“Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” -Matthew 5:3

      I have been a Christian most of my life. I have been saved by grace through faith. The natural response to this is a desire to use the rest of my life to glorify God. We talk about this a lot. Whatever we do, we are to do to the glory of God. But what does it mean to glorify God? How can we best do this with our lives? A list of things immediately comes to mind. We are to abstain from many things, seeking not to gratify the desires of the flesh, but to walk by the Spirit. We are to love God and to love others. We are to serve. We are to reach out, share our faith, give of our time, our finances, and our selves. The Bible is filled with things that we, as Christians, are to do. We would call these good works. These are, without doubt, important for we know that “faith without works is dead” -James 2:26 and when others see our good works “they will glorify our father in heaven.” -Matthew 5:16  

Yet, I have found, at least in my own life, that this desire to glorify God with my life can be twisted into something that I do not think God intended. It can makes us develop a “debtor’s mentality.” Now that God has been so gracious as to save us, we must “pay Him back” by leading these kinds of lives. If we do that, we will glorify God.

     However, I think this is a tragically mistaken way of thinking, to which I have been very susceptible in my own life. It really nullifies our need for the grace of God in every  area of our lives and for the rest of our lives. Underlying this mentality, is a notion that God has saved us because He wanted something that we had. It suggests that God is most glorified by what we have to offer Him. In my mind, this misses the mark of the heart of the Gospel, for in reality, God is most glorified, not by what we can offer Him, but what He can offer us. .

     The Gospel is a tale of rags to riches, the Prince and the paupers. Only it is a far more wonderful and beautiful a story than any fairy tale. We often think what we can give God will bring Him glory, and though this is true in some sense, it is truer that it is what we can not give God that brings Him glory. God has not saved us because we had things that He wanted or needed. Indeed, when we were yet powerless sinners, we had absolutely nothing to recommend us to a holy and righteous God. Rather, God has saved us because we needed to be saved and He was able and mighty to do so. He, who is rich in grace, holiness, and power, is most glorified in filling those who are most destitute of these. It magnifies the fullness and riches of His grace.

     But how do we receive these riches? By what avenue can poor, wretched sinners hope to gain the glorious riches of God? It is through faith in Christ alone, “for we know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, so that we through His poverty might become rich.” -2 Corinthians 8:9 We can be assured that we will receive the riches of God because “God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” -Colossians 1:27 God did not leave us in the misery of our poverty and sin, but in His great love and mercy, became poor so that we might, through faith, receive His riches, an inheritance we do not deserve and which we have not earned.

     But alas, before we can be the recipients of these riches which are in Christ, we must become aware that we are poor, poor in spirit, poor in power, poor in wisdom and righteousness. If we do not, we are prideful and have not fully understood our need for a Savior.  A man who thinks himself rich and able would not abase himself to beg and receive from another.  What a tragedy it would be to, in our pride, go through our Christian lives and not truly recognize our spiritual poverty. What blessing we miss if we deny it!It is a wondrous thing to understand the reality of our poverty, for only then can we really understand and experience the reality of His riches. 

     Though I do not deny that the knowledge of the poverty of our souls in an incredibly sobering truth, I do maintain that it is necessary for the Christian and an avenue to the “abundant life” which Christ wants to give us. Indeed, it is a stark reality to understand, but how blessed are we who have come to this knowledge! How we should rejoice in our poverty, for there is One who is rich in grace and mercy. We should rejoice because the Gospel is not only a story of our poverty. Were we to be left in our helpless state, that would be a somber tale indeed. But no, the Gospel is the meeting of our poverty with God’s riches. The good news of Jesus Christ is that we are desperately empty and God is immeasurably full. Thus, it is good for us to know that we lack because then we know that God can supply. It is good for us to hunger and thirst for righteousness because then we will learn that God can sate our hunger and quench our thirst. Our need magnifies His fullness. He is glorified through the union of our poverty and His riches.

