Gideon’s Trust Issues

 

Then Gideon said to God, “In order to see whether you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said,  I am going to lay a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said.”  And it was so. When he rose early next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water.  Then Gideon said to God, “Do not let your anger burn against me, let me speak one more time; let me, please, make trial with the fleece just once more; let it be dry only on the fleece, and on all the ground let there be dew.”  And God did so that night. It was dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew.                              Judges 6:36-40

 

Did I mention that Gideon has trust issues?  But he is aware of it.  When he says, “do not let your anger burn against me,” he knows he should trust God, but he’s just not there yet.  God is patient and gives him multiple confirmations.  We read this and may think to ourselves, “I would trust the first time.”  But would you really? Do you really?

I know I often don’t.  There were six years of confirmations before I responded to a call to be a pastor.  Gideon is a hero in my book for going all out after just a few “fleece moments.”  The reason someone wrote own his story and another group of someones decided to include it in collection of books that make up our Bible is that we can read this story and see that the Lord often honors our fleecing.  I’m guessing one or two of you need to hear that today.

But you might bring up what Jesus said; “you shall not test the Lord your God.” (Matthew 4:7)  Here’s the difference.  Jesus was talking to the Devil when he said that and the Devil was trying to get Jesus to do something God didn’t want done.  Gideon asked God for a confirmation so that he could feel confident about what God DID want done.  Gideon wasn’t asking for God to show him what to do; he already knew what God wanted.  But he needed more faith, and God is always interested in helping people have more faith.

Having said that, let me qualify it a bit.  God is always interested in us having more faith, but sometimes there are better ways for us to have more faith than to see God pass our arbitrary tests.  Jesus sometimes refused to give a sign when people were asking for it and then other times, signs were given even before someone asked for them.  So if you know what God wants you to do and you’re having trouble moving forward in faith, by all means, put out a fleece.  But just know that God’s help for you to trust him more may come in a different way.  Sometimes the added measure of faith comes through moving forward without confirmation and seeing God give you the victory.  The main idea here is that God can be trusted to do what will increase your faith in the best possible way. 

Prayer:  Lord, help me move past my need to test you so that I may trust you to do what you already said you would do.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for those who are still having trouble finding work and whose unemployment benefits will run out soon.

 

Song: Plumb – God Help Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wRpTySE_8A

Forgiveness is NOT Restored Trust

 

Luke 16:10-12, NIV - “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.  So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?  And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

 

Forgiveness is not a restoration of trust.  A restoration of trust is often equated with forgiveness and this is a mistake.  Often people shun the possibility of forgiving another because they mistakenly believe that to do so would constitute a choice to trust them again.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Trust has to earned where forgiveness can be offered to even an untrustworthy recipient.   You can forgive someone who you probably will never trust again.  Nothing is required from the offender to be forgiven, but reestablishing trust will require much work by both parties.  Because this is true, offering forgiveness to someone often involves setting boundaries with them at the same time. We will say much more about this in future reflections.

Being forgiven by God does not mean we have been trusted by God with things we were trusted with once before.  Even with God, trust has to earned and broken trust has to be earned again.  God’s forgiveness can and should prompt us to move toward trustworthiness, but we do indeed have to put in the work.  Building trust is the work of all relationships with God and people.  God is constantly building trust with us by keeping promises, taking care of us, and always telling us the truth.  God forgives us for breaking our trust with God, but the rebuilding of trust is our role in the relationship.  We will find that, as we do this in little ways, we will be trusted with more. 

 

Question:  What is an area where you realize that you need to build up trustworthiness with God?

 

Prayer:  Thank you God for always being trustworthy and keeping your promises.  Mold my spirit to be more like you that I might build trust with you and others. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people in prison today for crimes they did not commit.

 

Song:  Imagine this song as a message from God

Honesty – Billy Joel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuFScoO4tb0

Matthew 15:29-39 - What Does God Have to Work With?

What Does God Have to Work With? - November 19, 2021

 

Matthew 15:29-39, NIV -  Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down.  Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them.  The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.

Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.”

His disciples answered, “Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?”

“How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked.

“Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.”

He told the crowd to sit down on the ground.  Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people.  They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.  The number of those who ate was four thousand men, besides women and children.  After Jesus had sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan.

