
Wealth and Honor Come from You!
If you’re a sinner, you probably think this post is about you. I won’t say you’re so vain, but you probably get the point. If you read my last post, though, you already know the answer is . . . . God! I wrote about David’s words of praise for God in I Chronicles 29:10-13, but I didn’t get into details about what made this passage so powerful in the last five plus years of my life. I’ll share that below, but before I get there, a great cross reference to David’s declaration is in Deuteronomy 8:
17 You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” 18 But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.
It looks like “you” is always the temptation, which goes back to the initial bold-faced lie the serpent told Eve in the garden, “you will be like God knowing good and evil” In some ways we are very much like God being made in his image, but the temptation had nothing to do with the imago dei. Rather it had to do with epistemology, which is fascinating to think through. Why did all the misery of sin and death come into God’s good creation with knowing? Man was obviously never meant to know evil, and he already knew good. The problem was we couldn’t handle it because, well, we are not God! Seems pretty simple doesn’t it.
Related to creating wealth, thinking we are in some way God is really the core of the problem. You may say without us there is no wealth, and you would be correct. But without a theology of wealth, and sin, and God, we area easily confused. This is important to my story because I found out I suck at being God (can I do LOL in a blog post?).
First, Paul tells us (Acts 17:25) God “gives to all life and breath and everything else.” So, there’s that. We may think we’re pretty hot stuff, but every single breath is granted to us by God, not to mention “everything else.” He also asks these rhetorical questions: “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” All of our abilities and skills and talents and knowledge, all of it comes from him. Even our drive to acquire these things, our ambitions and desires come from him.
When we understand and accept this, that we are not autonomous self-sufficient, self-created beings, it all somehow becomes so much easier. As much as it is up to us, in a way none of it us up to us. This tension is what we call life lived in God’s created salvific reality. It is a thrilling dynamic in which to live in light of ultimate things, in the biggest of big pictures. As Paul yet again puts it perfectly in Romans 8:
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
I would joke with my kids as they were growing up, and still do when they are, surely Paul didn’t mean all. Maybe 98%. Nope, all!
Which brings me to the I Chronicles 29:10-13 context. A month after we moved down to Florida, I lost my job of 14 years, and that at age 57. Uh oh. Now what. After two months of finding nothing, in desperation I decided to take a job in IT sales on 100% commission, something I’d never done. It was terrifying, and the first year, even two, was miserable. God and me, we did some serious wrestling. It’s hard to explain the intensity of emotions I went through. Many times, often daily, I went back to David’s praise about the greatness of our God.
Right after David says wealth and honor come from God, he declares God is “the ruler of all things.” Not some things, but all things. That is the ultimate existential question: Do we really buy this, believe it when push comes to shove, when we are confronted with, do we trust him or not.
I remember praying something prior to taking the job that reveals what a moron I am. I would pray, “Lord it would be ideal if . . .” One day it struck me like a thunderclap: How the hell would I know what ideal is!!! I’m ashamed to say I had been a Christian by that time for almost 40 years, and was still so clueless about the true Greatness of our God that I would pray something like that. I’m a slow learner, but eventually I get it.
This new job confronted me with the trust question literally every day, and it was often painful. For those old enough, you may remember ABC’s Wide World of Sports, and the video opening every show: It was daily, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. Exhilarating and disappointing. Was I going to embrace the God who is “the ruler of all things”? Could I experience equanimity in the face of defeat? Could I obey Jesus and not worry? Obey Paul and not be anxious about anything? Anything?
I even got to the point of telling the Lord, “If you want me to fail, that’s fine. Thy will be done.” But I was going to work my ever-living guts out and pray every day he would bless my efforts, and whatever happens from there is up to him. And he has!
The greatest lesson, I think, was learning my knee jerk reaction is always initially wrong, and I have to fight it. Trusting God takes mental and emotional effort. Takes turning back the fear, worry, anxiety, doubt because it just isn’t necessary. It is our sinful, distrustful imagination that causes those, and we just have to stop it! Rebuke ourselves, repent (I John 1:9, and leave the inner transformation to him), and convince ourselves anew that he’s got our back. It is a wonderfully fulfilling way to live in his promise to us (Is. 26)
You will keep in perfect peace
him whose mind is steadfast,
because he trusts in you.
Perfect peace.
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