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Trust the Slow Work of God

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By Pastor Ryan White

I find myself regularly returning to a particular prayer in this season. It comes from the pen of the 20th-century French Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Allow me to quote it in full:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—

and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;

your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,

let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on,

as though you could be today what time

(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)

will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.

—Excerpted from Michael Harter’s Hearts on Fire: Praying with the Jesuits (2005)

This is such a paradox. Jesus’s sacrificial death on the cross and His victory made manifest by the empty tomb were definitive and decisive. Truly, there and then Christ broke the power of evil, sin, and death and now is making all things new, even us. Yet this journey into newness is long. The process of sanctification is a slow and gradual, peppered with moments of breakthrough. It is almost as if Jesus is breathing His resurrection life into our mortal flesh one organ system at a time, chiseling us stroke after deliberate stroke into the image of the Son.

That means we will spend the vast majority of this life of faith as a humble work in progress. Most of our days will involve trekking uphill or slogging through the mud, not standing at the base of the waterfall and marveling at the vista. How are you doing with “the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete”?

I am so encouraged that when the Lord invites us into adventure, he promises, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Exodus 33:14). He is not speaking merely of temporary respites for refreshment along the way, but a deep and enduring centeredness and well-being that is ours through Jesus’s abiding presence. Even in the midst of exertion and uncertainty, we can rest in our belovedness. We can experience confidence because it will never be Christ who withdraws from us. He is ever faithful and will never leave us or forsake us.

As you wrestle with impatience, as you grow disappointed with your current progress, and you despair over the lack of transformation and victory, hear the words of the Apostle Paul and take heart:

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (Colossians 3:1-4)

Your life is hidden in Christ in God. Much of the growth that is taking place—the maturing of your character, the softening of your heart, the transformation of your will and desires—is taking place out of sight, even for you. Your responsibility is simply to set your sights on Jesus daily and press into journeying with Him. Trust in the slow work of God in your life—and in the lives of others. He will carry to completion that good work He has begun in us. You focus on embracing today’s leg of the trail and tackling it with your Savior who loves you.

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Astonishing Generosity

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Jeff Foerster

Think about your life and the words astonishing generosity. Does this describe you? If someone who knew you well spoke of you in this way, how would you feel?

I will say that, for me, pairing those words fits like a square peg in a round hole. When I give, it’s a bit like separating Velcro straps—it can be done, but it’s only gonna take place with a little purposeful force carefully applied. I’ve got all sorts of mixed motivations when I give and I’m aware of quite a few of them. It’s kind of a mess.

How about you? Ever easily receive, or even look forward to, the thanks or other appreciation shown to your act of giving? What does your internal dialogue tell you as you prepare to give? I certainly don’t know your answers and even some of my own remain shrouded.

While recounting one’s acts of generosity is a bit like talking about one’s grand accomplishments in humility, it may be helpful to do some quiet reflection. If I have any understanding of this Christian-walk thing, I think it means, in part, living in such a way that the needs of others are a priority to me.

I believe giving takes practice, an effort of will, and a shift of heart. It means really trusting that the resources I have access to (primarily stuff and time) don’t belong to me, but rather have been placed in my care, and I’ve been invited into stewardship over them. Even more than that, generosity is birthed in a growing heart of compassion for others.

My focus and prayer this week are that God would show me the reality of my own heart and give me opportunity to practice generosity. Join me in this journey?

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Becoming a Fruitful Disciple

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By Beth White

Just before Jesus went meekly to his death, He gave His loved ones this insight: “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:8).

We tend to struggle with these words. We think, “Ok, fruit is what He wants, so fruit is what I had better get.” But I believe that the Lord is far less concerned with the fruit we bear than with the roots of our tree and what we allow to nourish and water them.

Fruit is the product of something that starts much deeper, something unseen. That’s why bearing fruit proves that we are His disciples; the fruit cannot be borne unless we are connected to the True Vine (John 15:5).

When you and I read Galatians 5:22-23, we may feel convicted that the fruit of the Spirit is not flourishing abundantly in our lives. We may realize that we’re not very patient, for example, so we begin to pray for patience. While that is a good place to start, the fact is that we don’t gain patience by praying for patience. We grow patient by seeking the Lord first and trusting Him to lead us in the way we should go. The same may be said for all of the fruits of the Spirit. We allow the Lord to refine, or prune, our hearts, and the fruit begins to grow.

