Never Alone

When I was a child I spent weeks in hospital with a life-threatening illness. My parents drove about 25 miles to sit with me, but I don’t remember them being there as much as I remember being alone, alone in a bed, alone in a room, alone in a stainless steel room hooked up to an IV.

Now I usually don’t mind being alone as I learned to amuse myself in those early days, yet the fear of being abandoned sometimes plagues me. I’ve moved nearly thirty times, which doesn’t help. Once we were introduced to another couple with, “Don’t get to know these people too well for they will be moving soon.”

Today, Chambers addresses what it is like to lose a friend and a mentor, which I have also experienced. While this is not the same as being abandoned, it feels like it. How does God want me or anyone else to face this kind of loss? Elisha is the example and Elijah was his mentor . . .

“And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it and he cried, ‘My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!’ And he saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.” (2 Kings 2:11–12)

Elisha had no hope of seeing his mentor and friend ever again, at least not this side of heaven. His grief was great, a grief that is almost more difficult to face than any other.

Chambers says it isn’t wrong to depend upon a wonderful mentor as long as God gives that mentor to me, but I must remember a time will come when that person will have to go. Like an infant must be weaned, God never intends that His children depend on human support entirely. We might think that we cannot go on without our Elijah but God says we must rely on Him, not make idols out of people.

Chambers uses verses from the context to illustrate this type of experience. He describes events and memories that must not drag us into rehearsing the past, but encourage us to go on.

For Elisha, one of these places was at the Jordan (v. 14) where this separation happened. At first, he had no fellowship with anyone else, and no one who took responsibility for Elijah had been with him many times, but now he was alone. him. It was time use what he learned with Elijah. He could not pull back because reality demanded that he move forward.

For me, if I am to realize that God is God in life’s difficult experiences, I must believe Him to be with me and also must go through my Jordan alone.

For Elisha, another place was Jericho (v. 15). Here he’d seen Elijah do great things. The inclination is to want this again rather than trust that God will provide whatever great things I need to see, experience, or perhaps do myself. I’m to rely on Him instead of a godly mentor. As Chambers suggests, I must not forget that God is with me, even when I feel terribly alone.

The third place was being alone at Bethel (v. 23). Here, Elisha was mocked and jeered. He could have become enraged or filled with fear, but he trusted God, stood against it and God protected him. Whenever I feel alone and badgered (by people or Satan who mocks me often), I also need to stand true to God. He will protect me.

My part is to practice what I learn from the Elijah’s in my life. I must trust in God, pray, and as Chambers says, not look for Elijah any longer. God must wean me from over-dependency on people and I can survive that sense of being abandoned because He has promised, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”

Fearing abandonment?

I’ve only one recurring nightmare and seldom experience it, but early this morning I woke shaking with emotion. This vivid dream is about being abandoned and mocked because of my dismay.

Again, I asked God to show me what this is about and He surprised me with Chambers’ devotional. It is about being abandoned to God. The verse is the same as yesterday, but the focus is on the last part, the promise made along with the warning not to selfishly seek great things.

And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not, for behold, I am bringing disaster upon all flesh, declares the Lord. But I will give you your life as a prize of war in all places to which you may go.” (Jeremiah 45:5)

A previous verse says the same thing, adding a reason for that gift: “’For I will surely save you, and you shall not fall by the sword, but you shall have your life as a prize of war, because you have put your trust in me,’ declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 39:18)

The psalmist also declares the same prescription for those who fear evil: “The Lord helps them and delivers them; he delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in him.” (Psalm 37:40)

Chambers says this is the Lord’s unshakable secret for those who trust Him. In the context in Jeremiah, this was a literal promise to protect the listener from dying in a war, but the key is trusting Him.

For me, I take it as a personal promise — God will enable me to be a survivor in my war against the world, the flesh, and that old liar — the devil. Again, the key to surviving any battle and even the fear of loss is trusting God. It is giving all that I am and all that I do into His hands, but also trusting Him with all that comes against me.