 

                Only one chapter ago, we read the account of Jesus feeding a crowd of five thousand men with women and children besides.  Now we read an eerily similar account of Jesus doing the same with a somewhat crowd – only four thousand men with women and children.  The minute details (number of people, numbers of fish and loaves available, etc)  are a bit different, but the two stories teach us remarkably similar truths about Jesus:

·         Jesus performs the miracles out of compassion for those that have sacrificed in order to follow Him.  The crowds stayed with and followed Jesus away from food.  In fact, even though they had to be seriously hungry, they continued to praise God for the miracles that were beign done in their midst.  Following Jesus is not always easy, but there is confidence that we will be cared for when we do. 

·         Though Jesus is fully capable of producing food our of thin air, He asks his followers to give Him what they have to work with.  We might miss that the people who DID have food in that crowd were asked to give it up to Jesus trusting that they would be fed.  They were asked to relinquish self-reliance for reliance on Jesus to feed not just them, but everyone. 

·         With Jesus, there are always leftovers.  Jesus not only provides enough; He provides abundance.  This challenges our tendency to see the world with a scarcity mentality (there is not enough for everyone, so I gotta hold on to what I have or even compete with others for what’s available.

                Jesus takes care of those who follow and trust Him with however meager resources they have and there is always more than is needed.  These are simple truths to hear and understand, but very difficult to live out for they require us to stake our hearts and resources on what Jesus can do with what we have instead of what we can do with what we have.  The sad truth about humans is that we often trust ourselves and our resources more than we trust God.  The continuing call of God is live a different way – to place all that we are and all we have in Jesus’s hands.  Then and only then can we see the full extent of what God can do with us.  So this begs an essential question that each of us need to answer.

 

Question:  With respect to me and my resources, what does God have to work with?

 

Prayer:  God, you know who I am and what I have.  Help me to see how that can be multiplied and expanded when I place it in Your hands.  May I trust more of myself to You and what you can do with me.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for those who are feeling worn out today that they will find new strength. 

 

Song:  I Surrender – Jesus Culture

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56RTqoSpVno

Matthew 14:14-21 - The Feeding of the Thousands

 

Feeding the Thousands - November 11, 2021

 

Matthew 14:14-21, NIV - When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”

Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

“We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.

“Bring them here to me,” he said.  And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.  They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.  The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

 

This is one of the most well-known miracles of Jesus.  Since it’s recording in all four gospels (few stories are) it has been referred to as the feeding of the five thousand.  We really should stop calling it that.  The story itself says that there were five thousand men, but there were women and children present besides.  The story comes from a time that, when talking about an event, the only important attendance number was how many men were there.  However, Jesus miraculously fed not just the men, but everyone there.  Even by conservative estimates, we’re talking more than ten thousand people – the modern day equivalent of a smaller stadium full of folks. 

                Interpretations of this story have varied greatly.  At one extreme, there have been interpreters that downplay the supernatural aspect of this story, suggesting that the “miracle” was that everyone shared food they already had.  In this scenario, it was a miracle of human kindness.  This is highly unlikely because if that was what happened, at least one of the Gospel writers would have described it that way.  At the other end of the interpretation spectrum is that this was purely supernatural spectacle to show Jesus’s power. Jesus manifested thousands of pounds of loaves and fish for the hungry crowd with the same flair that David Copperfield would make the Statue of Liberty disappear.  All four gospel accounts fall short of this interpretation as well.   While no purely logical of scientific explanation has been ever proposed that would convince many that this feat wasn’t spectacularly miraculous, Jesus doesn’t perform this miracle to show off His power.  He does it because people are hungry and need food.  He provides for them in a matter-of-fact way.  He takes what is available and simply begins feeding people and somehow, in the abundance of God’s provision, everyone eats their fill. 

                It’s clear in Matthew’s telling of this story that what he wants to highlight here is the abundance available to those who follow Jesus.  Not only was everyone fed, there were plenty of leftovers.  In addition, Matthew, as we have discussed before, sees this event as one that also shows us the nature of the kingdom of heaven.  God can take whatever little amount of resources are available and somehow, in his miraculous economics of the kingdom, it will be more than enough.  This miraculous provision has been repeated countless times since this feeding occurred. Where humanity sees scarcity, God sees abundance. 

                The encouragement today is to make this kingdom principle personal to you today. All of us encounter situations where we become worried about whether there will be enough.  We see limitation and maybe even dead end.  The invitation of Jesus is to see the situation from Jesus’s perspective. 

 

Question:  Where you see limitation and scarcity right now, what does God see?

 

Prayer:  God of Abundance, give us vison to see our lives, our relationships, and our communities the way you do.  Help us to trust in the resources you will provide to meet the obvious needs around us. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who are hungry today.

 

Song: The Lord Will Provide – Matthew Smith

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfTjEMVfqew