I painted it while listening to Anne Lamott at the Emergent Conference. I was pretty surprised at how it turned out.
Also, here are some thoughts from the message I've put together for tonight at Jenison. It's on 1 Samuel 17, David and the giant from Gath.
I wonder how often we do things without really depending on the resources of God to accomplish them.
We talk a lot about trusting God, but that’s really hard for us when reality is standing in front of us, nine feet tall, five hundred pounds, covered in armor, and armed to the teeth. It is so easy to be tempted to think in terms of our own abilities and resources.
Like we have to have all the right answers before we can talk to people about God.
Like we have to have our lives ‘together’ before we can serve God in some way.
Like we have to have the ‘right programs’ before we can be an effective church.
Like we have to have a big enough group of people before we can make a positive impact on our community.
Like we have to have a president, congress, and supreme court who agree with us before we can do anything about the evil in our society.
I wonder how often we do things without really depending on the resources of God to accomplish them.
I wonder whose reputation we care about more: ours or God’s?
David was offended that Goliath was insulting the armies of Israel—and thereby the God of Israel—and no one was willing to do anything about it. They were all running for cover whenever the giant stepped closer to their front lines.
The fear of losing their lives was greater than their confidence that ‘the battle is the Lord’s’. David went into battle, not to show that Israel was great, but that the God of Israel was great.
The battle wasn’t really between Israel and the Philistines. It was between God and the idols of the Philistines. It wasn’t about which nation was the greatest. It was about who was going to be proved to be the true God.
I wonder if sometimes we get upset about certain issues because we feel it is an attack against us, while we ignore other things that are damaging God’s reputation. For instance, we get so upset if people say certain vulgarities, but we ignore the contempt we have for those people. It is the contemptuous way we treat people who offend us that is hurting God’s reputation among them.
What is worse? Saying a vulgar word, or having contempt toward another person? We can condemn someone for speaking vulgarity, but we can justify someone’s contempt as ‘righteous indignation.’
There are many cases where I think we can be more concerned with what we consider to be proper and respectable that what is really lining up with the will of God. When will we start caring more about the poor and hungry and oppressed than what style of music we have in our worship gatherings? When will we be more concerned with living in the kingdom of God (sharing in the revolution of God; living with God as our king) than ‘extending our borders’? When will we see that other Christians (and even unbelievers) are not our enemies—that our enemy is the one who opposes God? I wonder.
I wonder how often we pray ‘in the name of Jesus’ without thinking of acting with the resources and abilities of Jesus.
David came against Goliath in the name of the Lord. That doesn’t mean that he just came with a nametag that read “God’s servant.” In the scriptures, the phrase ‘the Name of the Lord’, Ha-SheM YHWH in Hebrew, stands for God’s essential nature known to people as an active force in their lives. To do something ‘in the name of the Lord’, in Ha-SheM YHWH was to do it with all the abilities and resources of God behind you. When someone fought ‘in the name of the Lord’, they fought with God’s power.
To do something in the name of the Lord meant that you stood beside God in what he was doing.
It’s like the story of the flea and the elephant. A flea was riding an elephant across one of those old, rope bridges. When they reached the other side, the flea said, “man, we really shook that thing, didn’t we?”
So when you pray, ‘in the name of Jesus’ it’s not just the phrase you say before you say Amen. It’s not just the ‘over and out’ or ‘I’m going to hang up now, okay God.’ It is your statement that what you ask for and engage in is being done with confidence in the abilities and resources of Jesus.
How many days do we approach life as if God has left us to make it through on our own abilities and resources?
How often do we undertake projects according to our own agendas and in our own abilities and resources instead of according to God’s agenda and in his abilities and resources?
How often do we find ourselves at the end of the day exhausted and frustrated and defeated—only because we tried to do it all on our own?
I think it’s far too often for far too many of us.
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