     What then is the mark of the citizen of heaven? What is the sign that he is living for the glory of God? It is poverty. He does not boast of all the he can do for God because he knows He has nothing of worth to offer Him. He does not speak of his own righteousness because he knows that it is a threadbare, decaying cloak that cannot conceal his wretched state. He does not boast of his wisdom because he knows that his coffers are empty of that most precious of jewels. The citizen of heaven is a poor soul on whom God has wondrously bestowed all the riches of His grace. In response to this gift, He lives by faith and as John Piper put it, “faith is the act of our soul that turns away from our own insufficiency to the free and all-sufficient resources of God. Faith focuses on the freedom of God to dispense grace to the unworthy. It banks on the bounty of God.”

     And so the citizen of heaven, by faith, stakes all upon the sacrifice and righteousness of Christ and the riches of His grace.  He acknowledges that “it is because of [God] that [he] is in Christ Jesus, who has become for [him] wisdom from God–that is [his] righteousness, holiness and redemption.” -1 Corinthians 1:30 Thus, understanding his spiritual poverty, he boasts in Christ alone.  Having seen into his own heart and stared bleakly at the utter destitution of his soul, he knows, without a doubt, that the grace of God, found in Jesus Christ, is the only hope he has. 

     Therefore, we who have found we are poor in spirit should take heart and have faith. Are you without righteousness? Rejoice, for through His sacrifice, we have the righteousness “which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith” -Philippians 3:9 Have you discovered that you are in desperate, daily need of grace? Do not despair for “since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.” -Romans 5:1-2 Are you weak and powerless? Are you lacking in love, love for God and others?  Do not despair, for God, who Himself is love, has loved us first. Laying claim to our souls through the purchase of His blood, He has vowed to transform our hearts by His own power. Thus, “be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that you may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that you may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” -Colossians 2:2-3 

     So we do strive daily to live for the glory of God. It is a fitting response to the truth that we have been saved by grace, that “because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions” -Ephesians 2:4-5  But we must also remember that “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” -Ephesians 2:6 not just so we could do good works or perform for Him, but “in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” -Ephesians 2:7 First and foremost, God has raised us up and saved our souls so that He can lavish us with the riches of His grace and love!  What an incredible truth. We serve a God whose primary delight is in not in demanding things from us, but in meeting our every need. 

     So, if we are going to live for the glory of God, we must first, come to daily terms with our own poverty. Christ didn’t just die to save us, but also to give us the daily grace and faith we need for our sanctification and also to lavish the riches of His love and grace upon us.   We must resist the temptation to accept God’s grace for our salvation, but then deny our need of it in living holy lives to the glory of God.. After receiving our salvation, we must not “set aside the grace of God,” but desire to see more and more of it in our lives. God’s grace does not end with our salvation. It is an ever-flowing spring from which God desires that we drink daily.   

     Therefore, my hope for myself and for you as well, is that before I look for how I can give to God, I look for how He can give to me. Before I search within myself for what I can offer Him, I hope to search within myself for where I most need Him, for I know that He has much to offer me. I hope to be reminded daily of my own spiritual poverty, to know at all times that I am bankrupt before Him. In this, I will rejoice, for though I am poor, God is rich and able and He, in His immeasurable love and grace, has made me an heir of these riches which are in Christ. I am indeed a “debtor” to God’s grace. The way in which I hope to repay my debt is by asking for more and more of His grace, for then the cross of Christ, its all-sufficiency and boundlessness, shall be exalted in my life. Being the pauper that I am, I want to marvel at the lavish and incomparable riches which are mine in Christ, and drink deeply from the fountain of His grace which flows without end. My suspicion is that if I do this, I, despite my emptiness, will be filled to overflowing and God, in all His fullness, will be glorified.

*I wrote this a little less than a year ago. I finally got my chance to graduate school, but as I have been continuing to figure out God’s plan for my life and making difficult decisions, I find I need to be constantly reminded of this truth.  I have also found that God often answers our questions by changing our questions.  Now, instead of looking to the standards of the world to tell me who I am, I want to ask, who does God say that I am?  And instead of asking God for a plan for my life, I want to ask how He will make my life for His plan. 

