Or a rainbow's gleam in the airy dews,
Let me ask myself: Who am I, that He
Who made all of this, gives a thought to me?

When I start to feel that I know it all,
And that I am great and all others small,
And I have a right to some selfish whim,
Let me ask myself: Who am I, to Him
Who knows every thought in each human soul,
And sees all of time in one seamless whole?

When I start to feel pride in doing well,
Let me see how sin paints me black as hell,
How my purest deeds bear the taint of wrong,
And then ask myself: Where do I belong,
And what have I done to deserve His grace,
He in Whom no sin ever found a place?

What am I, O God, that You care for me?
Who am I, my Lord, that You stooped to see
Just how lost I was; and You found me worth
Bearing all the guilt that my sin gave birth?
I am nothing, Lord; You are pure and true:
Crush my pride, O Lord; keep my eyes on You.

Lord, Remind Me

Is it hardest to trust God when times are difficult? The "automatic" answer is usually affirmative! But often, when everything is going well and we are confident it will continue that way, we aren't really trusting God--actually, we're hardly thinking about Him at all. Oh, we may attend church weekly, follow daily Bible reading plans, and say our nightly "bless 'ems," but only because (however subconsciously) we consider it our side of a bargain--God's side being to let us continue our comfortable middle-class lives. Our confidence is really in ourselves: we commit no crimes; we maintain respectable levels of piety; therefore, we deserve the best.

Small wonder we get so annoyed when things go "wrong."

Wayne and Joshua Mack's book, Humility: The Forgotten Virtue, prescribes quite a few things we can think about to shrink our swelled heads down to size: God's majesty and our insignificance; Christ's moral purity and our moral filthiness (there is no such thing as a slightly dirty sin); God's mercy and how much we need it; God's judgment and how much we deserve it; the great saints and their awareness of their shortcomings. Worship that includes no genuine sorrow for our own sins, nor any genuine awe at the majesty of God, is no worship at all, but the kind of lukewarm attitude to which Christ's reaction is, "You make Me want to throw up" (my paraphrase of Revelation 3:16). A shocking picture--but sometimes we need a shock to jar us out of our complacency.

The key point, however, is that everything in our lives comes from God. If times are hard, we can be certain that God means it all for our ultimate good. And if times are easy, we must not let ourselves forget that it is all God's gift--nor that He deserves our constant thanks.

Let us never forget to remember our Lord.

Lord, remind me in my trials,
When pain throb and rest evade:
Health and wealth are not life's purpose;
For Your glory I was made.

Lord, remind me in successes,
In the times when ease seems sure:
There is greater wealth awaiting
In the heavens where things endure.

Lord, remind me in my weakness,
When I fear my faith will slip:
It is not my strength that matters;
You still hold me in Your grip.

Lord, remind me in achievement,
When I draw great human praise:
Next to You I still am nothing;
Fast and fleeting are my days.

Lord, remind me all my lifetime--
I, who merit death and hell,
I, who scorned Your right direction,
I, who proud as Satan fell--

Of Your grace and love and mercy,
Of the price You paid for me:
Lord, remind me now to worship,
Now--and through eternity.