How can God work this out?

How many times have you said or thought some form of this: I just don't see how God can do anything with this situation or I don't see how God can work this out!

For me, it is easy to quickly conclude God a bad planner when my life stinks. I'll have a problem and see no solution in front of me so I naturally think God has abandoned me and humanity altogether. Maybe you are not so untrusting, but I can be. God, I don't see your solution; and if what I am living is your solution, it stinks. Often entrusting yourself to God feels like riding on a new roller coaster blind folded: you have no idea what to expect and where you'll be thrown and sometimes you wonder if this new, untested coaster is going to break your neck or come off the tracks.

Well, in this uneasy water of God's control we read Isaiah 55.8, 9. It explains that God's thoughts are altogether different and better than all of humanity's collective wisdom!

This is amazing! It is not as though we are speaking Japanese and God only speaks French. No, the difference is more like comparing an ants ability to reason with Albert Einstein: God is just better; his thoughts are more and other compared to ours. Our thoughts are glimpses into his whole understanding; sparks compared to his universe of wisdom.

You may say, who cares? If you are a Christian, you should care. If you are not a Christian, you should care. If God is fashioning a plan superior to ours than we can (again) entrust ourselves to his care. Through the disobedient child, the tooth ache, the car that broke again, the lost pet, the broken relationship, the joblessness, the whatever your hard and frustrating life circumstance, through all of these things God is weaving a brilliant story that will ultimately end in making God look good and his followers being loved and cared for.

Remember how the in the Bible we are told that each human's life is so short it is like a breath or a vapor? All of time is a story, your chapter may look like total chaos but the end is coming. Heaven and the new earth are waiting to burst on the scene; God is ready to release the goodness and grandeur of his glory, for they are being held back like a race horse chomping at the bit ready to go do its thing.

Where we cannot see or conceive God gave us faith to believe.

you're a cannibal too

When I heard about some guy in Miami caught on camera literally eating another living person, I wanted to throw up. I thought to myself, ‘Welp, here we go; we are at that level now in the states’ (knowing fully that crazy, stomach turning occasions have been going on for as long as sand has existed). My vomitous reaction was quickly overcome by a sense of brutal, hot anger when I heard that people were cheering this flesh eating druggie because they thought it was cool that there was someone who acted like a zombie. (Please, if you are one of the foolish morons, don’t tell me.) I mean what is WRONG with you!? Do you realize that is a soul-filled human being who was created in the image of God—both of them? And the cannibal—induced by some weird drug—was shot to death like a rabid dog. After my blood vessels receded back to invisibility I trembled at a startling reality: nothing prevents me from being the homeless victim, the frightened policemen, the cheering video watcher, or the human eating deceased, except God’s mercy and grace.


I have amazing parents and family; wonderful friends constantly surround me; our cities—for the most part—are ruled with some order and some sense of justice—especially compared to some countries I’ve lived in. But to understand sin is to understand the evil which can become anyone. Sin is as toxic as Chernobyl.

Most of you won’t try and believe that you could eat someone’s face, that’s okay; it is a super disturbing thought. But know that you are not exempt from the terrors of becoming, of doing horrific acts against God and man. The ONLY thing which prevents you is the mercy and grace of our sovereign God restraining you. Nothing else. Not your little self-help, motivating books or sayings; not your smile; not your good nature (cause you truly don’t have one); not your logic; not your morals; not your focus; not your family; not your friends; not your church; not your devotions; not your prayers; not your teaching; not your learning; not your activities; not your good marriage; not your charity; not your yoga; not your ‘soft-heart;’ not your ‘sweet spirit;’ not your good kids; not discipline; not your discipleship; not your go-get-it attitude. Without God you have no hope at all. So stop pretending you do apart from him. Stop pretending ‘Oh I could NEVER do this or that’ because you could. The only thing restraining you is God’s grace and mercy.

I remember a part of Jesus’ life where he met a crazy guy who had demons inside of him. The man was living in a cave, exiled from his home-town. He was naked with broken chains still clinching his body; he had scars and festering wounds where he would cut himself—relieving his pain by destroying himself. Jesus healed him. Just like that. No one is outside the reach of God’s salvation, beyond the reach of true hope, of love. Not a cannibal, not you. In the disturbing and smile-dropping reality of life there is a hope greater than the gloom. Death and destruction do not have the final say, God does and he his kind and loving; wise and good; sovereign and just.

no problem solver

'my job is not to solve people’s problems or make them happy, but to help them to see the grace that is operating in their lives.' [[Eugene Peterson]]




I have often viewed Jesus as some life-riddle solver: I’ve got all these issues and if I follow Jesus they will disappear like magic. But in many ways I have found the opposite true. Sure, the burden is easy; the load is light; but the road is rough and small.