My life is somewhat of a puzzle to myself.  Two years ago, I had such a clear vision of who I was, where I was going, and what God wanted me to do.  I was a thinker, a writer, to go to graduate school to think and write to the glory of God.  Today, my life looks nothing like I thought it would.  It is a testimony to the truth that, “In his heart, a man plans His course, but the LORD determines his steps.” -Proverbs 16:9

I don’t regret my choices at all or dislike the life I have.  It is more that I am surprised and somewhat perplexed by the many turns my life has taken.  I wonder if I was simply wrong about who I was and what I was to do….and if not, how does that vision of my life fit with what and where I am now?

I think I have somehow come to believe that if I don’t ever go to graduate school, I will have missed my purpose, wasted my gifts, and failed to live up to my potential.   This surely cannot be the truth, for God is sovereign and nothing can thwart His purposes.  “The plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of His heart through all generations.” -Psalm 33:11  “The LORD will fulfill His purpose for me–your love, O LORD, endures forever–do not abandon the work of Your hands.” -Psalm 138:8  I rest in the truth that God is sovereign and there is nothing I could do to mess up His plans for me.

Moreover, I think I have deceived myself into a very narrow understanding of my purpose.  I have come to define myself in terms of education, performance, and achievement. Out of this muddled confusion, the question rises in my heart, “God, who do You want me to be?”  To which, He simply replies, “Be mine.”

I find peace in this reply and I hope you do too. When we feel confused by life, anxious for the future and what we will be, “this is what the LORD says–He who created you o Jacob, he who formed you O Israel: ‘Fear not for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.” -Isaiah 43:1 God has not saved me so I could go to grad school.  God has not saved you to____.  Fill in the blank.  Christ did not die to make me a writer; He died to make me His.  That is what I am to be first and foremost.  He chose me, purchased me, saved me to make me His very own.  What follows is that the way in which I can most glorify God, and so fulfill my purpose , is to belong wholly and completely to Him, irrevocably bound to Him by the grace of His blood and boasting in none else.  I will look to Him to satisfy my desires.  I will look to Him to tell me who I am.  I am His.

Content in that, I will then be able to walk into whatever additional role God gives me–wife, nanny, student, writer–bringing glory to Him.  But the wondrous truth, the truth that brings real peace, joy, and rest, is that if I was never anything else, it would be so much more than enough–just to be His.

   I have found that when I am in a dry spell in my walk with God, all the myriad of reasons, my spiritual laziness in prayer, my lack of hunger for the word of God, and just general products of my flesh, can usually be traced back to one root cause.  I have ceased to be awed by the Gospel.  That which is most uncommon has become common to me.  The truth that the righteous God became a man and paid the penalty for my sin, the truth which I should treasure and marvel at every day, every moment of my life, I begin to take for granted. I become too familiar with it and lose sight of the bigger picture, no longer marveling at the fact that God loves me because I forget how undeserving I am of this love and how very deserving I am of His wrath.  I casually pass over the thought that God has forgiven my sins because I no longer think on the great price which was paid for them.  I lose sight of the Cross and all its significance for every facet of my life and being.  I think we all find ourselves in this place at one time or another.

     Thankfully, God is gracious to His children and does not allow us to remain like this for long.  Just as He opened our eyes to the truth of the Gospel for the very first time, He is faithful to continue to reveal it to us again and again so that we might be renewed in our faith and hunger for Him, spurred onward in our pursuit of Christ.  God, in His patience and loving-kindness, continually reminds us of what He has done, enabling our hearts to marvel anew and love His Gospel more and more, even when we sometimes treat it as commonplace. 

     Indeed, God, through His word, has done so for me today as He has done time and time again.  He has allowed me to perceive the Gospel afresh and be once again, amazed.  I pray for myself and for you all that we never ceased to be awed and never take for granted that which has been done for us.  So, I ask that we marvel at it together.  Let us consider the Gospel, in all its beauty, sweetness, and heart-piercing truth, that it may awe us, change us, and first and foremost, make us to love and desire Christ more and more. 

     What has been done for us?  What have we, who are in Christ, received?  We know that we have received salvation and eternal life.  We know that our sins are forgiven.  But why is this so amazing?  Let us consider the beginning of the story.  It is easy to forget this side of salvation; it is easy to place a distinction between us, the righteous, and them, the lost sinners.  But let us remember that “all of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.  Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.” –Ephesians 2:3  Loving the darkness and hating the light, we were dead in our sins with no hope of savings ourselves and no desire to even if we could.  We were chained, by the very nature of our souls, to God’s wrath. 

