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Buffalo Bill’s wide receiver Steve Johnson settled under a well thrown pass that would be the game winner against heavily favored Pittsburgh. The ball tumbled off the hands of the open receiver. Johnson sat in the endzone with a stunned look on his face. After the game he sent the now infamous Tweet questioning what God was up to.

“I praise you 24/7!!! And this how you do me!!! You expect me to learn from this??? How??? I’ll never forget this!! Ever!! Thx tho.”

A couple of things come to mind. One is that Twitter has officially ended the use of complete sentences for an entire generation. Second is that Steve Johnson may have chosen an odd forum to express his frustration but his response is not uncommon for honest believers. It makes sense in our performance based culture that if you commit to praising and proclaiming God that you should get a little something in return. Shouldn’t it go a little better for me than for that other player who frequents bad places and does bad things? Shouldn’t God have my back?

Johnson is not alone in questioning God. Many of the great men and women in the Bible wondered what God was doing at times.

The classic example is long suffering Job. God describes Job as being upright and blameless and a man who feared God and shunned evil. Despite his exemplary behavior God allows tragedy to befall him. His family is killed and his possessions are lost. Job endures great physical suffering. Job wrote an ancient tweet wondering what God was doing.

“Why did I not perish at birth,
   and die as I came from the womb?”

Later he “tweeted” this…

“I have no peace, no quietness;
   I have no rest, but only turmoil.”

And this…

“I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer;
   I stand up, but you merely look at me.”

What honest believer has not felt those emotions? God eventually addresses Job and explains to His servant that He is God and Job is not. I don’t mean to be flippant but that is the essence of God’s dialogue. Job replies with this insight.

“I know that you can do all things;
   no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
   Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
   things too wonderful for me to know.”

Some things are too wonderful for us to know. Some things are simply beyond our understanding. Job chose to trust God and not sin. Job did learn from his tragedy although he probably never understood why so much happened.

I remember my bride making a declaration of trust when she faced an uncertain future with her breast cancer diagnosis. Her words inspired me. “I am not and I will not question God.” Joni did not want to go through what she went through. But she knew that God had been faithful throughout her journey and she believed that would not change. It did not.

We have seen how God has used our trials in our lives and in the lives of others through His grace. I read a thoughtful book called The Perfect Loss. Author Chip Dodd begins the volume with these words.

“Life is tragic; God is faithful.”

He concludes one story with this observation.

I wish the story from that point onward could be idyllic, the way we long to have life, but instead God’s faithfulness so often shows most clearly through tragedy. The same way the beauty, the richness, and the detail of a photograph is taken from the negative.

So much of life is like this pattern—tragedy, then redemption to victory—because we rejected God’s freedom in the beginning, initiating tragedy. Freedom seems like such a wonderful thing, but only if we recognize it as a gift and treat it accordingly. The responsibility of freedom humans have failed miserably. We take the gift and use it over and over and over again to refuse how we are made for relationship with our own hearts, the hearts of others, and the heart of God. Instead of finding full life in how God made us, we use our freedom to refuse relationship if it costs us potential pain of hurt or more hurt; we block with fierceness the very thing that can grant full life—a vulnerable heart before a good God.

I believe that God is good. I believe in the joy that’s coming. I believe in a God who used brokenness and hurt to tear down the protective walls of self to learn how to trust Him and others with my needs. I believe I can live in a realm of grace that allows me to see and love others without the judgment that clouded the eye of my heart for so long. And I believe in the outcome of the journey no matter how tough it can be at times.

Paul wrote this to the church at Corinth.

…As God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory. That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. (2 Corinthians 4, NLT)

I pray that you hold firm to your trust and surrender to God when “life” happens. I will not dogpile football player Steve Johnson for his honest response to crushing disappointment. God’s response to our good behavior is not always green lights and blue skies. Johnson will learn this tough lesson if he hasn’t already through this little media firestorm. Sometimes that is how life will “do you” and part of the journey is learning that God is faithful even in the tough trials.
 

