Remembering God’s Faithfulness in the Face of a Detour

by Dave Harvey

Traffic stood still. That’s never a good thing when you’re traversing the Pennsylvania Turnpike. After thirty minutes without moving, curiosity began to take over. Drivers turned off their ignitions and shed their seat belts in search of fresh air and accident information. The guy behind me walked forward and a conversation ensued. Over the next three hours, he poured out his story of pain, loss, and disappointment. I shared how Christ answers the deepest longings of the heart. I hope he heard me. Four hours later, traffic began to inch forward. I shifted into drive, marveling at how God fills unexpected detours with kingdom purpose. 

In 2 Samuel 6, we meet David as the prophet Samuel anoints him king. Samuel had asked Jesse, David’s father, to gather his sons. There were eight boys altogether but only seven were invited to the anointing party. David was left out in the fields because Jesse assumed that God would never choose a ruddy shepherd boy. But the truth is that God loves to take the least likely—the least likely people and the least likely moments—and use them to magnify his strength.  

After he was anointed, David was phenomenal. He slew Goliath and dominated in battle. After David’s victories, a new song hit the top of the charts in Israel, “Saul has struck down his thousands and David his ten thousands” (1 Sam. 18:7). When King Saul heard the crowds singing for young David, he was enraged with jealousy. He attacked David and sent him fleeing for his life. The future king and great warrior became a fugitive. He was constantly on the run and ended up living in a cave. David had been a rising star, but he became a fleeing felon with hit squads trying to track him down. 

It was a major detour; more significant by far than being stuck in traffic on the Turnpike. David was lonely, despairing, afflicted, and in need of deliverance. But from that place of desolation, he prayed Psalm 57: 

I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me. He will send from heaven and save me; he will put to shame him who tramples on me. Selah. God will send out his steadfast love and faithfulness (Ps. 57:2–3). 

In that moment of desolation, David looked to the past and said, “God, you’ve been faithful before, and you’ll be faithful again.” Later the apostle Paul would echo the same sentiment. In the midst of his own tragic detour he wrote, “He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again” (2 Cor. 1:10).

How about you? Do you trust God’s faithfulness to deliver again in the midst of your daily detours? Perhaps you feel it now each time you leave your home: the great unknown awaits out in public. Masked faces populate public places, reminding us that we’re not in Kansas anymore. Restrictions are being lifted, but the coronavirus remains present. There are risks that are punctuated each time the press reports a small outbreak. Where do you look in the midst of this unexpected reality? What shall we say to these things? 

Follow David and Paul’s example of faith. Look to the ways God has delivered in the past: “If God is for us who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8:31–32) What father wouldn’t run to his kids in their moment of weakness? Whatever detours you’re facing—tribulation or distress, pandemic or persecution, you can have confidence that your God is present with you. He has delivered at the cross, and he will be faithful to deliver again. You may even find that he’s given you a gospel opportunity in the midst of a detour. 

Editor’s Note: This originally published at RevDaveHarvey.com

Dave Harvey

Dave Harvey (D. Min – Westminster Theological Seminary) is the president of Great Commission Collective, Dave pastored for 33 years and founded AmICalled.com. Dave travels widely across networks and denominations as a popular conference speaker. He is the author of When Sinners Say “I Do”, Am I Called, Rescuing Ambition, and co-authored Letting Go: Rugged Love for Wayward Souls. Dave’s recent release is titled I Still Do! Growing Closer and Stronger Through Life’s Defining Moments. Dave and his wife, Kimm, have four kids and four grandchildren and live in southwest Florida. (For videos or articles, visit www.revdaveharvey.com)

Posted at: https://ftc.co/resource-library/blog-entries/remembering-gods-faithfulness-in-the-face-of-a-detour/

Behold the Faithfulness of Our Savior

Davis Wetherell

Faithfulness is often a target for our modern culture. Being in the same place for a long time apparently means you lack initiative, aspiration, or innovation. Some people assume that being in the same relationship with the same person for your whole life is just plain wrong. And many distrust anyone who is too committed to one worldview.

