The Prize

Much of the chatter today is about reaching goals; from washing one’s own face to retiring as a millionaire at age fifty.   The good life is available for all who take the time to follow the simple steps laid out in any of a hundred self improvement books, eBooks, audio books and seminars.  The objective is attainable.  It is attainable for those in the self help industry; to the tune of nearly 10 billion dollars last year.   In reality, we all want to be successful at life.  We want to do well, be comfortable, care for our families and enjoy this life here and now.  Success in life is not a new goal, nor is it a goal limited by culture, geography or status.  Throughout history, succeeding in life has always been the aim of humans.  From Adam onward, all have attempted to live in a way that will bring satisfaction and joy, food and shelter, purpose and love.  These are all good goals, good things to strive for.  The concern, is not whether these are good goals, but if they are ultimate goals.  And it is at this point that we fail, all of us and often.

 
Throughout the history of the Israelites, God directed the people to be faithful to Him alone;   He wooed them as a lover pursuing his beloved.  He promised good to them if they followed Him and, conversely he promised bad results when they did not.   In the book of Deuteronomy, as Moses recounted the history of the newly formed nation of Israel, he emphasized the importance of following the Lord as their king and God.  Through Moses, God let the people know that following His ways would result in blessing; in full bellies and happy children and a good life.  Ignoring the law, rejecting God, would result in poverty, war and famine.  The instruction was clear, leaving nothing to the imagination.  It was impossible to misunderstand. 

Moses even went so far to utter a prophecy about the future of this new nation.  In Deuteronomy 31:20  God says through Moses; “ For when I bring them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I swore to their fathers, and they have eaten and are satisfied and become prosperous, then they will turn to other gods and serve them, and spurn Me and break My covenant.”  The God who rescued these people and promised them the new land knew full well that they would eventually reject Him as God and worship other, new gods. 

What I find instructive is the point at which the people turn from God.   When the people are prosperous, when their goals are realized when life is good and full; that is when they turn their backs on God.    Being well fed, safe and happy are good things though, so what happened to Israel and what happens to us, that we turn from God when all is well?  
 

Could it be that we have mistaken the gifts for the real goal?  Have we settled for less than was intended?   In the Garden, Adam and Eve had it all, but a face to face relationship with the Creator was not enough for them.  The people of Israel had God as their King, Rescuer and Provider, yet once they were comfortable; it too, was not enough for them.  What was it that led them and leads us to desire only the side effects of God’s presence and not He, Himself?

Remember that God had rescued the Hebrews from within a nation, that He had called

them His own people, identifying with them before the on looking world.  Throughout

their history, variously He called them His treasured possession, His inheritance, the

sheep of His pasture, the people called by His name.  These words all describe a

relationship of love and care, paternal in nature.  God reaches out in love and desires love

in return.  Moses knew this, as did Joshua.  And because they knew it, these men sought

to be with God, to spend time in His presence.  Jesus also embodied this truth in His life

and ministry.  He called the disciples to Himself, to a relationship based on the love of

God for His creatures.  1John 4:9 “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.”

As the love of God draws us into a relationship with Jesus Christ, we come to know the love of God and to return that love to Him, letting Jesus be the One who gives us the life of love.

To be in Christ, to remain or to abide in Him is to be so connected that His life flows into us to give us life.  As a branch attached to a vine thrives as long as that attachment remains, so with us.  We cannot have life apart from the One who is life.  However, we all know that the perks of life, the things we crave and set out to achieve are often the focus of life.   But these things are not life, nor are they life giving.  It is as if we forget the source of the life and remember only the gifts. The source, the One through whom the good gifts come gets pushed aside.   And the prizes, the shiny, costly, expensive trinkets rise to the center of our focus and energies, they become the “must haves” while the Source falls out of mind.  

 This is the warning of the prophecy in Deuteronomy, indicating that it falls to us to remain in the vine, to hold fast the hand and will of God, the Source.    John 15:9 tells us about the nature of the relationship of abiding; remaining: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.  Now remain (abide) in my love.” 

