|
Smiling at the Future
| |
Deborah P. Brunt
God is weaning me from dependence on my mind. That is, he's teaching me to respond to his Spirit before my mind can catch up.
Giving me glimpses of insight, he's instructing me to write what I'm seeing before I feel mentally ready to tackle the task, before I've thoroughly analyzed and ordered and pummeled the insight into a package reasoning can grasp.
So let me say, to your mind and to mine: Back off a bit. Stay tuned, but relax and quit trying to take the lead.
Let me say, to your spirit and to mine: Come forward. Yield to God's Spirit. In the midst of my feeble attempts to verbalize what he's revealing, hear and respond to whatever HE says.
|
|
| |
For me, a new season started with the new year.
When seasons change in the natural realm, we don't all experience it or notice it at the same moment. But give or take a few weeks, everyone in a large geographical region simultaneously exits, say, summer and enters fall. In the spiritual realm, lots of indicators tell me I'm not the only one experiencing a seasonal shift.
Some seasons pad in like kittens, entering so quietly, so gently, you don't notice the change until it's well underway. This season entered like a souped-up muscle car careening into town, announcing itself in capital letters as VOLATILE.
Unsettling word, volatile. Thesaurus.com lists a mishmash of synonyms, among them: airy, effervescent, playful, sprightly; capricious, changeable, variable; elusive, fickle, fleeting, flighty; erratic, uncertain, unstable, explosive, up-and-down.
A volatile substance vaporizes rapidly. A volatile person displays erratic behavior. A volatile world threatens to erupt into violence. Volatile market conditions fluctuate sharply and regularly.
In a volatile environment, you can have high hopes - that suddenly go boom. You can feel playful and giddy one day, rash and moody the next. You can enjoy an effervescent moment, only to watch the bubble burst. Your heart can move permanently to your throat.
After all, you used to live on a merry-go-round - predictable and calm, boring but familiar, routine and seemingly endless. Without warning, you now barrel who-knows-where on a runaway roller coaster. Economies and relationships flail wildly. Things that seemed immovable sway violently. Whole nations heave. Some days, you may feel like heaving, too.
|
|
| |
A few days into my new season, God told me how to approach it. He brought to mind a phrase describing the Proverbs 31 woman, though he clearly intends men to use this approach too: "She smiles at the future" (v. 25 NAS).
Here's where logic fails me. Logic tells me smiling is good, so far as it goes. It's winsome, healthy and great for PR. Yet the Proverbs writer attested, not that this woman smiles at people, but that she smiles at the future.
Further, the verb rendered "smiles" in New American Standard literally means "to laugh." The New International Version says, "she can laugh at the days to come." New Living Translation declares, "She laughs with no fear of the future."
Laughter is fun. Fun is frivolous. Frivolous, by definition, lacks seriousness or sense, weight or worth. Thus, though laughter does refresh, we rank it as a luxury, not a necessity and definitely not a strategy for victory in a volatile season.
Imagine yourself standing mid-street with a souped-up muscle car careening toward you. Imagine someone calling out to you: "Just smile! Better yet, laugh."
Ridiculous? Irresponsible? Smacking of denial? Inviting disaster? Surely, volatile times call for decisive, not frivolous, measures. Measures such as jumping out of the way of that careening car.
Surely, volatile seasons call for fervent prayer, reading and obeying God's Word, forsaking evil and embracing genuine righteousness, worshiping the one true God and doing the good works he's prepared beforehand for you to do. Ah, but might there be another response just as crucial as these?
|
|
| |
"She smiles at the future."
If you read Proverbs 31:10-31, you'll see: This woman doesn't live in la-la land. She doesn't sit around from morning till night, smiling. Nor does she frantically rush about, as if the future of the world (or her community or her family or her own life) depended on her efforts. Moment by moment, she does what God puts before her to do. As she takes the decisive measures he has assigned her, she smiles.
Don't assume this woman acts so calmly because she lives in a calm season. Rather, assume the opposite. Anyone can smile when a rosy future looks quite assured.
But "worth far more than rubies" (Prov. 31:10) is a woman who, when facing an uncertain future, a volatile future, doesn't succumb to confusion, despair or fear.
