Faith, Trust and Obedience

I’ve been reading the book, The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the second chapter is titled The Call of Discipleship. The main point of the chapter, as Bonhoeffer puts it, is, “only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes” (p. 63). Also, he says, “…faith is only real when there is obedience, never without it, and faith only becomes faith in the act of obedience,” and, “Without this preliminary step of obedience our faith will only be pious humbug…Everything depends on the first step…The first step of obedience makes Peter leave his nets, and later get out of the ship…This first step must be regarded to start with as an external work, which effects the change from one existence to another.” You get the idea.

Further, Jesus says in his illustration of the wise and foolish builders, “He who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who builds his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24-27). James also writes, “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

God often asks us to trust Him. Sometimes we know exactly what we must do and other times we’re not sure, but we know that we are not to do something else. My thesis is about trust in dating relationships, and trust is based on our confidence that someone will respond positively to our needs. For example, I would trust my girlfriend when she shows that she cares for my physical and emotional well being and is willing to act on that care by keeping promises, listening to my problems and just being there. In my experience, the relationship with God is much the same. Matthew 6:33 one more time: “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness…” For me that means taking Tuesday and Thursday mornings away from the bustle and demands of academic life and spending those minutes with Him. For others it will be different, but the call is to act and to follow.

One more illustration from one of my favorite films: The Matrix. You may remember that near the end of the film, Neo has to make a choice. As he put it, “Morpheus believed something and he was ready to give his life for what he believed. I understand that now. That’s why I have to go. I believe something.”
“What?”
“I believe I can bring him back.”

What would have happened if Neo believed and did nothing? Nothing would have happened! But instead he goes into the matrix, rescues Morpheus, gets the girl and becomes the person he was destined to be. It was in his doing, the acting on the belief that made the difference.

If we believe in God, if we believe He is in control, that He can be known, and wants to know us, what keeps us from acting on our belief? Often that’s the difference.

Diversity

I am a graduate student in Human Development and Family Studies at Auburn University, and that department is housed in the College of Human Sciences. The dean of this college has decided that a major emphasis of this academic year is going to be to “Celebrate Diversity.” Last Thursday we had the first annual convocation for celebrating diversity and upon asking some of my profs what a convocation is they replied, I have no idea; and yet we (students and faculty) were heavily encouraged (required) to attend.

So I went, and as I feared it was a parade of university dignitaries across the platform, each offering his or her views of why diversity is important. But there were three people who spoke who caught my attention and my imagination. Two out of the three people were African-American, but each one of them made diversity a personal matter. It wasn’t an “issue.” It wasn’t a “problem.” To them it was a reality, something to be joined into, to take part in.

I think that is why I was so cynical going to this convocation. When I hear the word ‘diversity’ I think of it in terms of race, differences in culture. Also, the “Celebrate Diversity” signs found around our building which promote the effort have the rainbow as the background, which has in recent years been associated with the Gay and Lesbian rights movement. I feel like people who promote diversity have their own agenda and it has nothing to do with differences between people, except to promote equality between people. Is this really what they’re trying to get across? Am I wrong in some of these assumptions? Is diversity the same as equality?

One of the people who shared his own experience of diversity, who made it personal, a person who has overcome some great obstacles in his life to become an academic vice-president at AU finished his comments and as he descended the stairs two women in the front row gave this man a standing ovation. All of us were applauding, and each speaker drew some degree of applause, but this one person seemed to have said something that was more valued than all the others. And I was very conscious of this, and conscious that most of the pictures on the slide presentation that preceded the convocation were pictures of women and people of color, and I began thinking, “Am I valued in this whole diversity thing.” I think that is part of the problem I have. Do they want a white male to be a part of this whole thing? And this may come from my assumption that when they say diversity, they may actually be meaning equality, in which case the reality is that Caucasian Males are not restricted from any opportunities in American culture.

I think I am digressing a little, and these are just some of the feelings and thoughts that have been swimming in my grey matter for the past several days. To cut to the point, I came to the conclusion that diversity is a reality. Diversity is, “the state of being diverse, or distinct.” When we value people because they are a different race, isn’t that racism? Don’t we really want to value people for who they are, as people, understanding their differences and not holding the differences against them? Isn’t this called empathy, the ability to see something from someone else’s perspective?