     Then come some of the sweetest words in the whole bible: “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.” –Ephesians 2:4  In the most amazing intervention, the sweetest and most powerful action, God reached down and brought us from death to life.  But how did He do this?  We know that we have received salvation and eternal life, but let us consider the great price that was paid so that we might treasure it more.  God did not just hand us our freedom and salvation.   He could not, for the depth of our sin demanded the fullness of His wrath.  We could not be set free without payment and we could not escape His wrath unless it was satisfied.  And so, “he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” –Isaiah 53:5  We have all sinned and fallen short.  We all deserve the full wrath of God. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” –Isaiah 53:6  

     Consider that statement for a moment and be amazed: the iniquity of us all.  When I think on my own iniquity alone, I know it is very great and that I do not even really realize how great.  Now consider the iniquity of the entire world throughout all of history.  Take a step outside your door and you won’t have to go very far to discover the deep and total depravity of mankind.   For the past thousands of years, we have been endlessly adding to the list of our crimes and so, to our debt.  We have and are, in effect, heaping up for ourselves the wrath of God, a great and insurmountable burden.  

     Yet, Christ bore it all.  He paid it all.  Not only that, He defeated it all.  He reigns victorious over death and sin, setting us free from their bondage and the chains of God’s wrath.  Who is like our God?  “He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.”  -Micah 7:19  No wrath remains for us because Christ has borne it.  No penalty stands against us because Christ has paid it.  All that remains for us is to receive His free love and grace for the rest of our lives and onward into eternity. 

     This is the Gospel.  It is anything but common and nothing short of amazing.  I realize I have said nothing new or revolutionary, but I pray that we never tire of saying it and that it never ceases to revolutionize our hearts and minds, that we may become well-acquainted with the love and grace of God, but never overly familiar with it.   May we always stand in awe of it, for we were once chained by our sin to be objects of His wrath, but because of the full payment and victorious action of Christ, we are now set free to be objects of His love.

For just as we were once joined to His wrath, we are no irrevocably joined to His love.  “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” -Romans 8:38-39 

“Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!” -Revelation 7:12

I wrote this prayer in college and it’s still very relevant for life today.  It’s funny how my past self so often reminds my present self of things I need to know.  I often wonder how i used to be so smart and what happened.  😉

Let not my thoughts dwell on this world or on myself. Let not their make up be of what I should do or what I should have done. Let my mind be empty but for the solitary thought of Him. Let not my words be of earthly knowledge or even of grand things that I do not understand. Let them consist only of what I know if only in part: the death and resurrection of my savior Jesus. Let not my ears lend themselves to the words of fallible men or the accusations of the enemy. Let them hearken only to voice of my God and King. Let not my eyes stray to the glory of man. Let not them even rest on myself, the good and evil that are both there. Let them gaze fixedly upon Him in all of His glorious splendor, majestic beauty, and wondrous love. 

May my existence be only of adoration and relationship with Him. May my soul there breathe the breath of contentment and peace. May I settle and rest myself in that place for which I was made. May I simply be in Christ alone.

I’d like to be on this boat praying this prayer.

 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

When I am worrying about my future and trying to get some kind of hint at what it holds, this is usually the verse that He patiently whispers to me. Call me blasphemous, sacrilegious, whatever, but sometimes this verse…well frankly, sometimes it’s annoying, like I’m being taunted that God knows what I want to know and cannot know. He staunchly refuses to tell me anything more. God will not let me know everything because He is asking that it be enough that He knows everything. Essentially, He is asking for faith, faith in Him and faith in His promises. 

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of we do not see.” Hebrews 11:11 I am sure we are all familiar enough with that verse. But what does this really mean? Is faith truly blind? Are we merely groping around in the dark, trying to muster up belief out of thin air? I would say no. What I am learning is that faith is not merely walking down a path and blindly hoping that it takes us somewhere good. Faith is not ungrounded hope. Faith does not leap without knowing anything at all. Rather, faith is firmly grounded in what has been revealed so far. Faith leaps with a backward glance at what God has already done.