(This is a reprint from the iPod Devotional that is posted every Monday at theFish.com)

I hope you have a blessed Thanksgiving.

My lovely bride Joni loves pottery so one of my “sacrificial” ways to love her is to accompany her to pottery shops. Guys refer to that as “hitting behind the runner” or “taking the charge”. On a visit to scenic Waco eldest son Matt and daughter-in-love Holly took us to a working craft village called Homestead Heritage. If you visit Central Texas this hidden treasure is worth a trip for the restaurant alone. It is a delightful array of shops that features a working gristmill, cloth weaving and spinning wheels, a real forge and a pottery shed. I was fascinated by the open work area of the pottery shop. There were several artisans making vases and pots right before my eyes. Behind me were shelves of the finished products -colorful and beautiful and functional.

I watched a potter take a nondescript lump of clay and skillfully make an unique and beautiful creation. The verse from Isaiah came to mind.

O Lord, you are our Father.
      We are the clay, and you are the potter.
      We all are formed by your hand.  (Isaish 64:8, NIV)

Suddenly that verse came to life. But the complexity of the potter’s work and her skills made the metaphor really connect for the first time. The forming of the raw material into unique forms is just the beginning of the process. That is how it is with us as unique creations of our Father. He forms us by His hand. Like the pottery in that shop, everyone of us is an original. Sometimes we feel like the nondescript lump that the potter drops on the wheel. But the potter knows there is beauty in that lump of clay just waiting to be developed. Our process is also complex and it has just begun when we first submit to shaping by the Potter’s Hands.

The potter must make sure that no dirt or impurities are in the clay as he forms the pot. If he finds those impurities he carefully removes them before finishing the shaping. These bad materials will make the pot weak and not useful for it’s intended purpose. God desires to do the same with us. Impurities (sin) weaken us and keep us from our intended purpose.

The potter must also make sure that air bubbles don’t remain in the clay. Air bubbles can cause the pot to crack when the heat is applied in the kiln. I thought of those air bubbles as pockets of resistance in my life. When I must control my destiny and I won’t trust God. I can appear to be molded to God’s direction. But I have “bubbles” of pride and anger and control. These bubbles of self can cause me to crack under fire.

The metaphors that Scripture uses are so powerful when we take the time to understand context and culture. I realized that the pot on the potter’s wheel is beautiful but essentially useless when it is initially formed. At this point the piece is called greenware and it is extremely brittle and easily breakable. Two things need to happen to make the pot strong and usable. The clay must go through the fire of the kiln to be strengthened and it must be glazed. An article on pottery at Wikipedia had an interesting parallel to the spiritual metaphor.

Pottery is made by forming a clay body into objects of a required shape and heating them to high temperatures in a kiln to induce reactions that lead to permanent changes, including increasing their strength and hardening and setting their shape.

Trials by fire can have that same effect on us as followers of Jesus. Trials can make us stronger and set our shape as His followers. Or the fire of life’s trials can cause us to crack and make us useless for His plan.

I realized that I am just beginning to really understand that process in my life. I would be content to stay in my greenware state, brittle and not useful for service. But God knows that it is in the fire that we are strengthened and made useful. It is in the heat of trials that the true beauty of our creative process is revealed. And every instance of significant growth in my life has been in the fire of adversity.

There are a couple of  huge differences between the earthly potter and God as the Potter. When the earthly potter finds a bad piece of clay he will often just discard it. Our Heavenly Potter patiently works with us even when we seem unshapeable and worthless. If careless handling or air bubbles cause an unfired pot to break the pieces are discarded. Only our Heavenly Father can take the shards of brokenness and make a pot more beautiful and useful than before.