She smiles - and not just a Mona Lisa, maybe it is, maybe it's not, smile. Thinking about the days to come, she laughs.
|
|
| |
"Ah, she's looking forward to eternity," some would say. "She smiles because she's thinking about the 'sweet bye and bye' 'when we all get to heaven.'"
I'd suggest: Yes. And no.
In one volatile season, Mary and Martha watched their brother Lazarus die. The sisters hoped Jesus would come before Lazarus' death - and would heal him. But only after Lazarus' burial, while his sisters sat in their home in Bethany, grieving, did Jesus show up. When Martha learned he had arrived, she hurried out to greet him.
"Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."
Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."
Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day" (John 11:21-24).
Let's hit the pause button, and do a little Q&A.
Will Lazarus rise in the resurrection at the last day? Yes, he will!
Ah, but did Jesus also mean that Lazarus would experience a more immediate return to life? Yes, he did! That very day, Mary and Martha watched their brother walk out of the tomb, alive. Scripture doesn't say it, but I'm guessing both sisters laughed out loud.
In terms of bright futures, we Christians tend to make two mistakes: (1) We look
only at the world to come. (2) We look only at this world.
I grew up in the camp that intones, "This world is just going to get worse and worse." Thus armed with fatalism, rather than faith, such a mindset accepts every downward spiral as inevitable, believing the only future we can smile about is the heavenly one. In adulthood, I've discovered the camp that teaches, "We can expect
all God's rewards, blessings and fulfilled promises in this life. Oh, and heaven will be nice, too." Such a mindset may dismiss anyone who doesn't appear to receive said rewards and blessings as "not having enough faith."
Jesus taught Martha that smiling at the future means staying between those two ditches.
Our Lord wants us to expect him to show up in our day and to watch him act in his perfect timing - as he did in Bethany, as he's done throughout history - to transform communities and nations, to restore and redeem individuals and families, to fulfill promises and work miracles.
Our Lord also wants us to expect an eternal future so glorious we cannot fathom it, when we experience the consummation of everything we've tasted, when our Father brings "unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ" (Eph. 1:10).
|
|
Blessing
| |
You who know this God, be blessed to smile at the future - even in volatile times. Oh, do not invest in a shiny pair of rose-colored glasses. Do not invite Denial to move in, bringing with it the vain hope that, if you ignore the bad things, they'll go away. Rather, in those moments when life seems most fleeting and uncertain, or when all that seemed stable has blown up in your face, be blessed to know that Jesus has arrived. Be blessed to get up and greet him.
Openly share your confusion and pain. Then, listen to whatever he tells you and, by faith, respond from a sincere heart, "You are Lord." For Jesus Christ came to do what Isaiah 61:1-3 promises: "heal the heartbroken, announce freedom to all captives, pardon all prisoners ... comfort all who mourn ... give [you] bouquets of roses instead of ashes, Messages of joy instead of news of doom, a praising heart instead of a languid spirit. Rename [you an] 'Oak of Righteousness' planted by God to display his glory" (MSG).
Dying and rising again, the Lord Jesus opened the way so you can fully receive all this in the next life. And so you can experience much more of it than you've dreamed here on earth, in the days to come.
With that kind of future awaiting, how can you help but smile?
Next month:In volatile times, what can keep you smiling at the future in such a way that your laughter actually ushers in the good you anticipate?
. . . . . . .
This article is excerpted and adapted from an e-column published in 2008, titled, "Smiling Just Thinking About It." © Deborah P. Brunt 2008, 2014. All rights reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all other Scriptures quoted are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2001 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved. Also quoted: The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (MSG), New American Standard Updated (NAS) and New Living Translation (NLT).
|
|
also from keytruths.com
|
Seems utterly impossible.
So how does it look to come to Jesus ... and find rest?
Walk in the full redemption Jesus purchased for you
See real royalty. Be real royalty.
Live in the flow of grace.
Love fiercely. Live fully.
Don't be taken out by the two-headed snake.
We can't undo the past. But we can redeem it.
Ebook: Kindle
Nook
Print: softcover and hardcover
See what readers are saying about We Confess!
|
|