What I am getting at is that a key part of faith is remembrance. The reason we struggle with faith is because we have the memory of a gold fish. Like the Israelites, all we can focus on is the here and now. We step into the uncharted territory of the desert, immediately forget that God just miraculously led us through the Red Sea on dry ground, and begin to wonder if perhaps, it would not have been better if we had just stayed slaves and died in Egypt.

I am, too often, like the Israelites. Essentially, I doubt because I forget. I think that’s why throughout the Old testament, before He spoke to the Israelites, He would often remind them first, “I am the LORD, the God of Israel,” second, “who brought you up out of Egypt.” God’s call to faith, the opposite of doubt, is a call to remember who He is and what He has done.

So, when I find myself in moments of doubt or worry, I have found it helpful to recount His faithfulness thus far, to revisit times in my life which are clearly marked by His goodness. During many of those times, God’s goodness was not quite so evident as it is now. I could not see clearly at all, but now, I can see and very clearly. When I remember these things, my doubt falls away and my faith becomes grounded.  I know that God will continue to be faithful because He always has been in the past. 

I have been thinking that faith is like a tree. It does not merely blindly stretch up to the vast and unknown expanse of the sky. It also puts down roots. It finds nourishment in the soil so that it can grow higher and bear more fruit. Similarly, we must, as we take forward steps of faith into the unknown, simultaneously put down the roots of our faith into the known, into the rich and tangible soil of what God has already done. If we do that, our faith will not wither and die for lack of nourishment, but rather, being “rooted and established,” it will drink deep of the evidence of His love, flourish, and bear much fruit.

So, I would encourage you, if you find yourself struggling with faith and trust in God, to learn the art of recounting His faithfulness, for this is the food of faith. Before you look forward, look back. Take careful stock of who you have known Him to be and what you know He has done in your life. Tear your gaze from the stark, blank pages of the future and glance back at those pages that have already been filled. Mark the ones that commemorate His goodness and faithfulness and reread them often.

Oswald Chambers said that “faith does not know where it is being led, but it knows and loves the One who leads.” Basically, we do not know where God is taking us, but we do know Him. We know the sound of His voice when He calls and we follow. We don’t know our whole story, but we know that it begins with a cross, an empty grave, and a risen Savior. We don’t know what will be engraved on our final pages, but we do know that He has lovingly and sacrificially “engraved us on the palms of His hands” Isaiah 49:16 We do not see what lies ahead, but we do see what lies behind.  And by looking back on the marvelous tales of our lives, so indelibly marked by grace, mercy and love, we really do find assurance of our hope and certainty of what we do not see. We know Him and He knows the plans. And that truly is enough.

The Bible has been referred to as God’s love letter to us. Verse after verse assures us that His love is unfailing, unconditional, and unending. We are to be rooted and established in this love, the width, length, height, and depth of which surpasses knowledge. It is also promised that “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height of depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:39 If I’m reading this correctly, it appears that the God of the universe who never lies is promising to us that there is nothing, no sin, no failure, nothing that could make Him stop loving us. What an awesome truth this is.

Yet there are times I’m not quite sure I truly understand this or perhaps even really believe it in my heart. In moments of failure, moments when I see my faults with horribly clarity, I am actually quite nearly certain that God could stop loving me because these things are so totally unlovable. It is in those moments that I scramble to do better, to make myself more lovable or perhaps, just lie to myself and try to pretend that the less than lovable parts of me just really aren’t there. It produces in me a certain anxiety, an absurd fear that God might “find out” that I’m not really that great after all. I think what lies at the root is a misunderstanding of identity and why God even loves us in the first place.

I have been a nanny for the last few years and it has led to several insights that I think are key to understanding God’s love for us. To put it bluntly, children are unabashedly selfish, vengeful, and irrational. They see small and think small, seeking to gratify only the impulse of the moment, without much thought to consequences or the future or anything lasting. Their natures are undeniably sinful and yet, they are also delightful things of beauty. Each one is a unique bundle of personality with the remarkable capacity for love, goodness, creativity, and growth.

