Tuesday
Aug192008
Is God's Grace in Vain?
Tuesday, August 19, 2008 at 04:32PM
Sarah Poysti
Aug. 17, 2008
Psalm 67
This Psalm is a blessing, an echo of a common blessing that my parents prayed over me before bed each night as a child. It is common because it is the priestly blessing that God dictated to Aaron through Moses in Numbers 6:
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them,
The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.
In this Psalmist’s time, this blessing was likely said over the congregation at some point in the liturgy, just as Andrew said it over us at the beginning of worship. This Psalmist doesn’t leave the blessing where it is, though—he or she adds a conditional phrase, one that adds to the meaning of this blessing in a way that is profound for us as we explore how to share our faith with others. I’ll read that first part of the Psalm again:
“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us,
that your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among all nations.”
Did you catch what he added? This Psalm does not preach a health and wealth gospel, calling for God to bless us because we deserve it or just because He likes us so much. Rather, the Psalmist is praying for God’s blessing SO THAT God may be known to all nations. I’m going to read another version of this Psalm that emphasizes this even more (from Psalms/Now). The only thing I don’t like about this paraphrase of the Psalm is that it focuses on us demonstrating God’s order and purpose in the world—in reality it’s not all up to us. We talk a lot about our lives being different, about trying to share our faith with others through our actions. This is clearly a big part of sharing our faith. Unfortunately, I sometimes find myself sliding into passivity, telling myself that I’m speaking through my actions, when in reality, my actions are not so much good and God-honouring as simply not-bad: I use the idea of “actions speak louder than words” as a cop-out. Alternately, I can find myself trying so hard to be “godly” that I forget about Jesus entirely. Sharing our faith is multi-faceted: living in a Godly manner, talking about Jesus, and praying are all part of it, but the Holy Spirit is also working, and God’s blessing on us is also making Him known without any action on our part but receiving that blessing. I find discussing how to share my faith difficult because it is so complex, and yet we often tend to focus on only one of the facets.
Talking about sharing our faith as a result of receiving God’s blessing is also tricky, because the word “blessing” is so nebulous. When I worked at Camp Cedarwood, we were asked not to use the word “blessing” in our prayers for meals, because none of the campers knew what it meant and very few staff could actually explain it. Even my Bible Dictionary does not have a clear definition of blessing. My best shot at defining God’s blessing on us is to focus on the word that is paired with “blessing” in this Psalm: “gracious,” or in other translations, “merciful.” Graciousness, extending mercy to the undeserving, seems to be the most difficult blessing for humans to impart on each other, and thus is the greatest of blessings from God.
When I was younger, I wished that I could have a time away from God so that I could come back and then really understand his grace. That sounds kind of weird, but I had always been a Christian and didn’t feel like I could comprehend this thing that I was supposed to be so grateful for. In more recent years, I did spend some time further from God than I had before. Those times coincided, not surprisingly, with periods in my life where I was less than kind to particular people in my life. There were two people especially who I was very nasty to. After months of treating them cruelly, I came out of what I hadn’t realized was depression enough to see what I was doing. I was wracked with guilt. I apologized, and in what amounts to a miracle in my life, both of them forgave me. I didn’t understand why—I would not have wanted to be friends with me if I were them—but they wanted to see me healed rather than judged and they continued to love me. That was the first time I really, truly understood grace. Forgiveness and love like that can only come from God.
More recently, I went on a bike trip down the West Coast and experienced God’s blessing in a more practical way. When you’re riding your bike for weeks with only one friend and with all of your belongings on your bike, life feels a bit more fragile than normal. Every day I was aware that I could get injured, my bike could break, we could not find a safe place to sleep for the night, we could run out of food or water, or any number of other mishaps. Because of this awareness, every bite of beef jerky tasted like a feast, every camping site seemed like heaven, and every other little mercy felt like a mercy rather than something to take for granted. There were also scads of people who blessed us by being kind, by offering us food and places to sleep, by helping us, by not making annoying comments about the gushing wound on my leg…
All of these people, Christian or not, have experienced some form of God’s blessing. One of the purposes of this blessing, as we’ve seen, is for God to be made known. In order for God to be known we need to accept his blessing. In Genesis 12:2 God tells Abram, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” God plans to work through us, to bless us and make us a blessing to others. But again I come to this place where I feel like if I leave it at that it’s too easy for me to take that as an excuse to do nothing. The second part of Psalm 67 gives me one thing to do: Praise.
