Posts Tagged: Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem

DTEB, “SITTIN’ AROUND, WAITIN’ FOR SOMETHING GOOD TO HAPPEN”

On November 28, 2018 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

Don’t!

Sit around and wait for something good to happen, that is.  Make it happen!

We all want good things, but I’ve noticed something about myself: I don’t want to actually have to do anything for those good things to come to me.  I want to be zapped with goodness.

This may or may not be a common human reality.  You decide.  But I am beginning to suspect that there is no goodness zapper.

The problem with knowing even a little bit about biblical languages is that you sometimes discover more than you wanted to discover.  For example . . .

I receive a verse of the day from the You Version folks on my smart phone.  Today’s verse was Psalm 37:4:

“Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your hearts’ desires.”

So, I decided to take a look at the Hebrew, just for giggles.  I ended up not giggling.

The Hebrew verb that is used for “take delight” is a Hebrew form (stem is the technical term) that refers to “something you do to yourself.”  Think, in terms of “I hit myself with a hammer.”  The first three words of that sentence could be said in one word in Hebrew.  So, the first part of this verse is saying, “Delight yourself in the Lord.”

So what?  So this!

What this verse is saying is that God is not going to delight us.  No!  Instead, we are responsible for delighting ourselves in God.

This is, at first blush, unspeakably dismal.  Do you mean to tell me that God isn’t going to just drop delight on me from the Heavens?  Do you mean that I have to be active in my following of Jesus.  I’m afraid that I only want to follow Jesus, if I’m allowed to ride in a comfy limousine.  However, the last time I read the gospels, I noticed that the only time Jesus is recorded as riding anything, it was a donkey.  And he was riding it triumphantly (??) into Jerusalem in order to be crucified.

Here is the bottom line: The Christian faith is not for sissies of either sex.  Delight there is.  But it is a delight that I must pursue myself.

And then, I came to another equally dismal insight.  What if God granting the desires of my heart doesn’t mean what I want it to mean?  What if it means that God will give me proper, healthy desires in my heart?  Andy Stanley says that our problem is that we want what we want, and we want it right now!  What if God gives me wants and desires that I don’t want or desire?

So, perhaps I have looked at this verse completely wrongly.  Perhaps it is cold comfort or no comfort at all.  Perhaps it is a most unwelcome truth.

But Truth doesn’t come to us to comfort us.  Truth comes to us to wake us up.

And yet, I do feel strangely comforted by this Truth.  There’s something I can actually do to know God better.  If God’s Word says that I must delight myself in God, then there must be a way that I can.   I just need to figure that out.  And, by God’s grace, I will!

And as for the desires of my heart, I’ve often actually gotten what I wanted, only to find out that it left me feeling hollow inside, less alive, a billion light years away from God, from other people, even from the man I wanted to be.

Maybe it’s time for me to do it God’s way.

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