Skip to main content

Changing Course

           I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. (Job 19:25)

 

“I believed,  until… (name that catastrophe.)” But, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” We sometimes seem to think that a great crisis somehow changes our faith. But when Job lost his family, his wealth, and his health, he maintained his faith. What made him an exception? Was he an exception? 

If we go back to Newton’s Second Law, and apply it psychologically, a person’s beliefs will continue in the same direction, at the same speed, and with the same intensity until or unless acted on by a larger force. A crisis should produce such a change. The problem is that we have only considered the force that pushes us off course, or, in the case of a direct hit, breaks us into many pieces. Another force acting on us is gravity: our own internal gravity that is the soul, and the external gravity of an even greater object, like the sun or God.

Even if we are thrown off course due to a sudden or overwhelming crisis, that does not mean that once the pressure is off, that we won’t return to our old course, or one similar to it. Job had a lot of forces working on him, but ultimately, he either didn’t change course, or returned to an improved, more correct version of his old course. The good thing about this is that it shows that we are not doomed to lose our faith when the going gets tough. This is the reason Scripture talks about enduring and persevering. The whole key is to keep going, but the truth is that we will tend to keep going as we have gone, even if that’s not the direction we like to think it was. We can either rejoice in this fact, or despair, and then apply our choice to this reality.

 Tomorrow, we'll return to the solution.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saved?

  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ ” (Matthew 7:21-23) Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” (Romans 3:4)   What conclusion do you draw when someone who was raised in a Christian family and church, perhaps even playing a significant role in a chur...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Shepherd!

                 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep . (John 10:14) God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Genesis 3:14) The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths     for his name’s sake. Even though I walk     through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil,     for you are with me; your rod and your staff,     they comfort me. (Psalm 23:1-4) For the Jews, it was politically incorrect to make claims about yourself as a teacher (or possibly as anything else.) Teachers were expected to take pride in the...
Post a Comment
Read more