Romans 8:28-29 makes a promise that goes with these other verses: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” (Romans 8:28–29)

Some Christians say we need to: “Let go and let God.” This way of life has been put down as abdicating personal responsibility to obey, but in many cases that response is a misunderstanding. Letting go isn’t about abdicating obedience; it is letting go of control. 

I’ve tried to control life in many ways with manipulation being the worst. Equally serious is telling God what to do all the time, as if I know more than He does about my concerns.

However, abandoning myself to God also means letting go of the ‘great things’ that my ambition may claw after and letting go of the things that I fear. He is sovereign over both. He will not allow anything into my life that He cannot use to transform it, nor will He give me any ‘great thing’ if I will use it to rob Him of His glory. He is sovereign.

Regardless of what I might face or struggle with, God promises to give me my life as a prize of war. That life is not ‘my’ life in the sense of the old flesh, but in the sense of the life I have hidden with Christ in God. It is true life, eternal life, abundant life. It is the freedom of recognizing that Jesus Christ is Lord of all without badgering Him with questions and suggestions or any demands at all. It is accepting with the simplicity of a child who totally trusts her father. It is also discovering that the abandoned life isn’t a nightmare but a glorious journey that may include trials, but also includes a deep and often playful joy.

What does it mean to know God?

Last night I found out that someone I thought I knew did something that that seems totally out of character. It surprised me. I didn’t see it coming and was disappointed. Because of that eye-opener, today’s Bible reading put me on a chain of thought with questions about what it means to know someone. It begins with a most familiar verse . . .

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

 . . . which led to the question, what is eternal life? Jesus describes it this way . . .

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3)

 . . . which leads me to another question, what does it mean to know someone in the way Jesus describes in His prayer about knowing God?

Obviously this is not about information, like knowing a lot of facts about a famous person that I’ve never met or even seen face-to-face. Nor does it mean a shared acquaintance where I say hello and talk about the weather. Knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ does include knowing information about both and it certainly includes talking with both, but Jesus is talking about a personal knowledge, not just a list of facts. He also means more than superficial conversations. Yet knowing Him is like knowing another person in a deeper way. I know information about my family and can have light conversations with them, but I know them in a different way.

I found some definitions of what it means to know someone, and find that they also illustrate the ‘knowing’ that Jesus defined as necessary to eternal life . . .

• You only know people who actively share intimate, private information about themselves.
• You never really know someone until you fight with them and see the inner workings of their heart.
• If you are close enough to a person that you can guess what they will do, or how they will react then you could say that you know them.
• Knowing someone means you have empathy for them and understand what they are not saying or showing.
• Unless you share the same pain you truly cannot know one another. 
• Knowing a person means being intuitive about them, being united with their mind and heart.
• And from the Bible: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.” (Psalm 139:1–4)

Apply these ideas to knowing God and they describes a bit of what it is to be saved.

Salvation also includes forgiveness and deliverance from sin, yet it is also a deliverance from self into union with the Lord. It is also like being “in love” with someone that I know, like being thrilled with a Person who is infinitely greater than myself and caught up into a total commitment to Him. While I can verbally share and proclaim Jesus, that commitment is also a way of declaring it.

This surrender and the ‘knowing’ is without being concerned about the consequences of such a commitment to Him. In that way, it is like what God did; He gave Himself for me without any calculation of the consequences. That is, God did not say, “I will send My Son to die for her – if she will put her faith in Him.” He gave Himself for me because He loves me, not because I might love Him in return.

My surrender to God isn’t about what I will get back as a consequence. It is an expression of my love for God, a love based on His giving of Himself to me, of His abandonment to my need, a revelation in intimacy that makes knowing Him possible, and in the knowing, receiving His life – which lasts forever.

Abandoned to Christ

Reading Oswald Chambers each morning is like hearing a mini-sermon. While some of his exhortations go over my head, and some of them seem to be based on the wrong verse, hearing another Christian’s view of things is necessary for good spiritual health. I have blind spots that need light from others, particularly those who take God seriously.