“Let the nations be glad and sing for joy…
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
Let all the peoples praise you.”
So yes, God will work through us and people will see God through our actions, but we are also called to worship God with our voices. Recently I have come across several products that I have used, loved, and proceeded to rave to people about: it’s environmentally friendly! It works better than the chemical version! It smells great! When I was on my bike trip I was so excited about God’s blessing—so why was I afraid to say, “Praise God for this campsite,” or “I’m so grateful to God for keeping us safe”? One reason is that I know that if I thank God for those good things, I also have to praise Him while experiencing bad things, and I’m not sure that I’m strong enough for that. The other reason is that I’m afraid people will think I’m crazy, or that I’m one of those fanatic Baptists from the States, or that I’m now going to try to ram Scripture down their throats. So I try to pass my faith in Jesus off as vague spirituality that everyone is okay with. I am convicted by this Psalm that that is not what God calls me to do.
I have this question written on a scrap of paper in the drawer of my nightstand, and it’s a question that has haunted me for as long as I have had it written there. I read it somewhere, I don’t remember where, and it struck me so hard that I haven’t been able to forget it. “Is God’s grace in vain?”
It feels a little blasphemous to ask if God’s grace could be in vain, as though God’s grace could ever be useless, but I think that in some ways it could be. If I hadn’t accepted the forgiveness of my two friends who I hurt, I would have continued to beat myself up so much that I wouldn’t have been able to be friends with them anymore. I would have lost two of the people closest to me. And, their grace would have been somewhat in vain. If I don’t accept God’s grace and blessing in my life and acknowledge his responsibility for it, His grace is partly in vain. So, when I’m trying to figure out how to share my faith, when I am struggling with not wanting to be a big evangelist but also not wanting to be passive, I ask myself, is God’s grace in vain? Am I living my life in a way that honours the grace He has given me? Am I sharing that grace with others? Am I praising God for his blessing? Is God’s grace in vain?
Aug. 17, 2008
Psalm 67
This Psalm is a blessing, an echo of a common blessing that my parents prayed over me before bed each night as a child. It is common because it is the priestly blessing that God dictated to Aaron through Moses in Numbers 6:
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them,
The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.
In this Psalmist’s time, this blessing was likely said over the congregation at some point in the liturgy, just as Andrew said it over us at the beginning of worship. This Psalmist doesn’t leave the blessing where it is, though—he or she adds a conditional phrase, one that adds to the meaning of this blessing in a way that is profound for us as we explore how to share our faith with others. I’ll read that first part of the Psalm again:
“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us,
that your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among all nations.”
Did you catch what he added? This Psalm does not preach a health and wealth gospel, calling for God to bless us because we deserve it or just because He likes us so much. Rather, the Psalmist is praying for God’s blessing SO THAT God may be known to all nations. I’m going to read another version of this Psalm that emphasizes this even more (from Psalms/Now). The only thing I don’t like about this paraphrase of the Psalm is that it focuses on us demonstrating God’s order and purpose in the world—in reality it’s not all up to us. We talk a lot about our lives being different, about trying to share our faith with others through our actions. This is clearly a big part of sharing our faith. Unfortunately, I sometimes find myself sliding into passivity, telling myself that I’m speaking through my actions, when in reality, my actions are not so much good and God-honouring as simply not-bad: I use the idea of “actions speak louder than words” as a cop-out. Alternately, I can find myself trying so hard to be “godly” that I forget about Jesus entirely. Sharing our faith is multi-faceted: living in a Godly manner, talking about Jesus, and praying are all part of it, but the Holy Spirit is also working, and God’s blessing on us is also making Him known without any action on our part but receiving that blessing. I find discussing how to share my faith difficult because it is so complex, and yet we often tend to focus on only one of the facets.
