Dale Cresap's blog

You live in a world of commerce, so you expect to pay for the things you want and need, and the range of things available to you for a price is astounding. Yet it is conventional wisdom even for those outside of the church that one thing you cannot buy is love. Have you ever given a substantial amount of money to a friend or family member and found that it didn’t change the basis of the relationship at all? Was this discouraging? But reversing the perspective to those who do not have much money to give, it may be encouraging to know that the lack will not prevent their access to love.

Do you have confidence? Do you have humility? Do you think these are both desirable, but see a conflict between them? Is there a way to have confidence to move ahead, and still operate in humility? The real opposite of humility isn’t confidence, but arrogance. Humility is being modest about your own abilities. The effect of confidence depends on what you place your confidence in.

Have you ever been overcome by your misfortunes and asked me why they happened? Do you normally reserve this question for extreme situations, such as the loss of a loved one, or a failed marriage, or bankruptcy or unemployment? Are these honest inquiries or veiled challenges to my love for you? Have you ever reversed the question and considered that you are no better than those who have gone before, so why should you live in a time of peace and prosperity, with an education and information available to you, with a reasonable expectation of a long and healthy life?

Have you ever asked me why? You can ask for specific guidance and get it, and you can ask and receive, but questions beginning with ‘why’ are at another level. They involve insights into my ways and purposes. My ways are higher than yours, and my thoughts than yours. Are you able to comprehend them? Yet this is possible since I showed my acts to the children of Israel, but my ways unto Moses. This isn’t just a matter of transmitting information. It requires a depth of relationship and a depth of transformation on your part that is able to bear it.

Do you want good guidance and counsel? Do you pray for these things? Have you ever had someone you know come up with a bad answer for a situation and stick with it because they had prayed about it? Are you able to avoid this condition in your own life? Praying about something doesn’t release you from the need for counsel and accountability. Don’t you want as many sources of wisdom as you can get for difficult things that affect your life? For you can be wrong in what you think I say, or more likely, interpreting it incorrectly.

Do you know where you are going? Are you following me? If you are following me, and you don’t know where I am going, then you don’t know where you are going. Could you have predicted the path your journey would take from the time you started to follow me until now? Do you usually set out on a long journey without knowing where you are going? Yet you made an exception in this case. This is an expression of trust. You have gone places with knowledgeable friends trusting them to handle the details of the trip.

Are you familiar with the story of my disciples being rebuked for plucking grains and eating them on the Sabbath while we were walking on our way? This is a lesser known passage of scripture because modern believers are less concerned about keeping the Sabbath and don’t harvest grain to eat while they walk from one place to another. But there is a larger underlying theme emerging from the details of this story. Can you see it? Can you see the principle and apply it to actual situations that you face in your own life? What other Bible stories have lessons that apply to your real life?

If you were asked about your spirituality, what would you say? Would you respond with the name of a faith tradition or a denomination? Would you recite a list of doctrinal positions? Would you describe practices such as church attendance, bible study, and prayer? What other possibilities are there? Is your spirituality what you profess or what you live? The Bible declares that the son who worked in his father’s vineyard after saying he would not did the will of his father rather than the one who said he would but didn’t. Are you letting your light shine to glorify me?

You know that you are saved by grace through faith, not by works lest any man should boast. But is that the end of the story? By this reasoning in some circles good works have a bad name. Do these concepts really work in opposition to each other? Rather than thinking faith or works you should think faith and works. James makes this clear. Faith without works is dead. How strong is a faith that leads to no changes in behavior? He proposes a profound challenge: show me your faith without your works and I will show you my faith by my works. Can you raise any objection to that?  

Do you think you have me all figured out? Your church may have concise answers to all the questions of the eternal realm, but can the divine mystery be reduced to a list of assertions? Is it something that you can fully comprehend? If I inhabit the heavens and my ways are higher than yours it should make you suspicious that anything you can fully comprehend is an insufficient description of me. You live in an age of rational explanations and find assurance and acceptance for addressing reality this way but there is a reality that does not entirely yield to this approach.