Parents know all of this about their children, the good and the bad. They are completely aware of their sinful nature, all the gaps and flaws that come with it and yet, they love them still. They love them even when they are completely unlovable. How is this possible? How can someone love what is not lovable? It is possible because parents do not love their children because they are lovable but because they are their children.  Of course, I have never been a parent, but I can imagine what a thing of wonder it must be to look on a person, complete with a myriad list of faults and shortcomings, and know that you made them, that they belong to you in a way that nothing and no one else ever will. I can imagine how much love and delight I would feel for them, not because they were perfect, but because they were mine. 

God’s love is like this. He created our inmost beings, wove us together in the secret place, knew all of our days before one of them came to be. We are His idea, His workmanship. He delights in all our ways that make us unique because that is the way He designed us to be. He loves us unconditionally because we are unconditionally His.  We are His children and indeed, we are children in every sense of the word. We are selfish, small-minded, and often foolish to the point of destruction. We are inherently flawed, inevitable failures, and daily testimonies to our own imperfection.

God knows all of this, but He is not anxious. He is not wringing His hands, wondering if He’ll have to stop loving us. He does not despair and so, neither should we. Don’t be mistaken. Just like a Father, He will discipline us and He will mold us to work out those flaws of our make up, but He will do it within the boundaries of the unshakable realm of His love, boundaries preset by the very fact that we are His children whom He died to make His own. 

So, I have found that when I do feel a kind of anxiety over my “unlovableness”, it is because I have failed to grasp who I am and why God loves me. I am a child of God. My entire identity, all my hope, and all my assurance of His love rests in the simple, but profound truth that I am His and He is mine. At this realization, all doubts are silenced, all questions answered.

Therefore, be reminded of this: You are wholly, lavishly, and irrevocably loved by God. His love for you was sealed even before the day He created you and it really is a love that surpasses knowledge. It cannot be overcome, but it overcame death. It cannot be shaken, but it shook lose our bonds to sin.  It cannot be changed, but it changes us.  It is the love of God the Father for His children. So, if you find yourself in moments or situations when you are completely unlovable, do not be anxious. For you are not loved because you are lovable. You are loved because you are His.

“Christianity is the only religion whose God bears the scars of evil.”  -Os Guinness

This post is the compilation of thoughts that I have been chewing on for the past year or so which now have come together into what I hope is a cohesive and coherent message. It is good news. In fact, I think what I have concluded again and again and again–is the Gospel. It all began with the problem of evil. As some of my previous posts demonstrate, this has been a topic of particular interest to me over the past few years. It is funny, in a way, that this “problem” has driven me, not from God, but towards Him and into a deeper knowledge and appreciation of the Gospel. It is ironic that what the world intended for evil, God meant for good. Pun intended.

Like a good philosopher, I began with the problem posed. I then considered the two possible conclusions: God or no God. First, I examined the latter and quickly found that given the problem of evil itself, this could, by no means, be the logical conclusion. It reduces to absurdity. For if there was no God, there would be no so called “problem.” Evil would be a relative and meaningless concept. The problem itself was its own demise. And so, I found that I could with great rational peace deny that conclusion.

And that, of course, left the only other option: God. I think I would be both an irresponsible philosopher and an irresponsible Christian if I merely accepted this conclusion without considering its implications, especially in light of the problem of evil. Yes, I found that belief in God was more rational, but rationality really only gets you so far in life. What does this conclusion, this God with a capital “G” mean for our lives? What does it mean for both our joys and our sufferings? As Christians, it is not enough to merely answer negatively to the problem of evil. We must also answer positively. We must give an account, a humble account of course limited by our finite understanding, of how a good God can truly be compatible with the present evil and suffering.

 I have attempted to do this, and as I have turned to scripture and thought and pondered, the final answer I’ve arrived at is that God allows evil because it brings Him glory. On this point, He is emphatic and unapologetic. It is a simple, straightforward statement, but it is not a simple, straightforward answer. It is packed with meaning and complexity. Of course, we say it all the time. God does whatever will bring Him the most glory and He is justified in doing so because He’s God and all the glory is His due. But as I related this to the problem of evil, this became a hard pill for me to swallow. I sensed some tension. Can a God truly be called good when He brings Himself glory at the cost of such suffering? Could He not have been glorified in some other way?

