When God Says "No"

In modern day society we are told that if we work hard enough for a goal, we are sure to accomplish our goal. I see this thought process showing up all time with running. One must work hard to run a good race. Often I see posts on social media about a person trying to run a certain time in her goal race.  The person posts on social media that she has this set goal, maybe she posts many of her set training runs. Everyone cheers her on and says, “Yes, of course you will accomplish your goal.”  “You are great.” “You are so talented.” It’s all about what you can accomplish. Encouragement is good and much needed in our cynical world.  But what happens when you work hard and you don’t accomplish your goals? You’ve done everything right, and it’s not enough. The praise fades, or we are given dashes of hope for next time.

Accomplishing goals is empowering and a positive aspect of life. However, sometimes God says no. This blog is about what happens when God says no. I felt compelled to write this blog for all the people who have heard no, yet need the same encouragement people get who accomplish their goals. Maybe your goal wasn’t one based on working hard, but just something you really thought would happen in your life. This is for you too.

Let me tell you about my running injury. Last Spring I decided I would try to run one more fast marathon.  I had my youngest child weaned from breastfeeding and she was sleeping. I felt human again. The timing was right. I had my husband’s support, I was feeling the itch to run fast again, and I had figured out a way to carve out a little time for training. I wrote a blog about how I had some unresolved issues with running and how I was going to run fast one more time to resolve these issues.  Notice, it was about me, not God. I had already met my goal times earlier in life but I ended my fast running in a tough season in life. Now I was going to end my fast running journey in a happy season of life, on my terms. My thinking was surely God wanted me to use the talents He had given to me. I figured I’d wait a month or so to publish that blog. In that time, I hurt my Achilles tendon. Fast forward to almost a year later and my Achilles tendon is still hurt.  Training ceased. Not only did I not run a marathon, but I can barely run at all.  Today, I’m not even concerned about running fast, I just wish I could do a long run.

I do not believe that Christians should just sit on their hands waiting for a miracle to drop out of the sky. I made efforts to fix my Achilles. I rested, I cross-trained, I tried to ice, stretched, strengthened, and heated my Achilles. I went to a very good Dr and sought out Chiropractor care for my Achilles. The latter helped the most and helped me manage the pain but at the end of the day I’m still hurt.

To me, my inability to run is God saying “no, not right now.” I don’t know if this answer is no forever or no for this season. However, I do know that, while it’s painfully hard not to run, scripture gives us a basis for this situation. Many times in the Bible we see God shutting a door for a season such as when Sarah and Abraham couldn’t have a baby and God gave them a baby when they were advanced in age. Another example in Genesis occurred when Sarah asked Abraham to send Hagar (her slave girl) and Ishmael (Hagar and Abraham’s son) away. God protected Hagar and Ishmael and still promised to make them a great nation, despite Sarah’s plan to just push them out of the way.  Other times we see God just shutting doors without us knowing the reason. For example, the book of Job is full of God saying no. Job suffered tremendously, and yet, he didn’t turn away from God. Job didn’t understand his misfortune, yet he didn’t curse God.

Either way, whether the door is shut forever or for a season, I’m constantly looking for what God has for me to learn from a shut door. Sometimes we simply don’t know why a door is shut.

I’m not entirely sure why the running door is shut. I just know God clearly shut that door for now. I could speculate all day, maybe God wanted to send me in another direction? Maybe God was preparing me for other large changes that came this summer? Maybe God simply wanted to remind me that he was in control and to turn my eyes toward Him? I simply don’t know. I am reminded of the Lord’s Prayer though where we say “Thy will be done," not mine. 

If you are reading this post, and you are a Christian, my hope is to encourage you. My shut door was running fast, maybe yours is something bigger. Either way, I encourage you not to lose hope in God. I won’t give you canned Christian answers like just trust God and go on. Instead I encourage you to dig deeper. Yes, trust God, but examine why it’s so hard for you to have the door closed. Journal about your pain, dashed hopes, or new dreams. Hold on to hope in God. God can take it all. Talk to him. Cling close to Him. Pray for direction. God won’t leave you. He sees you and your hopes.

