Four Seasonal Dangers and Strategies

I’ve been giving a lot of thought these days to the subject of God’s will. While engaged in a study of that issue recently, I came across a term we rarely use or read these days: providence. The root meaning of providence is “foresight . . . to see in advance” or “to provide for.” But those definitions could leave us with too shallow an understanding. Providence contains far more than a passive reference to God’s foreknowledge.

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Guiding Grace

In his letter to the Romans, Paul goes into great detail regarding the issue of personal freedom—greater detail than almost anywhere else in his writings. In the fourteenth chapter, for example, he sets forth four very practical guidelines that can be followed by all who are serious about releasing others in grace.

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Cracks in the Wall

The longer I live the less I know for sure. That sounds like 50% heresy . . . but it’s 100% honesty. In my younger years I had a lot more answers than I do now. Things were absolutely black and white, right or wrong, yes or no, in or out, but a lot of that is beginning to change. The more I travel and read and wrestle and think the less simplistic things seem.

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Insight

Are you ready for a surprise? You blink twenty-five times every minute. Each blink takes you about one-fifth of a second. Therefore, if you take a ten-hour automobile trip, averaging forty miles per hour, you will drive twenty miles with your eyes closed.

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Roots

There’s this tree in my front yard that gives me fits several times a year. It leans. No, it never breaks or stops growing . . . it just leans. It’s attractive, deep green, nicely shaped, and annually bears fragrant blossoms. But let a good, healthy gust give it a shove—and over it goes. Like, fast.

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A Parable: Saving Lives

On a dangerous seacoast notorious for shipwrecks, there was a crude little lifesaving station. Actually, the station was merely a hut with only one boat . . . but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the turbulent sea. With little thought for themselves, they would go out day and night tirelessly searching for those in danger as well as the lost. Many, many lives were saved by this brave band of men who faithfully worked as a team in and out of the lifesaving station. By and by, it became a famous place.

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Their Quest, My Benefit

All of us are surrounded by and benefit from the results of someone’s quest. Let me name a few. Above my head is a bright electric light. Thanks, Tom. On my nose are eyeglasses that enable me to focus. Thanks, Ben. In my driveway is a car ready to take me wherever I choose to steer it. Thanks, Henry. Across my shelves are books full of interesting and carefully researched pages. Thanks, authors.

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Quests

Without a quest, life is quickly reduced to bleak black and wimpy white, a diet too bland to get anybody out of bed in the morning. A quest fuels our fire. It refuses to let us drift downstream, gathering debris. It keeps our mind in gear, makes us press on.

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Externals vs. Internals

The nation to whom the prophet Isaiah wrote was going through the empty motions of a hollow religion. All the right words, all the right appearances, but zero results. They even fasted and prayed. I suppose we could say they looked and sounded orthodox, but they missed God’s favor. They observed the external Sabbath, but they lacked the internal Shalom. Why? Don’t hurry through the answer (Isa. 58:6–12). It’s worth reading aloud, perhaps more than once.

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Compassion

It was one of those backhanded compliments. The guy had listened to me talk during several sessions at a pastors’ conference. All he knew about me was what he’d heard in the past few days: ex-marine . . . schooled in an independent seminary . . . committed to biblical exposition . . . noncharismatic . . . premil . . . pretrib . . . pro this . . . anti that.

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