The words of James made more sense in the context of the Potter’s process.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. (James 1:2–3, NIV)

There is no joy in the trial but there is joy in the knowledge of how God uses such events in our lives. If you are in the trial or facing a trial be comforted that God desires for you to emerge strengthened and beautiful and useful. One potter said that the greatest thing about making pots is that each lump of clay has near-infinite potential. The lump of clay that is me and the lump of clay that is you has infinite potential because we have an infinite God that is patient and good. I pray that we will allow Him to shape us in His image. I pray that we will confess the impurity of sin and ask Him to remove it. I pray that we will burst the bubbles of self that control us. I pray that we will trust the Heavenly Potter as we enter the fire. And most of all I pray that we will not fear the process that God uses to make us beautiful and useful creations. Yield to the Potter and see how beautiful the result can be.

I cut my spiritual teeth in legalism but I knew there had to be a better way. I regularly demonstrated Paul’s Roman treatise that the law inflames the sin nature. My brazen combo of playing high school basketball on Wednesday prayer meeting nights and reading (gasp) the Living Bible nearly resulted in excommunication. I remember one seasoned saint self-righteously telling me that he only read God’s original Word. I asked him if he read the Hebrew or Greek texts. He looked at me like a Golden Retriever hearing a high pitched sound.

We believed that we really were to be a “peculiar’ people. And we nailed it. We were spectacularly peculiar. We were so peculiar that most folks steered a wide path around our judgmental brand of faith.

I thought of that verse from Titus that our pastor often referenced just in case our guilt meter was not peaking.

Who (Christ Jesus) gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. (Titus 2, King James Bible)

We were to be a peculiar people. And we were indeed zealous of our moralist definition of peculiar. Peculiar meant no smoking, no alcohol, no movies, no dancing, no gambling, no cards, no bingo (those Catholics!), no immodest clothing, no jewelry, no makeup, no swearing and no fun. Especially no fun. Seriously. No fun.

But a look at the passage in a slightly later translation shows a bit more context.

For the grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people. And we are instructed to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God, while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed. He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds. (Titus 2, NLT)

Hmmmm. Verily, even the King James version doth acknowledge God’s grace. “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.” We are to be “peculiar” not by making a big deal of what we don’t do. We are to be peculiar by living in (not apart from) this evil world with wisdom, righteousness and devotion to God. We are to be “peculiar” by recognizing what Christ has done to give us a new identity and power over sin. We are to be “peculiar” by gratefully surrendering to Christ and being committed to good works. That, my friends, is peculiar in a self-centered culture.

We have missed the mark so badly by isolating ourselves into Christian bunkers and only venturing out to buy provisions. We are called to trust God to live in this world with devotion to Him.

All of this came to mind, oddly, after my beloved Texas Rangers won the first playoff series from Tampa Bay. Star outfielder Josh Hamilton is a committed Christian. (You can watch his I Am Second story here) He appreciates God’s grace because Josh was rescued from the depths of hell and restored to health, to his family and to the game he loves. Josh Hamilton is an addict. His addiction nearly killed him. He knows that everyday he must trust God and others with his life or he could fall. That is true for all of us. Josh Hamilton just lives it every day.

He suffered one relapse during an off-season moment of weakness. He did what all followers of Christ should do. Take responsibility. Repent. Seek forgiveness and return to our source of strength. Those simple steps would short-circuit a lot of charges of hypocrisy and those steps would emphasize that our righteousness is not about our behavior. Our righteousness is because of Jesus and the gift of grace. Here is a snippet of Josh’s response to that moment.

“I’m embarrassed about it. For the Rangers, I’m embarrassed about it. For my wife, my kids,” Hamilton said then. “It’s one of those things that just reinforces about alcohol. Unfortunately, it happened. It just reinforces to me that if I’m out there getting ready for a season and taking my focus off the most important thing in my recovery, which is my relationship with Christ, it’s amazing how those things creep back in.”

Because of his history, Josh Hamilton had discretely excused himself from the division title winning post game champagne and beer celebration in Oakland. He could not take a chance to be tempted. He made no demands. He did not make himself a martyr because he could not partake. He didn’t feel sorry for himself. He just did what he had to do to “live in this world with wisdom”.