If we’re not bearing fruit, we don’t need to get fruit. We need to water our roots! Jeremiah 17:7-8 says, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

How do we tap our roots in to that source of everlasting water? Begin with prayer. It is the Lord who does the work; we must ask Him to do it in us. To read our Bibles daily is also essential, because through the Word of God we know God. Then, as we hear His words and do them, abiding in Him, we are conformed more and more to His image—we bear fruit.

It’s spelled out for us in 2 Peter 1:5-8: “Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Take Him at his Word. There is much to be sacrificed if we are to live in this way, as His disciples, but He has promised that we will bear fruit.

Because our Father is patient, we should be too. Our job is simple obedience; it is His to determine the variety of fruit and its growth. We must say, “Look, Lord! My heart is a fertile garden with soft soil. I will water it with your words of life; grow in it what you will.”

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Dwelling in the Shelter of the Most High

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By Beth White

One thing the Lord has been at work teaching me over the past two years is that I can trust his word absolutely. Psalm 9:10 declares, “Those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.”

The Bible often talks about seeking safety from the troubles of the world in a fortress. We choose which fortress we dwell in: it can be God Himself (impenetrable, unshakeable), or it can be an imaginary cardboard castle. Jesus says that the way to build ourselves a real, solid house of refuge is to take His words to heart and obey them (Matthew 7:24). If we are not asking God to move in our hearts and help us live by all that Jesus says, then we are building a sloppy structure that may seem just fine while the sun is shining but will invite death and destruction when a hurricane comes.

For example, Jesus teaches in plain language that we are not to resist an evil person but in meekness accept what God brings about (Matthew 5:38-42). If I nod my head when I read that in my Bible but then go out into the world and defend my property and fight for my own personal rights, then I am trusting in earthly wisdom. The wisdom of the world says, “God loves me, so of course he wouldn’t want me to endure suffering at the hands of an evil person.” The wisdom of the world leads me to fight for myself, whereas the Bible encourages me that it is the Lord who fights for me (Deuteronomy 3:22; 2 Chronicles 20; Psalm 37). It is essential that we reject worldly wisdom. It is the stuff of cardboard fortresses.

Hope is found in Proverbs 3:5, which reminds me to trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding. Looking around at my circumstances leads to grumbling and a puny faith. As a worshiper of the living God, I believe that my days are in His hands. I believe that there is eternal blessing to be gained by walking in obedience to His words, and I believe that it is harmful to act counter to God’s word because of a perceived outcome. Let us never forget that looking forward to eternity with our Heavenly Father, we have cause to rejoice over our suffering here on Earth (Matthew 5:11-12; 1 Peter 5:9-10; Hebrews 10:34).

I wonder if we have any inkling of the magnitude of the blessing we reject when we refuse to humble ourselves before our Master. What intimate communion could be ours but is not because we have never yet forsaken our own understanding and wholeheartedly embraced the Lord’s teachings?

Jesus’s words are offensive to our flesh, but He says, “Blessed is the one who is not offended by me” (Matthew 11:6). We overcome our flesh through prayer and submission to a God that we can trust as good. In Him, we can turn from the inferior comforts of the world to find the true, unshakeable comfort that he promises.

If it feels impossible to accept ideas that seem to go against our own concept of goodness and justice, we must pray to the God who freely bestows wisdom on all who ask. The things of God are not the same as the things of man, and we are naturally blind to his ways until He opens our eyes. But open our eyes He will, if that is our heart’s true desire. Resting in faith is not the same as doing nothing. It is spiritual warfare. It requires the discipline of prayer and a knowledge of who our Father is and what He wants from us. It takes a willingness to lay down our own desires and plans for our life and joyfully accept whatever He has in store for us. It is the knowledge that when we see a problem, an uncertainty, or an injustice, the first thing we need to do is get on our knees and ask for His wisdom and strength.

Trusting in the Lord does not look like doing nothing; it looks like doing nothing that He did not first call us to. Hebrews 10:23 says, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” To dwell in the shelter of the Most High, to abide in the shadow of the Almighty, we MUST hold fast without wavering. Believe that He is faithful, and rest in Him. It is the only true rest that can be found.