I like to carry my own pack. I like to put more burdens on myself. I like to say, ‘more is better.’ And I wonder why I don’t seem to experience God, I don’t seem understand him, I don’t seem in tune with what he is doing—because I’ve done my own Spiritless mission for God.

I am not called to save the world—nor are you—and I am not called to fix people’s problems—neither are you—but we are called to point out that God is doing something. We are to be the arm that picks up a fallen companion on our narrow little road of following our Savior. We are to be the one administering the balm to our wounds and woes. We are to be the ones saying, ‘I know it doesn’t feel like it, but God loves you in the most meaningful ways.’ And we are the ones who need to receive all of it too.

Jesus has not solved my problems; he’s exposed how many I have. Every time I try and tidy up one area of my life he breaks down a wall exposing worse things than before! (dang it!) I’ve got more holes in my theology than a piece of Swiss cheese! I start and fail before I finish. I give up. I’ve done this poorly while neglecting that.

But then there is his grace. He keeps giving it because it is my life support. When God is out of kindness I’m out of hope. One has said something along the lines of ‘we do not know we need Jesus until he is all that is left.’ And Corrie Ten Boom is accredited with saying, ‘When I try, I fail. When I trust, He succeeds.’

Let’s stop trying to change one another with silly means, for when we do we are like a child pretending he is accomplishing something real when he is just playing the old game Operation. But let us point out what our Helper, God’s very Spirit, is doing in and around us all.

trust in him at all times

‘Trust in him at all times, O people;


pour out your hearts to him,

for God is our refuge.’ from Psalm 62




From one man to a people, there is a cry to trust God at all times. David was learning that HE could trust in God at all times, and therefore was telling everyone he could to do the same.


I do not think that trust dismisses doubt, but trust embraces what is true.

Since Adam, God’s people have always forsaken God and disobeyed God’s commands and ordinances; David of all people knows this, for he himself was familiar with Israel’s long story and he himself was an active part in it. But he also is very aware who the key ingredient to the nation of Israel was: God.

If we look at the whole of Psalm 62 we see that David owes many things to God alone: soul-rest; salvation; security; protection; sturdiness; safety; hope; honor.

So what does it mean to trust in God here? It means that God will be these things for his people, that he already is these things.

David goes on to tell everyone, ‘Pour out your hearts to God, because God will protect you.’ Sometimes we view God as a mean great-uncle who is ornery all the time and has no time for our imperfection and idiocy. As if God is going to blast us out of the sky as soon as we cuss or something. But David gives a very different (and right!) view of God. He is a hiding place for our soul. We can pour out our heart’s content to Him because, as he says at the end of the Psalm, he is strong and loving.

Israel, as said earlier, is a great picture of what not to do. Yet God, again since Adam and Eve, has been kind and gracious and faithful. And we, today, can hear David’s words to trust God; to pour out our souls to God; and to know that God is our refuge.

Paul's confidence

'You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody.'

Paul said these words. Paul is openly and with confidence saying these words. He is saying them without shame. But he is saying them to people who are full of sin and confusion and idiocy! He wrote this in his second letter to the church in Corinth. In the first letter he brought out some pretty bitter sins, sins that if ever came to light about us would drive us to the nearest airport with the intent of never coming back. But Paul says these folks are his letter, these people, sins and foolishness included, are his accomplishment that he is happy about. 

Why is Paul not ashamed to say, 'Hey, these people are a direct result of God's mercy through the ministry God called me to'? We see it a few sentences following: 'Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for our competence comes from God.' 

Somewhere along the line we came to think that when we become followers of Jesus we instantly become resistant to sin. When this impeccable resistance doesn't happen we want to wait until the sin goes away, THEN we can be help others. And then our  dilemma is that we think we need to be fixed of whatever it is we are 'not right' in--our pet, besetting, dark cloud, seemingly inescapable sin or problem--before we can glorify God in ANYthing or be of use to God and others. But this idea is insane and crazy and not found in the Bible anywhere. 

Paul is proud to bring these people on the world's stage with excitement because God saved them and God, in his wisdom, is loving them and using them for his purposes of good. Do I wish to be rid of sin? Absolutely and always; but day-to-day sinlessness on our part as a Christian is no more a qualification to follow God and glorify him and honor him and bring a bigger smile to his face than our works were to make him love us; we don't have to be perfect, Jesus is. (again, we shouldn't be cozy or comfortable with our sin, we are to kill it and hate it and be rid of it)

A lie I consistently believe is that I must be flawless and having every little thing in my life in order before I can help someone or lead someone… this is a lie. No one would ever be able or qualified to do anything, no missionary or pastor or counselor or elder or leader; if that were the case Paul would never have left Arabia or Damascus if that were the case. 

God continues to advance his kingdom by way of using imperfect and unlikely sinners, and it shocks the watching world. Remember that it is God who has the power, and he uses us; he does, not us. He uses, not us. He makes happen, not us. We are to only follow him in obedience directed by his love, his Spirit, his Word.