But from the outset of the Bible, God makes it clear that He will be faithful to us and that God’s people are to be faithful to Him alone. As Christians, we believe this and strive for this. But as people in culture, we are pulled in every direction away from it. I invite you now to return to the center, to gaze at the faithfulness of our Savior, Jesus Christ, in order to increase your fruit of faithfulness.

Jesus was faithful to His mother, even when she didn’t understand Him.

And his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.” (Luke 2:48)

Jesus’s mother, Mary, did not always understand everything about Jesus. In the above verse, we see she is confronting the boy Jesus as to why He was not with them. As any mother would be, Mary was worried sick! But this was no regular boy, Jesus was the Savior of the world, the promised Messiah, and a person of the triune God.

Surely, there would have been other moments like this throughout Jesus’s lifetime. As God of the universe, Jesus “would have had the right,” as we like to say, to be angry with her. To say, “You really don’t get it, do you?” Or, “don’t you know who I am?” But in the face of someone misunderstanding Him, Jesus responded with grace and faithfulness.

In his sermon “Giving as Much as You Know of Yourself,” Pastor Colin said, “Jesus spent three years in public ministry, but before that He was a carpenter for about 20 years. He cared for his mother. He offered himself to God, as much in his carpentry and in caring for His mother as He did when he preached the gospel and performed the miracles.”

Jesus perfectly served his mother, and his father, even though at times they did not understand Him. Can we say that about ourselves? Are we faithful to those who don’t get us? Do we serve those who don’t give us as much respect as we think they ought?

Jesus was faithful to His friends, even when they criticized Him.

So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” (John 11:20-22)

Perhaps “criticized” is too strong of a word here to describe what Martha said to Jesus. And even if she was criticizing Him, she seems to take some of it back in her next sentence. Yet the effect is still there. She is bothered that Jesus was not around when Lazarus seemed to need Him the most.

I don’t know what happens to you when you’ve been working hard and then someone criticizes you for something you didn’t do. But I do know what happens to me! I fill up with rage, I turn away, and I start muttering to myself. This person has no idea how hard I’ve worked today. He has no right to say that to me. And I either begrudgingly do what they asked, or I don’t do it all!

Jesus, however, said to Martha: “Your brother will rise again” (John 11:23). He was faithful to His friends. He knew their pain, and He did not abandon them in their time of need.

Jesus was faithful to His disciples, even when they denied Him.

[Peter] began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.” And immediately the rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly. (Matthew 26:74-75)

Imagine yourself at work or school. A supervisor comes over to you and says you are in big trouble. You are going to be fired, or expelled, even though you did nothing wrong!

As you are led down out of the building, you see your best friend in the middle of a crowd of people. And you hear him or her saying to the others, “No, I’m not friends with them! I barely even knew them. In fact, I swear I did not know them at all!”

The next time you see that person, what would you say? I can’t believe you would do that! We’re done. I’ll never forgive you.

But Jesus was faithful to Peter. He welcomed Him back, allowing Peter to express his love for his friend, Jesus. And Jesus kept His promise to have Peter be the rock upon which the Church was built (Matthew 16:18).

Jesus was faithful to His persecutors, even when they killed Him.

And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments. (Luke 23:33-34)

When we are treated wrong, we like to make a fuss about it. When we can prove that someone has done us wrong, we are unlikely to let it go.

Now, much of what we consider “persecution” in America is not that at all. I don’t deny that there is persecution, but web algorithms pushing Christian content away into the recesses of the internet is not it. Yet even if it were, Jesus gives us a stunning picture as to how we are to respond to true persecution: “Father, forgive them!”

Let us be faithful to the people God has called us to be a light to.

Jesus is faithful to us, even though we rejected Him.

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. (Romans 5:7-9)

And here’s the kicker. The family member who didn’t understand Him, the friend who criticized Him, the disciple who denied Him, and the persecutor who killed Him is no different than us.

Christ died for us, even though we were still sinners! We were enemies of His Lordship; we rejected His commandments. But Christ was faithful to us all the same. He loved us, and He came for us.

His faithfulness is unmatched, unparalleled on earth. Even so, let us spend our lives gazing and chasing after the perfect faithfulness of our Savior.