Today, Chambers writes about being abandoned to God. If that is not enough of a challenge, he also goes into the deepest motivations for wanting such a thing. Nearly four years ago, I asked God to get me to that place. Little did I realize the battle I would experience as He answered my request.

Today’s Scripture passage applies to what God has been doing in my life. Here is what it says . . .

And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” (Mark 10:23–31)

The first thing I noticed is that Peter claimed to have left everything to follow Jesus. In the beginning, I thought the same thing. However, I personalized Jesus’ challenge to describe my own situation and experiences . . .  

Jesus said to me, “How difficult it will be for you who has comfort, achievements, a good mind, abilities, and lots of self-interests to submit to the kingship of God!  . . . . Truly, I say to you, if you leave stability, all human dependencies, your rights to ownership, and all your own plans for my sake and for the gospel, you will receive joy, security, peace of mind — but with persecution, rejection and being misunderstood — and in the age to come eternal life.”

Chambers makes it clear: abandonment is to be one with God Himself, not for what I will get from it. I’m to beware of a commitment that smacks of “I am going to give myself to God because I want to be delivered from sin, because I want to be made holy . . . . I want myself clean and filled with the Holy Ghost. I want to be put in His showroom so I can say, ‘Look what God has done for me.’”

This is not abandonment but self-interest. Abandonment means leaving all self-interest and natural devotions. It may mean hurting those He calls me to abandon, at least in the sense of natural affections. Giving myself totally to Jesus Christ means I treat others as He does — with a sacrificial and unconditional love. He will ask me to care for others in ways contrary to my own plans.

When my heart is totally given to Christ, there is no chafing over the things left behind. Instead, I’m content, even with serving Him and others in ways that I would have avoided because they offered me nothing, and may even humiliate me. It also means I might not see any fruit in my own life or results in the lives of others, at least not until after I enter glory.

Jesus was fully surrendered to the divine will; being abandoned to God means being like Jesus.

Grace = never alone

Total aloneness happens, also the feeling of it in a crowd. Abandonment is a different thing, the sense that no one hears, cares, or notices. Sometimes others deliberately turn their back even on friends because of fear, hatred, or other personal concerns that seem more important than loyalty. It happened to Jesus. He warned His disciple that they would do it.

Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ (Matthew 26:31)

Christ stood His ground and went through the suffering even when abandoned. For the joy set before Him, He endured the Cross.

Paul was abandoned too. He preached the Gospel of grace to the Gentiles and many Jews strongly resisted his actions. He said…

At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. (2 Timothy 4:16–17)

Notice that Jesus stood by Paul, never leaving or forsaking this man who was alone and without support from anyone else. He knew abandonment and knew Paul needed His support.

Today’s devotional reading says, “To be faithful to God when abandoned by people, to be a Lot in Sodom, a Noah in a corrupted generation—how excellent it is! It is sweet to travel over this earth to heaven in the company of the saints who are going there with us, but if we meet no company, we must not be discouraged to go on.”

The good news for this writer and for all who know Jesus is that even if we are the ones who do the abandoning, He picks us up. The disciples forsook Christ, but He picked them up and made them secure from a final apostasy and ruin. Whatever side of the fence I might be on, Jesus’ promise to me is…

…whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. (John 4:14)

God’s unchangeable determination to save through grace in a New Covenant, and the intercession of Jesus Christ gives me abundant security against the danger of a total and final defection. I may stumble, and certainly do, but my salvation is settled in unchangeable things, not in my performance. This does not mean that I sit secure without obedience, but that I am secure even when I drop the ball. Again, the devotional writer says it well:

…the fear of God in our hearts pleads in us against sin, so our potent intercessor in the heavens pleads for us with the Father, and for that reason we cannot finally miscarry.

If my salvation depended on me, I would not have made it past day one. That initial confidence of being invincible fades quickly, and Jesus teaches me never to rely on me. I cannot save myself; if I could, I would not need Him.

The amazing reality is that the less confidence I have in me and the more helpless I feel, the more confidence I have in God and the more I see His grace and power, whether alone or in a crowd, abandoned or supported.