 Indeed, the ways of God often seem incredibly strange to our human hearts. It is tempting to simply wave the white flag, to begrudgingly surrender God the right to His glory. Okay, God You win. You’re God, so You get to do whatever You want. But to do this would be to miss a great truth, a precious gem of understanding. Scripture doesn’t say that we give up and surrender to the glory of God. No, it says that “werejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” Romans 5:2 God’s glory is not something we begrudgingly submit ourselves to. It is not merely okay, it is wonderful and liberating for it is at the beginning, the middle, and the end of the Gospel, the good news for the sinner’s heart and this fallen world.

 God is unabashed about His love for His own glory. Throughout scripture, He adamantly declares “I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another.” Isaiah 42:8 Everything He does, He does for His name’s sake. Why is this good news? Why should we rejoice to have a God that is so in love with Himself? It is because God’s quest for His own glory is at the center of the Gospel. It is the ceaseless fountain of our salvation and hope, the bedrock of our faith in Him. For consider the nature of God’s glory.  When has He been most glorified? Surely, it was in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The cross is the place where God’s glory is most clearly revealed. What I have also begun to grasp is that the cross is the single most evil act in history. The crucifixion of the holy and spotless Lamb at the hands of wicked and filthy sinners epitomizes the evil of man as well as the glory of God. What a strange pairing…  

 Essentially, God is justified in allowing evil and suffering for His glory because the nature of His glory, shown at the cross, is so amazingly selfless and sacrificial. Accusations of heartlessness and cruelty simply cannotbe maintained when one truly understands the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the glory of God. “He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5 At the cross, we witness the heart of God and we are dumbfounded, first by the evil wrought by our own hands, second, by the fact that He would take that evil, “the iniquity of us all” Isaiah 53:6 upon Himself. And then, subsequently we are blown away by His glory. Somehow, in a mysterious and wonderful way, this strange combination of our all-surpassing wickedness and His all-surpassing love becomes an incomprehensibly beautiful story…

 So I do not pretend to understand the mysteries of God, precisely why the world had to be just this way, why He could not have been just as glorified in another way. But I can understand very clearly the sacrificial love of Christ on the Cross. I can grasp Isaiah 53. And I find that that is enough. With this understanding, the Gospel becomes more powerful and awesome in both its cosmic scope and personal meaning. God’s commitment to His glory rings out in all the earth, speaking of hope to all Creation and it also whispers quietly to the sinner’s heart that He will never forsake us or cease in doing good to us because He will bring glory to Himself. This is His great purpose and we can rejoice in that for “the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of His heart through all generations.” Psalm 33:11

 What a wondrous truth. God’s glory is both the input and the output of our salvation and our lives. All creation sings of His glory, for “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day, they pour forth speech; Night after night, they display knowledge” Psalm 19:1-2 and yet, apart from Him, we cannot hear and we cannot see because “our thinking became futile and our foolish hearts were darkened.” Romans 1:21 We stand at the Cross, witnessing the glory of His love displayed, and we are unable to perceive it. We scoff. We jeer. But now, we rejoice for God has opened our eyes and drawn us near. He has “removed from us our hearts of stone and given us hearts of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26 For the sake of His name, He has delivered us from the depths of the grave and He Himself has put a new song in our mouths. Where once we stood and spat His name with contempt and condemnation, we now stand and sing His name with reverence and worship. Where once we stood and scorned Him as He gave His life for our sins, we now look upon His sacrifice with tears in our eyes and are moved to repentance. We once mocked His wounds, but now they have become so dear.