Davis Wetherell (MA in English, Marquette University) is a writer and editor. He currently manages article content for Unlocking the Bible. He previously taught college classes on literature, rhetoric, and composition. Davis has a heart for writers and loves to serve them. Check out his blog, or connect with him on Twitter!

posted at: https://unlockingthebible.org/2019/10/behold-faithfulness-savior/

How to Say ‘God Is Faithful’ When Suffering Won’t Stop

Jon Aragón

It’s been a tough year for me. While 2018 was filled with creative, financial, and relational blessing, 2019 has been much more difficult.

My wife, Quina, and I have dealt with her ministry burnout and discouraging health issues, along with her grandmother’s death, relational strains with people we love, deferred hopes to conceive another child, and the deportation of my aunt and uncle.

After experiencing so much answered prayer in 2018, this year’s unanswered prayers and unmet desires have done a number on our hearts. You pray and fast and act for something—something as good as justice or reconciliation or healing or a child—but the answer is still “No” or “Not yet.” I’ve discovered that my heart can be so easily filled with bitterness against God as I struggle to reconcile his goodness with the suffering happening all around me.

If God is the God of justice, of reconciliation, of deliverance, of life, then what does it look like to trust him when injustice comes, division remains, and death mocks? How can we still confidently proclaim, “Our God is faithful”—and actually mean it?

Deliverance In, Not From

First, we must acknowledge the ways God is delivering us in our trials, even when he hasn’t delivered us from our trials. Or as Elihu put it, “He delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity” (Job 36:15).

God is delivering us in our trials, even when he hasn’t delivered us from our trials.

I would be lying if I said God hasn’t been delivering me in the midst of these trials. I have felt my compassion deepen for the oppressed as my family and I have tasted the injustice of a broken immigration system. I’ve learned to better serve my wife in her health limitations and grief. I’ve grown more honest in my prayer life, which has only drawn me closer to God rather than driven me from him.

Perhaps the sweetest balm of grace in my trials this year has been the steady presence, prayers, and support of my friends and church family. They have shared in my trials in such a way that even when I don’t want to believe it, I can’t help but admit that God sees me and cares for me.

Our Wounded Healer

Second, we must know that our God isn’t just a healer, but a wounded healer, as Henri Nouwen put it. How did Jesus heal our wounds of sin? With his own wounds (Isa. 53:5).

We serve the only God with scars (Luke 24:39–40; John 20:20, 27; Rev. 5:12). The only God willing to take on human flesh and the human experience of pain and limitations, who then took on the full weight of human sin and lived to tell the tale.

Do you know this God? He is the wounded healer who sympathizes with your weaknesses and afflictions. He is the God who gave himself as his greatest gift. Even in the darkness, as the pain settles in, we can proclaim, “Our God is faithful”—and truly mean it.

Proclaim Him in Lament

Last, we can use the voice and the gifts God has given us to proclaim his faithfulness. How do we do this? The psalmists knew it well: we lament.

In his book Prophetic Lament, Soong Chan-Rah states, “Lament challenges the church to acknowledge real suffering and plead with God for his intervention.” What would it look like if your family gatherings, your small group, and your church were consistently marked with Godward lament over injustices and suffering? Perhaps it would look a bit more like Christ himself.

Biblical lament calls us to passionately express our grief, our complaints, our questions, even our anger to God. It calls for messy, inarticulate, snot-filled prayers. It calls for honesty when someone asks, “How can I pray for you?” And it demands that our triumphal assumptions about the Christian life be confronted by the Savior who was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3).

As I’m learning soul honesty with God and others, lament has been a challenging yet refreshing opportunity to lean more deeply into the arms of my faithful Father. I pour out my heart to God in lament, and I rise with much greater conviction that he is, indeed, faithful.

More Faithful Representation

It’s easy for us to only see the highlight reel of people’s lives on social media. But I hope that through our various callings, we can more honestly portray the Christian walk.

That walk that includes both mountaintops and valleys. Lots of valleys. The walk acknowledges the deliverance of our wounded healer, even when the darkness hasn’t fully lifted. And the walk is marked by the kind of lament that exalts God’s faithfulness over and above our own.

This is how we’ll be able to say, “God is faithful”—and truly mean it.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/say-god-faithful-suffering/