Talking about sharing our faith as a result of receiving God’s blessing is also tricky, because the word “blessing” is so nebulous. When I worked at Camp Cedarwood, we were asked not to use the word “blessing” in our prayers for meals, because none of the campers knew what it meant and very few staff could actually explain it. Even my Bible Dictionary does not have a clear definition of blessing. My best shot at defining God’s blessing on us is to focus on the word that is paired with “blessing” in this Psalm: “gracious,” or in other translations, “merciful.” Graciousness, extending mercy to the undeserving, seems to be the most difficult blessing for humans to impart on each other, and thus is the greatest of blessings from God.
When I was younger, I wished that I could have a time away from God so that I could come back and then really understand his grace. That sounds kind of weird, but I had always been a Christian and didn’t feel like I could comprehend this thing that I was supposed to be so grateful for. In more recent years, I did spend some time further from God than I had before. Those times coincided, not surprisingly, with periods in my life where I was less than kind to particular people in my life. There were two people especially who I was very nasty to. After months of treating them cruelly, I came out of what I hadn’t realized was depression enough to see what I was doing. I was wracked with guilt. I apologized, and in what amounts to a miracle in my life, both of them forgave me. I didn’t understand why—I would not have wanted to be friends with me if I were them—but they wanted to see me healed rather than judged and they continued to love me. That was the first time I really, truly understood grace. Forgiveness and love like that can only come from God.
More recently, I went on a bike trip down the West Coast and experienced God’s blessing in a more practical way. When you’re riding your bike for weeks with only one friend and with all of your belongings on your bike, life feels a bit more fragile than normal. Every day I was aware that I could get injured, my bike could break, we could not find a safe place to sleep for the night, we could run out of food or water, or any number of other mishaps. Because of this awareness, every bite of beef jerky tasted like a feast, every camping site seemed like heaven, and every other little mercy felt like a mercy rather than something to take for granted. There were also scads of people who blessed us by being kind, by offering us food and places to sleep, by helping us, by not making annoying comments about the gushing wound on my leg…
All of these people, Christian or not, have experienced some form of God’s blessing. One of the purposes of this blessing, as we’ve seen, is for God to be made known. In order for God to be known we need to accept his blessing. In Genesis 12:2 God tells Abram, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” God plans to work through us, to bless us and make us a blessing to others. But again I come to this place where I feel like if I leave it at that it’s too easy for me to take that as an excuse to do nothing. The second part of Psalm 67 gives me one thing to do: Praise.
“Let the nations be glad and sing for joy…
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
Let all the peoples praise you.”
So yes, God will work through us and people will see God through our actions, but we are also called to worship God with our voices. Recently I have come across several products that I have used, loved, and proceeded to rave to people about: it’s environmentally friendly! It works better than the chemical version! It smells great! When I was on my bike trip I was so excited about God’s blessing—so why was I afraid to say, “Praise God for this campsite,” or “I’m so grateful to God for keeping us safe”? One reason is that I know that if I thank God for those good things, I also have to praise Him while experiencing bad things, and I’m not sure that I’m strong enough for that. The other reason is that I’m afraid people will think I’m crazy, or that I’m one of those fanatic Baptists from the States, or that I’m now going to try to ram Scripture down their throats. So I try to pass my faith in Jesus off as vague spirituality that everyone is okay with. I am convicted by this Psalm that that is not what God calls me to do.
I have this question written on a scrap of paper in the drawer of my nightstand, and it’s a question that has haunted me for as long as I have had it written there. I read it somewhere, I don’t remember where, and it struck me so hard that I haven’t been able to forget it. “Is God’s grace in vain?”
It feels a little blasphemous to ask if God’s grace could be in vain, as though God’s grace could ever be useless, but I think that in some ways it could be. If I hadn’t accepted the forgiveness of my two friends who I hurt, I would have continued to beat myself up so much that I wouldn’t have been able to be friends with them anymore. I would have lost two of the people closest to me. And, their grace would have been somewhat in vain. If I don’t accept God’s grace and blessing in my life and acknowledge his responsibility for it, His grace is partly in vain. So, when I’m trying to figure out how to share my faith, when I am struggling with not wanting to be a big evangelist but also not wanting to be passive, I ask myself, is God’s grace in vain? Am I living my life in a way that honours the grace He has given me? Am I sharing that grace with others? Am I praising God for his blessing? Is God’s grace in vain?