Jeremiah 29:11 says “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give a future and a hope” (Hold Bible, ESV).

If you aren’t a Christian, here’s some food for thought. You may be reading this and think, I really don’t believe God orchestrates things. I’m not going to spend this blog trying to convince you He does, but I will say, just think about this: what would be it be like to dream of a God who created the world, knows every hair on your head, and has a plan? 

Whichever camp you are in, don’t give up hope. It’s normal to feel a sense of loss when a door is shut or a path is turned in a different direction. I plan to keep going to the chiropractor for my foot.  I plan to process how I feel. I've written countless times in my journal how much I miss running. I miss the feel of getting up my heart rate while catching up with friends. I just miss the simple act of a long run. Jesus himself often expressed emotion. He expressed sadness and disappointment too. Journal and seek out trusted people to talk to about your shut door.  Know that I too am in your camp, I miss running, but I’m clinging to God with my Bible and journal in hand. This post is for all of you in the same boat as me. I see you. God sees you and he cares about every one of your goals, those you accomplish and those that don’t come to fruition. A good friend often tells me “God is in charge of the results, you are just responsible for acting on the things He put on your heart.”

Running Through the Forest Thinking About "Jesus Messiah"

Recently I have been listing to the song “Jesus Messiah” by Chris Tomlin quite frequently. This is a great song for a running mix or just to listen to at home. The line I have had in my head from this song is, “Jesus Messiah, Lord of all.” The song talks about Jesus as a great redeemer and the Lord over the entire world.

The words of this song have really spoken to me lately, and especially this morning on my run. As I have been studying about Jesus and the time before Jesus came, I can so clearly see that the Old Testament sets the way for a perfect messiah. In the Old Testament, the Israelites wanted a king, and had many kings, but none of them could rule perfectly. Even the kings, who were the good kings, were still far from perfect.

David was a great king, but also had a great sin. In 2 Samuel 2:11 David committed his great sin by sleeping with Bathsheba, who was a married women. Then David compounded his sinful acts by having Bathsheba’s husband killed when David put him in the front of the battle lines. David did not repent of his sin until God sent Nathan, a prophet, to convict David of his sin. David then repented of his sin and the Lord forgave him. Even though David sinned, the Lord still favored David and appreciated that David truly had a heart for God. David was so far from perfect, yet he recognized his need for the true God, Yahweh. This is so encouraging to me because I sin everyday and as I repent of my sins, I am thankful God is concerned with the state of my heart and not that I can perfectly obey.

Flipping back to the Jewish people wanting a Messiah, many people back in Jesus day had a different idea of what type of savior God would send, however, many agreed that they believed that true king and messiah would come from the line of David. Christ did come from the Davidic line. God made a covenant with David and part of that covenant said he would, “enable his son to build a temple.” God did not mean David’s direct son but meant someone from the Davidic line. Someone from the Davidic line did rebuilt the temple in the Old Testament, but David’s descendents still realized the need for a perfect king. Christ fulfilled this by being the perfect king. Christ was not the king many expected. Many expected a more powerful king, but looking back we can see how perfectly Christ fulfills the promises from the Old Testament. The Old Testament is so filled with messianic prophecies that pave the way for Jesus.

Today I was thinking through all the people in the Old Testament had to go through as they were taken from their land, lived in exile, and then rebuilt the temple. The people deserved this as they constantly sinned but God so graciously provided for his people in the Old Testament just as he provides for us today. The words of his song about Christ humbling himself for his people and coming as a redeemer give me such a such a deep appreciation for what Christ did on behalf. I need reminders of just how perfectly history is planned out, and Jesus amazing love for God’s people. So many years and so much history all build up to the plan God has to redeem the world. The final stage of redemption for the world has not come yet, but our savior has come, and will come again.

As I ran through the Duke forest this morning and listened to this song many times, all of this history was so fresh in my mind. This song encompassed so much of this history and my life that I was thinking about. My body was tired, my legs felt like dead weight, I was already getting nervous for a race next week, and I had was thinking about the studying I needed to do, but this song gave me a sense of peace and thankfulness that Jesus sent this perfect messiah who is so real in my life. I still wish I faster and smarter and I’m still nervous about my race and stressed about my test, but comforted by the powerful love of Christ, my Lord and savior. Becoming a Christian did not automatically take away my fears, but it gave me an ultimate hope to live for today and everyday.