 Always stay in His hand, always remember who He is.  Stay in that place of His presence.  Actively recall that He has committed Himself in promises and in fact to our good, to Life and to purpose.  In calling us to worship Him and find joy in Him He has shown us how to abide and see what is truly valuable.  Because He, alone, is the true Prize, and the pearl of great price. Only in Him will we be satisfied.  The effects of His work in us, the good gifts He gives are really only the side effects of His grace.  They are fleeting, He is everlasting.  They are limited, He is infinite.  They are partial He is complete.  He is the Prize.

On the Brink

Imagine you have a goal, one that you have had for years.  You can recount numerous times you sacrificed just to be able to move forward toward reaching this long held goal.  The milestones along the way are etched in your mind as though they are a map of your efforts to achieve the objective.  The drive to realize the goal has been your life, it has been what has driven you and at the same time, what has  sustained you along the way. 

Picture yourself nearing the achievement of your goal and looking around at your life and circumstances and seeing how close you are and how nearly like the goal things are.  You could say you were one step away from the goal.  Life is as good as you could have expected, although it is not quite the target at which you had aimed.  But, in looking around, it suits you, it is what you had expected and if you stopped here, all the work and sacrifice would be over.  You may not have reached the original goal, but this is even better to your eyes.  Everything you need, here, right now. 

Would you do it?  Would you stop one step away?

God had given His people a promise; a promise of land and the good life that accompanied a good land.  A land the people would have as their own land, no longer slaves working on land not their own.  “I (God) have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt…So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Exodus 3:7-8)

This is the promise that led these people to defy the ruler of Egypt.  This promise led this people to leave behind all they knew of life.  The promise of a better life, a better land and a God to care for them gave them the courage to begin a journey to reach the land promised to them.  The promise sustained them through years of weary walking through wastelands and deserts.   The promise was the goal; the promise was the driving force.  There was a land of milk and honey, a good land awaiting them.  The One who promised, God, continually showed His faithfulness to them while demanding the people trust Him.  The journey was difficult, but the people and God persevered and they neared the goal after forty years of travel. 

As the multitude stood looking across the Jordan River toward the land promised to them forty years earlier what would they be thinking?  On the verge of realizing the goal given to their parents and to them, what level of thrill was theirs?  In Numbers 32:1-5 we learn what some were thinking.  ““The Reubenites and the Gadites, who had very large herds and flocks, saw that the land of Jazer and Gilead were suitable for livestock. So they came to Moses and Eleazar the priest and to the leaders of the community, and said, ‘Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Hesbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo and Beon- the land the Lord subdued before the people of Israel-are suitable for livestock, and your servants

have livestock.  If we have found favor in your eyes,’ they said, ‘let this land be given to your servants as our possession.  Do not make us cross the Jordan.’ ”

These people of Reuben and Gad are at the edge of the land of promise.  They can glimpse it across the river, but what are they looking at?  The land they currently stand on.  The land through which they have just traveled is their focus.  They see it as a great place to settle.  And the reason they give is that it is a good land for livestock and they have a lot of sheep and goats and other animals.  The land is good for them; no doubt it was.  They had been tending to these animals through all sorts of terrain, fertile and dry.  But here, where they stood, they recognized good land, ideal land.  So they asked permission to refuse entry into to land promised to them by God. 

After the entire journey, standing on the brink of realizing the goal, this group stops short.

The land where they stand is good.  But only compared to what they had already seen in their travels.  Bear in mind that they had never seen the land of promise.  They had no idea if the land was good for their animals, if it was even better land than where they were standing.   Remember also that God, who had promised them the land, had also cared for them for the entire journey; looking out for them during the entire trip, they lacked nothing.  And while the trip was not a cake walk, it was a successful passage.

What reason could stop someone on the brink of realizing their goal?   Why does a person give up a promised reward for an existing reality?  Did the people of Reuben and Gad not believe the promise?

  Was it that they were tired and had given up?   We can say that weariness was probably not the issue as the men of the two and a half tribes had to go into the land to help the other tribes take their land.  Were they afraid of failure?  It would seem not, as they were planning live in the same manner where they stopped as they would have, had they crossed into the land of promise.

What we do know is that those who chose to stop short of the Promised Land chose to live with the very real barrier of the Jordan River between them and the rest of the community.  They chose to be apart from their people and the land where God said He would be present.  The two and a half tribes that stayed out of the Promised Land did so by their own decision.   They opted out of the promise.

The promise of a land flowing with milk and honey was not the promise they wanted.  They did not want that land, the land chosen and made for them, the land where God would be present.  They did not see that the physical barriers would eventually break the communal bonds forged on the journey just completed.  They wanted the land they saw and were standing on instead of the land God had promised. 

So, what keeps us from realizing the promises God had made to us?  Why do we stop short of taking that one, last step into the fullness of all we have been promised?   

Why do you and I choose to remain just on the brink?  Figure out what is keeping you on the brink and then make the choice to follow God into the promise.  You won’t regret it.

The Script Writer

How do you talk to God about the tragic circumstances that each of us encounter in life?

When praying, do you have ideas and suggestions for how God could sort out the situation?  I do.  Frequently, I find myself imagining how to orchestrate a meeting between people who need divine help; what they should say, how they should act.  How God would get all the glory if only my simple plan were followed.  It’s easy, I think.  Here God, this is the way to work it all out, just follow my script.  No matter that God has not asked me to figure it out, nor has He asked for my help; I really just want the sorrow and pain to be fixed and He is the only One capable.  I am only trying to help.

Then I am reminded that God has not asked for my insight but He has told me to pray.  He has not tapped me to script the scene, but rather to trust Him.  Trust Him to work the situation out, with fallen humans who also have been given a choice in the matter.

 In the end most things, if not all, come back to trust; to rely on the wisdom and character of another.   In my mind, figuring out how God should work comes so easily; trust is not so easy to come by.  Trust requires patience which means waiting and praying and waiting more and praying more.  Trust means listening for God to direct and to speak and then watching for Him to act.  All of these are passive activities and I want to get moving. I want to get the tools out and fix the situation.  Trust is not visible, action is.  And when something is wrong and we pray about it to God we want to see Him swoop down and fix it, NOW. 

However, what if our script, our design for fixing the situation, doesn’t allow God to be God; what if it limits Him?  That is the question I must ask myself, because He could have different plans, a different perspective than mine.  Our knowledge is limited, our creative ideas imperfect, and our power is deficient.  What ever we can do would be small, repetitive and weak.  We are like characters in a play, saying our lines and trying to rewrite the script as we perform it, ignoring the fact that all we know is contained on the stage.  We have no clue about the next act.  We know little to nothing about what is under or above the stage and we take exception to the playwright and His part in this little production. 

Recall a conversation from scripture between Jesus and Peter.  Walking along with the disciples, Jesus asks them who He is.  Peter answers, “You are the Christ, Son of the living God.” (Matt 16:16)  Then Jesus tells Peter that God has revealed this to him.  Can you imagine what that must have been like for Peter?  To know that God had used him in this amazing way would be overwhelming, stunning and marvelous.  

As the time continued on, Jesus explained what was going to happen to Him soon--betrayal, beating and death-- and He was heading to Jerusalem, so it could take place!   The words are just barely out of the mouth of Jesus when Peter rebukes Him and tells Jesus that this will never happen.  In Peter’s mind the Christ did not fall into the hands, nor give Himself up to anyone who could hurt or kill Him.  The Christ was a conqueror who would rescue all of Israel and restore the kingdom and rule of the land to them.

For Peter, his partial knowledge led him to limit the plan of God; to make it fit what he did know.  The vision of rescue Peter had was small and parochial.  The Christ, the Messiah, was to be a local hero.  The enemy the Christ would conquer was a human, political enemy.  The Messiah would rescue them this time, but what about the next time?  Peter did not think beyond the present.  His existential Messiah existed only in his time and his land.  Peter, like me and like you, I suspect, could not fathom what God had planned.  He could not see beyond the end of the stage.  Had Peter rewritten this scene, none of us would know of Jesus or Peter, except as footnotes in dusty history books. 

Peter proves the verse from Isaiah:  “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord.” (Is 55:8).

This is where trust and patience and knowing the character of God matter.  We all have to learn to trust that God’s ways are so far beyond our imaginings that we could never ever dream up what He already knows.  We really have no good choice but to wait, in trust; which means being patient for Him to act.  The best part of this is that if we know Him, His character and His promises, trust and patience will come more easily.  And we can know Him because He has shown Himself to us and He has told us about Himself.  He even came here to let us see Him.  Let God amaze us with His plans, stun us with His love and fill us with His joy in the uncovering of His great work.