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The Lord Is My Shepherd, I Shall Not Want

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By Beth White

“Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you’” (Psalm 16:1).

There is great beauty in these words of David. What freedom he must have felt, acknowledging that his goodness, his well-being, his very life were the Lord’s to worry over and not his own.

Of course in David’s time, Jesus had not yet spoken the Sermon on the Mount; God’s people had never heard their Savior, in the flesh, lovingly explain the reason why striving to care for yourself is a fruitless endeavor. “For the Gentiles seek after all these things,” He reminded them, “and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:32-33). But David knew the ways of his good Father. He trusted, with the simplicity of a man unstained by the world (James 1:27), that his God carried him as a man carries his son (Deuteronomy 1:31).

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. That’s it. Before anything else. Before deciding what good needs to be done in the world or which party deserves our vote or what on earth we’re going to do with our kids all day every day now that school is remaining closed: seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Life gets a whole lot simpler when we think of it that way.

Our Shepherd is with us. We must train ourselves to hear His voice. The temptations of the world hold no power over the one who dwells deeply with his Lord, secure in the knowledge that He guides his steps. Unfortunately, the world speaks louder, and it requires a great deal of discipline to quiet ourselves and seek the guidance of our Master. How easy it is to go about our day trusting in our own knowledge of right and wrong, thinking that we are the masters of our own lives. How difficult it is to find the time to drink from the Living Water that gives wisdom and righteousness. But we must beware of forgetting who the Lord is. Psalm 50 warns, “These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.” We must take seriously the deceitfulness of our own hearts (Jeremiah 17:9).

Let us cry out with David, “Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth!” (Psalm 86:11). When we despise the world with all its worry and shame, we find rest. Take comfort; your Father sees you. He remembers you. You may wish to achieve a desired result; He sees beyond the surface and works toward something infinitely better. Seek His kingdom and His righteousness, and you will find yourself transformed.

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When the Plan Is Exile

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By Hannah Comerford

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

This verse was every teenager’s life verse when I was in youth group. I’ve seen it on plaques and in greeting cards. It’s used to bring comfort and assurance in the midst of difficult circumstances.

But what if those plans God has for us are painful?

I don’t want to deny that God can bring comfort through it. He does work all things together for good (Romans 8:28). So the sentiment that God has plans for us is true. But Jeremiah 29:11 is much more complex and not as easy as it might seem.

I tend toward the pessimistic end of the attitude spectrum. When things go wrong, it’s easy for me to dwell on the negative and get frustrated by pat answers and efforts to cheer me up. And, well, I won’t pretend like the last couple of years have been easy at Elim. We’ve seen three pastors leave for various reasons in a short amount of time. I don’t doubt that God is in control of these situations and is working good in us, but it’s hard. We might have a future and a hope, but right now we’re living in a hard place. It’s painful.

And I think that’s okay.

If you look at Jeremiah 29:11 in context, God isn’t actually offering a hope for immediate good things. God was speaking through Jeremiah to the exiled people of Israel. They’d been forcefully taken to Babylon. They’d lost everything. Other prophets were telling them good news, that their exile would be short and they’d be going home soon. They wanted to cling to those promises. Yet God wasn’t speaking through those prophets. He wasn’t telling them to prepare for their happy return.

Instead, God told the people through Jeremiah that they should build houses, marry, plant gardens—settle in for the long haul. God was going to keep them in Babylon for 70 years, and then they would see their release from captivity, the hope and the future they were promised in verse 11.

God was calling His people to trust Him and find peace where they were placed, even though it was heartbreaking.

I don’t know what the future holds for Elim. Of course, we aren’t exiles in Babylon, but it’s okay to acknowledge that this isn’t a comfortable place to be in. Some of us miss how things used to be, the comfort we had in the home that Elim was to us. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s okay to be homesick.

But maybe we can learn to find comfort now, when we don’t see the future. Maybe we can trust that God will still be with us even here, in the uncomfortable places, when we don’t have our bright future yet. Maybe we won’t see the future and hope for a long while, but we can learn to grow and live and find contentment in the exile.

We don’t know when we’ll welcome our good future. But we do have a God who is with us now, in the land that doesn’t feel like home.

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