My recent thoughts about Jesus

Lately I have been thinking about the person of Jesus. I’m taking a class called Life of Jesus, which started some of my more in depth thinking about Jesus, and through conversations with friends I’ve further developed these thoughts. The reason I am blogging about this topic is because I think many people have an inaccurate view of Jesus and the time in which he lived. I must say, for many years I was one of those people who thought of Jesus from my cultural lens. I do not have it all figured out, I’m still learning so much about Jesus everything, but I’m thankful for the things I have learned recently. Here are the highlights of what I’ve been thinking about in relation to Jesus. I’m sure I’ve borrowed some of this insight from those I have chatted with about this topic.

#1: Jesus was not a good moral teacher.
The following quote brought this point home for me this week:
“…Quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips… I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to… Jesus was never regarded as a mere moral teacher. He did not produce that effect on any of the people who actually met Him. He produced three effects — Hatred, Terror, and Adoration. There was no trace of people expressing mild approval. “
--C.S. Lewis

Lewis reminds us that regardless if you accept Jesus as the redeemer of the world, he was not a moral teacher. Jesus did many things that were shocking and did not sit well with his contemporaries. I think we have two options: except Jesus as our savior or write him off as an out there kind of fellow. I’ll take the first.

#2: Jesus is big enough to save the world.
This next quote reminded me that often we do not realize he is big enough to save, and we cannot half heartily believe in Jesus. We either believe in him fully or we don’t. The Bible does not offer a pick and choose option.
“A recent survey of the Church of England, discussing the manifold reasons why people do not go to church, comments, wryly: Part of the reason is simply a lack of belief that the death of Christ was turning-point of history.”
--N.T. Wright

This quote struck me because even though I am a professing Christian, and intellectually know that Jesus is big enough to save the world, I do not always remember this when life gets tough. Most people would agree that Jesus lived and is a historical person, but do you believe he was a mighty savior who rose from the dead?

#3: I cannot earn Jesus’ love…I am saved by grace, yet I should strive to live a life pleasing to God.
Anyone who is reading this and is at familiar with the Christian faith has probably heard that Christians cannot earn their way to heaven. The Bible makes it very clear that we are saved by grace. One passage that states this point is below.
Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Holy Bible, ESV).

I have known that I am saved by grace for years, yet for many of them, I do not think I realized I was still trying to work my way into Jesus’ good graces by performing. This is a tiring way to live because no one can ever do enough. It’s so logical to think, I can never do enough and therefore I do not need to perform, yet it’s so much more comfortable to try to perform because then we have more control of the situation. However, I do want to live a life pleasing to God out of my deep love for him. I am trying to step back ever so often and look at where I am trying to perform without realizing it. How freeing to know that the law cannot save me. I sin so often and am in desperate need of God’s grace.

#4: Jesus was part human and part God. This is important. He understands our suffering—he was human and went through suffering. Jesus is available in the highs and the lows. The people in the Old Testament had God and many prophets to direct them. Some of them were filled with the Holy Spirit (ex: King David), and God appears to them in more outright ways (ex: appeared to Moses in a burning bush). However, we now have a savior who has been through human suffering—this is huge. Life goes through up and down, and as I experience these different aspects of life, I’m so grateful to have a savior who went through a human life. All Christians now have the Holy Spirit in us as well. God is not some distant, far off being. He’s so real and personal to me. The more time I spend talking to God, the more time I feel the strength of that personal relationship he offers all me.

Thank you for reading this long blog. I have so much more to say about Jesus, but my other thoughts will have to wait until another time. I encourage everyone reading this to give Jesus an honest look. Many TV programs will tell you about all the flawed evidence about Jesus’ life, however, there is actually more evidence for Jesus resurrection that many of things we believe. On top of the evidence that exists, my personal conversations with God have assured me of his real presence in my life.