Coping with Life’s Turbulence
This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally some form of artistic mark to tie it all together.
Today's devotional is taken from: Zacharias, Ravi. The
Logic of God: 52 Christian Essentials for the Heart and Mind. Grand Rapids,
MI: Zondervan, 2019. [E-Book] Chapter 45: Coping with Life’s Turbulence
Opening Thought: Zacharias speaks on the topic of wisdom. We are all born in different
contexts for our lives. Some are born in wealth, others are born to poverty,
some are born able-bodied, while others can be born in pain and disabled. Our context
which we are born in can be vast, but our lives give a chance to gain
something, something we all have access to, but it is often forsaken for other aspects
of life. Wisdom is this prize. Wisdom is not limited to any particular context to which
we are born, rather we forge wisdom by the struggles which are faced within our context. The nice
things about this is, that like Christ, wisdom can be obtained by anyone. King Solomon
wrote Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding,
for she is more profitable than silver and yields better return than gold. (Proverbs3:13-14)
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10; Psalm
111:10) We could say that we encounter God in our struggles, often this is when
we think and feel we have no where to turn, thus we finally look up and welcome in God. But remember this isn't just belief or knowledge in God, the bible tells us that even the demons believe in God.
If you think back to Genesis, Adam and Eve had God with them in
the garden, everything was provided for them. It would have been smart to stay
in the garden, to stay with God, to not abandon God, and what God had given to them. Smarts
will tell you that garden was good, but the snake offered more smarts; intelligence in
information. Smarts alone will know the garden is good, but it will also tell you to eat this fruit, and you will
know the knowledge of good and evil as well. Wisdom tells you to listen to the One who
put you into the garden and made the tree, not the snake, that maybe the maker of the trees had a reason why they told you to stay away from the trees.
When Adam and Eve are kicked out of the garden, they suddenly
feel the struggles of the world, Adam must till the soils and work the lands
every day. The abundance of the garden is no longer available to sustain life.
And Eve must bear the pain of birth, as mortality now waits for them all, the eternal
life of the garden is no longer at hands reach. Adam and Eve become wiser to
reality, that with God life is good, and without God there is only work,
suffering and death. It is better to be wise than smart.
The devotional begins with: Colossians 1:9-11
We continually ask God to fill
you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding
that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and
please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the
knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious
might so that you may have great endurance and patience.
Second Thought: Zacharias quotes an unknown source at one point, noting the
limitation of being smart, “It may be a smartphone, but it is not a wise phone.”
Our ancient world spent thousands of year learning wisdom, they learned it the
hard way by facing the struggles of living. We erected cities, laws, cultures,
and customs. We established meaning, purpose and struggled with what it means
to be human. We longed for stability, rationality in tension with adventure and
discovery. And by the event of the Christ upon the cross, God granted us a way to navigate the
world, discover it for ourselves, but also find a way back to God’s kingdom to
be in communion with Him. The wisdom of the cross is only truly grasped when we become wise to the knowledge
of the struggle of history, the horrors and the temporary pleasures we chose over the communion with God.
In our current age, though, we are beginning to fall for an old
trick. Like the name of the smartphone suggest, we are beginning to think we
are smart. Our hunger for the wisdom of God is being eroded by thinking a material
scientism answers all, it doesn't by the way. Our grappling with physical, emotional,
and spiritual reality is being replaced by constant entertainment, easements,
and medications. Even the original chores of Adam and Eve, labor, and birth, become
less and less of a thing to test us and fortify us, and are becoming more of a hiccup in our years. In
our postmodern, or even post-postmodern world, we now see people, in the west
primarily, claiming they have moved beyond smarts, they have become "woke", and
in the wake of their self-proclaimed enlightenment we see their “smarts” tearing
down and trying to rewrite history, pulling down barriers and archetypes which
have stood for generations, deconstructing everything built by the old wisdom,
because they see themselves as smarter
than all those who had come before. “As G.K. Chester aptly advised his
generation, before pulling any fence down, we should always pause long enough
to find out why it was put there in the first place."[1]
Continual Work: King Solomon had all the wealth and experience, and he knew it
amounted to nothing compared to the knowledge of God and the wisdom to follow
God’s will. We can have all the smarts, but still be fools. Think about this
paradigm and ask yourself what does Proverbs 9:10 really say to you?
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.”
What Rev. Jacob is Working On: Often I feel, misguided goodness is what
leads us to sin. The old phrase, the road to hell is paved in good
intensions. We must not just ask ourselves is this smart, or not even is this
good, (because our true understanding of knowledge and goodness can often get skewed), but we
need to ask, is this smart, good, and wise to the will of God. I will
try to ask myself this question in all cases it is needed.
Prayer for your day: Thank You, God, for all your glory. Thank you
for Your intelligence, Your wisdom and your grace. Amen.
Artistic Close: The meme says it all.
https://imgflip.com/i/1gdekf
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