The Road to Our Redeemer

Genesis 3:1-Satan Knows Our Weakness

IMG_0118Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.

There are many good reasons for us to submit to God instead of trying to face challenges in our own strength.  But maybe the most important is apart from Christ we don’t have a chance against Satan.

The word “subtil” is important in this verse because it describes the serpent (or Satan) as someone who is very deceiving or tricky.  We see it in the way he shows shock over the fact that there are restrictions on what God allowed Adam and Eve to do (3:1), promises Eve there will  be no consequences for her actions (3:3), and tells her that God is keeping an incredible blessing from them (3:5).

But there is an often overlooked part of this deception that may just be the most dangerous.

Think for a moment with me about the moment Satan came to tempt Eve

  • She was by herself (Adam wasn’t there)
  • The presence of God wasn’t there to give her guidance (the Lord allowed Satan to tempt her)
  • She was standing right beside the one tree she wasn’t supposed to eat from
  • The mind of Eve was open to the deception of Satan since she accepted it almost right away (3:3)
  • She may have even been thinking about the tree when he came to her!

In other words Satan came in a moment of weakness

In a moment when Eve couldn’t say no

Do you think that happened by accident?  Of course not!

The thing that truly scares me about this is Satan knows my weakest moments…and he is preparing his best attack for just that time

My weak moment is that time in the morning when your half-awake but not really ready to face the day yet.  Countless times have I heard the voice of Satan in those moments.

  1. You failed God again yesterday
  2. You know its probably best to just stop trying to serve the Lord
  3. You need to make sure nobody finds out about the mistakes you made, nobody else makes them
  4. You know it won’t work out, remember last time?

I wish I could tell you I jump out of bed and fight Satan courageously but the thing is I don’t…worse than that I can’t…worst of all he knows it.

But there’s good news

God will fight for me

The strange thing is in our weakest moment there is still part of us that believes we can win the battle in our own strength.  But the Lord uses our weakest moments (and failures in those moments) to show us just how broken and needy we are

Over time the scene of countless failures  can be used for God’s Glory as we run to Him for shelter from the temptation we have no hope fighting.

The Adventures of JB, The Blessing of Frustration

Frustration Shows Me I Can’t Fix Things

2012-09-21 21.09.03As my journey back to Melbourne continues one of the emotions I struggle with is frustration. Not a frustration with the Australian government (they’ve been incredibly helpful) but a frustration with how long the process is taking.

Frustration over things not happening the way we want is actually a normal emotion, the danger arises when we allow that frustration to begin affecting the way we view God [1].

Because of this I asked myself recently, “how is my extended stay in the US a blessing?”

Almost immediately the Lord gave an answer; It offers perspective on God’s sovereignty, and my weakness.

I’m the kind of person who hates to ask people for help. The belief is since everyone is struggling with their own problems I shouldn’t burden them with mine, but it’s just plain pride.

Over time that refusal to ask for help developed the habit of trying to “fix” all of life’s problems on my own. It got to the point when facing a challenge my first thought would be “how do I fix this?”

The problem is I’m not created to fix the problems of life. I’m called to seek the Will of God (His commands) and obey them so that the Lord can fix things.

Of course being a strong-willed [2] individual I still try to take care of it myself…so God brings a situation into my life that I can’t fix [3].

It’s easy to become bitter when encountering a unfixable problem from the Lord, but it can also remind us it’s God’s job to fix things.

You have no idea how liberating that thought can be

Of course it isn’t easy admitting you can’t fix things (and swallowing your pride) but asking God for help can bring an incredible peace.

  1. When stress comes my first thought doesn’t have to be “how can I fix this?”
  2. My first thought becomes “Lord how can you use this for your glory?”[4]
  3. It’s no longer about my strength, it’s about God’s strength (I WILL BE BROKEN, but that’s okay)
  4. The Lord brings us to His Word so that our comfort comes from Him instead of ourselves
  5. Over time our eyes will be focused on God instead of the struggle
  6. This gives us a true sense of perspective: God is the one who is Sovereign and created everything, my only job is to obey Him

Job found that sense of perspective after exhibiting frustration and self-pity over a unfixable problem in His life. Towards the end of his venting God Himself showed up…this resulted in a complete change of attitude.

Job 42:2 I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted

Job 42:3 Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand. Things to wonderful for me, which I did not know

Translation: You are so much more powerful than me Lord (42:2) I had no idea what I was talking about (42:3).

Thankfully the Lord doesn’t always have to bring chaos into our lives for us to confess this, but it’s good to know He is willing to do it if necessary.

  1. The Lord is unjust or unfair, asking God why constantly  ↩
  2. stubborn  ↩
  3. like a visa process that I can’t do anything to move along faster  ↩
  4. remember EVERYTHING in our life comes from God, and He has a purpose for it  ↩
Uncategorized

When Bagels with Cream Cheese Can’t Fix the Problem

Image courtesy of https://www.panerabread.com
Image courtesy of https://www.panerabread.com

I love junk food…no seriously I LOVE junk food!  Like most of you my desire for it is greater when stressed, tired, or just having a bad day.

My list of favorite comfort foods looks something like this

  1. Macaroni and Cheese
  2. Donuts
  3. Bagel with cream cheese
  4. Pizza
  5. French fries

Numbers two through five may change, but I doubt anything will ever dethrone mac and cheese as my favorite 🙂

Since this weeks been stressful my mind immediately started demanding a cinnamon crunch bagel with blueberry cream cheese from Panera bread after my english tutoring this morning.  And in less than thirty minutes I was devouring one (savoring every bite).

 

Something strange happened though…

My bagel didn’t make me feel any better

As a matter of fact it made me feel WORSE!

and yes I see the irony of a blog post entitled “the healing power of a cinnamon crunch bagel” being directly above my picture.

At first I was confused as to why a favorite comfort food would betray me like this, but then another thought occurred to me.

There are some problems that comfort food can’t fix.

Many of our challenges in life are emotional so while a huge amount of calories may make things feel better for a few moments, you can’t fix emotional problems with food (but that doesn’t keep us from trying).

That doesn’t mean we should completely give up on comfort food of course.  But it’s important to realize healing doesn’t come from what you eat, it comes from a relationship with God.

Uncategorized

Why Empowering is Better Than Fixing It Yourself

IMG_0145In about an hour I’ll be traveling to a local library where I help with a weekly computer class. While all ministry opportunities to share the Gospel are appreciated, this may be my favorite.

Not because it’s about technology (though I am a geek) but because it allows me empower people.

In my opinion every class dealing with technology or computers should have at least two people. One who teaches the information, and another who helps anyone who has a problem [1].

My role in class is the helper (which I prefer) so early on I had to figure out which of the three major teaching philosophies I would use:

  1. I do the work for you
  2. I show you how the work is done so you can do it
  3. I watch you do the work and help if necessary

To be honest I would go with number one by nature because I enjoy helping people. However this would end up making things much worse instead of helping them [2].

While at first glance number three seems a lot better it actually isn’t because I’ve found if there is someone else nearby who can fix the problem, people won’t even try to do it themselves (even if they can).

So I embraced philosophy number two which involved:

  1. Doing it for them one time
  2. The next time they struggle with it give clear instructions
  3. Encourage them to try even if it doesn’t work properly
  4. Celebrate when they did it themselves

It’s incredibly hard watching someone struggle doing something that I could accomplish very quickly, and there’s a big part of me that wants to push them out of the way, in order to fix the problem myself

But that isn’t empowering people
It’s teaching them to rely on me for everything

Yes being super-John who can swoop in and care for any technology problem with one hand tied behind his back makes me feel awesome. But I’m just feeding a deeper problem in our culture.

People aren’t being empowered anymore, instead they look around for someone who can fix the problem for them. Many people refer to these individuals as lazy, but the truth is they aren’t the core of the problem.

The core is those individuals who constantly cared for their problems instead of challenging them to fix it themselves.

Yesterday toward the end of class I walked along the rows of computers and noticed something shocking.

Nobody needed any help.

Yes there were some questions to be answered and clarification was needed, but the students did the work themselves.

While empowering that group of students didn’t make me feel like superman, it did fill my heart with pride because they were prepared for the real world

  1. show an individual how to do something on the computer  ↩
  2. just create people who couldn’t do the worlk themselves, and relied on me for everything  ↩