Into the Hands of God

The challenge to live in the kingdom of God gives us choices every day. The reign of God, on earth as it is in heaven, confronts every value this world holds dear and every source of security on which it trusts. Philip Yancey writes in The Jesus I Never Knew that the church embraced the very promises Satan made to Jesus in the wilderness temptations. Jesus rejected miracle, authority and mystery as sources of selfish security. The secular church took them into its selfish heart with joy. The power was so seductive. The illusion of control and stability was too much to let go. Miracle, authority and mystery wrapped in God-language, but disconnected from relationship with God, created great darkness.

We understand that the evil one stands ready to tempt us to life without radical dependence on God, without complete trust in the gracious blood of Jesus, without joy in the continuing fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Rejecting that temptation we commit ourselves to lives of faith trusting in the power and presence of God. Even when we cannot see exactly what God is doing, we will resist the urge to bring our lives into our own control.

Ruth Haley Barton in her book Solitude and Silence writes that a commitment to be in God's presence requires a decision and a practice. The practice is devotional solitude and silence. The decision is "to release the world and its fate, along with your reputation and success into the hands of God." That decision frames our resolve to enter the kingdom rule of God. We can make that decision. Our church makes that same commitment: to release the world and its fate, along with the reputation of University Avenue and our desire for its success into the hands of God.

What freedom there is in leaving the illusion of control and in entering the reality of walking with God in faith! The life of faith becomes adventure, risk and sacrifice. We move from what we plan and control to what God gives which is "more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…."