Readings for today: Proverbs 16-18, Psalms 3
I was talking with a friend of mine recently who had visited a woman with severe dementia. Over the last few years, she has been robbed of so much. Her memories are gone. Her ability to recognize those she loves is fading. Her mental filters have deteriorated. She lives in a memory care unit at a local graduated care facility. So much has been taken from her by this wasting disease. Her life has been boiled down to its most basic, atomic level. All that’s left is Jesus. My friend was stunned at how she ministered to the other patients on her unit. She prayed with them. Shared Scripture with them. Told them all about her love for her Lord. It was inspirational to witness and it challenged both of us to think about what would happen if we found ourselves in a similar situation? If we suffered the same losses this woman has suffered, how would we respond? If you took away our mental faculties, our short and long-term memories, and our ability to think and process on a level that would allow us to live independently, what would you find? If you boiled our lives down to their most basic, atomic levels, would you find Jesus?
Make no mistake, this woman didn’t arrive here by accident. Her transcendent faith is the product of a life lived in one direction. She followed the way of Jesus from a very young age and it shaped her deeply and profoundly over the course of her life. Her love for Jesus was carefully nurtured and grown over decades and now she is able to lean on Christ even as her mind fails. It makes me think of the words of Solomon from our reading today.
“All a person’s ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs motives.”
“When a person’s ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”
“A person’s heart plans his way, but the Lord determines his steps.”
(Proverbs 16:2, 7, 9 CSB)
God’s ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. God knows what’s best for us because He created us. He formed and fashioned us in our mother’s wombs. He knit us together in an absolutely miraculous and wonderful way. God knows the human heart. He knows it intimately. He knows it backwards and forwards. Upside and down. Inside and out. And He clearly lays out a path for us that leads to righteousness. God’s laws are not designed to be restrictive. Nor are they designed to rob us of all our fun or steal all our joy. God wants what’s best for us. He loves us like a Father and all He asks is that we would trust Him. Trust His ways above our own. This is why He sends Jesus. Jesus is the way. He models for us by the way He lives what a life fully surrendered to God and completely dependent on the Spirit looks like in the flesh. He not only shows us how to live, He shows us how to die and how to rise again.
If you ask most people what they think about Jesus, you will hear a lot of admiration. Even by those who do not believe in Him. And yet we continue to resist His ways? Why? Are our ways really all that much better? If you took your life and laid it alongside Jesus’ life, which one comes out ahead? Which way leads to greater freedom, greater love, and greater fulfillment? Which way leads to deeper relationships and an abundance of blessing in the world? Perhaps it’s time to lay aside your own way and follow the way of Jesus?
Readings for tomorrow: Proverbs 19-21, Psalms 4