So I say, “Embrace Diversity and Celebrate Empathy.” These terms at least have less baggage for me.

A New Bumper Sticker?

I was waiting in line at an ATM to check my account balance when a car passed me. I saw that bumper sticker, “God Bless America”, and as I have thought many times before, what if the bumper sticker said, “America Bless God.”

As I sat and thought I was reminded of that popular passage in Jeremiah 29, verse 11, which reads, “For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord. ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope.” But you don’t often hear the rest of that passage. What follows is more encouraging to me than 1,000 verse 11s, but so much more challenging.

Verse 12 starts, “When you call out to me and come to me in prayer, I will hear your prayers. (verse 13) When you seek me in prayer and worship, you will find me available to you.

Now here’s the hard part: “If you seek me with all your heart and soul, I will make myself available to you,’ says the Lord.”

And then the Lord follows it with a promise:
‘Then I will reverse your fortunes and will regather you from all the nations and all the places where I have exiled you,’ says the Lord. ‘I will bring you back to the place from which I exiled you.’

This is a promise to Israel, God’s chosen people, and those who have been reconciled to God through the blood of Jesus Christ are in this heritage of faith, so how do we miss this? We as Bible-Believing Patriotic Christians complain about how bad things have gotten in our nation, and we pray for revival but we are often not willing to pay the price of our whole heart…our whole being; we are not willing to BE the revival.

And my mind wanders to a verse that I base my faith and even my life on, and continues to be a hard word to take: Matthew 6:33. As Jesus addresses people’s worries about clothes and food, he tells them, “But above all pursue his kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Often we want the clothes and the car, and the two cars with the two car garage, and all our worries taken care of, and then we are free to pursue the Father’s Kingdom. But that is not what Jesus said; he said seek His kingdom first, and the worries will be taken care, you will have clothes, and the things you need.

It all goes back to “ME-centered” religion. We often hear in our public prayers, “Lord, bless us.” What if we prayed, “Lord, let us be a blessing to You”? Wouldn’t that make a difference? Wouldn’t that make all the difference?

Discarded Wood in a Nasty Harbor

This is a story that was told by Joseph Stowell during a Chapel service while I was a senior at Cedarville University. It might also be found in his book, Loving Christ.

During one vacation Dr. Stowell had the chance to talk with his nephew’s girlfriend who was studying violin at the Cleveland Conservatory of Music. Eventually they came to the topic of Stradivarius violins.

“Isn’t it an amazing thing that Antonio Stradivari in the 1600s would be able to build a violin that has never been duplicated that would be the world’s greatest music treasure if you played the violin. Why is it that his violins are so uniquely beautiful?”

She said, “There have been many theories through the years. At one time they thought it was the varnish, but that has been discounted. Actually they’ve taken pieces of broken Stradivarius violins apart and analyzed the wood. They found that the wood that he used, that the cells of the wood are hollow, so that the wood is like thousands of organ chambers resonating with the sound in these hollow cells.”

I asked, “How did that happen?”

She said, “Anonio Stradivari was not a wealthy man. Like other violin makers he was not able to buy expensive wood to make violins, so he would often go down to the harbor and take wood out of the harbor; broken oars, the sides of broken ships, boxes that were floating. She said, in those days, and you know this if you’ve studied history, these harbors were horribly polluted. The sludge and filth of the sewers and the waste of the city would end up in the harbor. The filth and the pollution and the sludge around this wood and the microbes would get into the wood and eat the cells hollow. He would take this wood out of the sludge of the harbor and make it into a beautiful violin.”

I said, “That’s what Christ did for me! And my life, lost in the sludge and pollution of sin, eating me to be hollow. And then Christ came and took me out and rescued me and made me into what I am and fills that hollowness with the beauty of himself. That is the most beautiful picture of redemption I’ve heard in my life! And he has done that for you. And when you know that, you can’t help but love him.”