Fast forward to Tuesday night in Tampa Bay. When Hamilton peeked in the clubhouse he witnessed one of the most heartwarming moments in recent years. His teammates all had bottles of ginger ale and they deluged their teammate with a shower of respect, love and grace. Josh had lived the truths without self-righteous posturing and his teammates recognized that.

After the ginger ale celebration the regular champagne flowed as Josh retreated to the hallways outside. Josh Hamilton has given the rest of us a little primer on how we navigate our world by how he lives out his faith in the pressure cooker of performance.

Focus on the grace of God who brought us salvation and new identity in Christ. Turn (personally) from godless living and sinful pleasures without condemning others who have yet to understand or experience God’s grace. Live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness and devotion to God.

We are His people and from that we are to be totally committed to doing good deeds. I am proud of my Texas Rangers and their first round win. But I am also very proud of their post-game honoring of a teammate who demonstrated that you can be “peculiar” without being weird. People will notice that.

A recent breakfast with my friend Bruce McNicol continues to mess with my mind. Bruce asked me a couple of thought provoking questions and they continue to bounce around my cranium. Yeah, I know there is lots of room. I was sitting there innocently enjoying my oatmeal and catching up on mutual friends when he dropped one of the questions on me.

“If grace based theology as the way to live out the Christian life is true then why is it not more popular in the church?”

That may be a paraphrase but that is the essence of his query. That is a great question. I have been swept away by grace. My life, my ministry, my marriage and my relationship with Jesus have been transformed. Yep…it has been that dramatic. So why aren’t there more revelers on the grace train? And why are so many afraid to even board that train and take a ride? I think part of the answer is control. When you lean on grace you surrender control and hopping on a train that you are not exactly sure where it is going is not real appealing to many Christians. I will address that thought in another post.

One of the first analogies I thought about when Bruce asked that question came from football. Perhaps that is because I am a television director and college football is the current gig. Perhaps it is simply because my brain is not wired to factory specs. But this idea popped in my mind. A lot of football teams play a defense that is called the prevent defense. That style of defense is designed to allow the opponent short yardage gains as it tries to prevent big plays and long touchdowns. The theory is that if you can force the other team to settle for short gains they will eventually make a mistake, get called for a penalty or simply fail to get the yardage needed.

I thought about the opponent we line up against as followers of Christ. It occurred to me that Satan played a kind of “prevent” defense in my spiritual journey for many years. It was almost like the Enemy was willing to give up short gains of spiritual growth and ministry as long as I focused on my own efforts to keep grinding out more gains. Satan, like a good defensive coordinator, believed that I would make a mistake and then he could pounce on my miscue and cause a costly turnover. My failure would cause me to doubt myself, my commitment and my worth. When I made a mistake Satan’s play by play announcer would broadcast loudly in my head.

“You have failed again. Jesus must be really disappointed with this effort but He certainly is not surprised. Dave, you have been a disappointing member of the team since you joined.”

Or my past performances might cause me to be tentative and fearful. The announcer always chimed in.

“Certainly no reason to expect victory from Dave this time. He has failed over and over in this very situation. To be honest, I am not sure why Jesus even keeps him around.”

The goal line of joy and freedom and peace seemed more and more difficult to reach. Finally I was happy just to make a short gain now and then. I seldom sustained a lengthy drive of positive spiritual gains. 

But then I discovered a new offense. A game plan that Satan can’t defend. When I lined up with grace there was no way for the Enemy to keep me from the goal of freedom and joy. Instead of grinding out each painful yard with begrudging self-effort I simply followed the lead block of the Spirit and ran with confidence. I remembered my team identity and the power that was promised from that association. I believed that I would be victorious not because of my skill but because of Christ.

Maybe the analogy is a stretch. But I think there is something to consider in the idea that Satan “gives” us little gains and tries really hard to stop the big ones. I believe that grace scares the Enemy more that anything we do because grace relies on surrender and trust. My self-effort against the ruler of this world is a long shot. My surrendered life to Jesus is a sure shot. Jesus has fought this battle and won. Why we would we not depend on His gameplan to reach the goal?

So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.  (Hebrews 4, NLT)