 Before the Cross, we find that the conductor of the universe is fine tuning our hearts to join in the song of Creation and of the Cross. He is tightening the strings of our hearts that they might move from the dissonance of their godlessness and sinfulness to the harmony of their redemption and righteousness. As he opens our eyes to the hope of His glory, we stand awestruck, not only that we are forgiven, but that we are also laden with the riches of His grace. Our hearts ask in wonder, “What on earth did we do to deserve this?” To this, He responds, “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” And that is the wonder of His Gospel. In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has sent His glory out to achieve the work of the redemption of sinners and as it does, it also returns to Him in waves of amplified glory on which we ride with joy. And unto God be all the glory, for it is He who opens our eyes to His glory, He who brings us near and forgives for His glory, and He who beckons us onward towards His glory.

 “ And so we do “rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character, and character hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts through the holy spirit whom He gave us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:2-8 We rejoice because this is our assurance that God will continue to do good to us, that He will again arise to show us compassion, that he will never leave us nor forsake us. For now that He has taken us from under His wrath and placed under His grace, we are called children of God. We bear His name and we know that He will never see His name dishonored. He will not yield His glory to another. And that, my friends, is Good News.

The phrase “follow your heart” has become ubiquitous in our society.  We hear it in movies and media.  Parents raise their children on this supposed wisdom.  If we just follow our hearts, we can’t go wrong and we can do anything.  The 90’s kid within me is jamming out to the 98 degrees song...”Be true to your heart. Just be true to your heart. Your heart can tell you know lies…”  I guess it worked for Mulan.

But is this really good advice?  Should we just accept it because it sounds so inspiring and makes for a good bumper sticker?  Shouldn’t we analyze it, examine the evidence to see if it’s even true? No one else seems to be preoccupied with this question, but it troubles me greatly.  I do not think it’s good advice.  In fact, I think it’s the exact opposite of good advice.  Here’s why.

First of all, there is a deeper, underlying meaning to the seemingly harmless phrase.  The language of “rights” and “free will” have become the language of our society.  Personal autonomy, the freedom to do whatever we please, has become the unquestioned cultural ideal.  “Follow your heart” is just part and parcel of this.

We view our hearts as inner guides that, if we listen to, will lead us to our ultimate destiny and happiness.  And we have a right to this happiness and no one else has a right to prevent us from obtaining this happiness.

Sounds like a pretty sweet deal, but do you see where this leads?  Basically, it means we can do pretty much whatever we want as long as it was our heart that led us there.  That doesn’t sound so bad, until you get people saying things like this:  “I knew I shouldn’t be having an affair.  But I love her.  I had to follow my heart.”  

The truth is, the real reason we celebrate this ideology is not necessarily because we believe it, but because it absolves us from guilt and moral responsibility.  Ironically, we turn following our heart into some kind of ultimate ethical imperative that trumps all other ethical obligations.  No matter what we do, or who we hurt doing it, we get a free pass as long as we claim we were “following our hearts.”  Believing that our hearts are faultless guides allows us to leave our desires unchecked and our actions unquestioned.  It’s easy to see why people sign on to this idea.

However, there is one hitch.  Ironically, people seem determined to believe in this myth of the human heart as a true and faithful guide despite staggering evidence to the contrary.  Why?  Because their hearts have deceived them!  You don’t have to look much past your own nose to see that our hearts do lead us astray.  Contrary to the wisdom of 98 degrees, they do lie to us.  But we willfully ignore this because we want to believe that our desires are always pure and our actions never condemnable.

Our hearts deceive us into believing that our hearts are pure precisely because our hearts are not pure, because “the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” -Jeremiah 17:9  Despite what the world tells us, following our hearts does not earn us an absolution from guilt.  God declares that He will “search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.”  -Jeremiah 17:10  

Talk about counter-cultural.  These are tough words.  This is not the easy path.  But I would rather have God’s truth than the world’s lies.  I would rather be like the man “who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in Him.  He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.” -Jeremiah 17:7-8  I would rather be like him than the “one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strengths and whose heart turns away from the LORD.  He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes.  He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt man where no one lives.” -Jeremiah 17: 5-6

In wisdom, let us heed the words of the LORD rather than the enticing lies of the world so that we may never hear Him say to us, “If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” -Isaiah 48:18  For “this is what the LORD says–your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: ‘I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.” -Isaiah 48:17  It is God and not our hearts who will never lie to us, nor ever lead us astray.  Let us then, not follow our hearts, but follow God.