If you live in the Bible belt long enough, certain phrases keeps arising that help us describe our faith but with which, honestly, we have to be careful lest such simplicity skew biblical truth.
For instance, “God helps those who help themselves” or “God won’t give you more than you can handle” or “Let go and let God” or “Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship.”
Each of these contain a truth, but there is typically another side of the story that would help us to grasp a deeper God-reality.
One of my favorites is “God has not called me to success, but to faithfulness.” Well, yes. And, wait just a minute…
Years ago Christianity Today ran a column by Peter Wagner that called this bit of sanctified folk wisdom into question. He reminded his reading audience that apparently God is not pleased with:
- Fishing without catching (Lk. 5:4-11)
- An empty banquet table (Lk. 14:15-23)
- Sowing without reaping (Mt. 13:3-9)
- A fig tree that bears no figs (Lk. 13:6-9)
- Lost sheep not being brought into the fold (Mt. 18:11-14)
- A lost coin that is sought but not found (Lk. 15:8-10)
- Ripe harvests that are not reaped (Mt. 9:36-38)
- Proclamation without response (Mt. 10:14)
Wagner’s field was evangelism, and he drew the connection that “God is interested in results, since he is not willing that one man, woman, or child should perish (II Pt. 3:9).” I appreciate contrarian thinking and had long since wearied of the “faithfulness not success” motto. Wagner’s piece was refreshing.
Then my dad died. As we were sitting in the living room, talking about him and the impact of his life on ours, my brother spoke up. “You know,” he said. “Dad was always about lost causes. His entire life he poured himself into good things that just weren’t going to succeed.” And my brother started naming them, one by one. Political lost causes. Business lost causes.
Denominational lost causes. Educational lost causes. Sporting lost causes. I had never really considered this line of thought; my brother had noticed something that the rest of us missed. Dad bet his life on…losing.
And then one day a preacher bent my attention toward Jeremiah. Think about it, he said. When Jesus asked his disciples “Who do people say that I am?,” one of the answers was…Jeremiah.
Jeremiah? Nearly an insult, one would think. Never performs a miracle. Never produces change. Never wins a convert. Ends up with his disobedient people in Egypt.
Egypt!
And yet, he was known as the weeping prophet. His heart broke over the things that broke the heart of God. And he did what God asked him to do.
A losing cause.
God’s economy is a strange one, to be sure. The temptation of the faithful is to develop easily understood categories that may not do justice to the purposes of the Kingdom of God.
In a losing cause right now…a righteous losing cause? Maybe, just maybe, that’s where God wants you. But there is holy success He is after as well, and to spend one’s energy there is frequently a good wager, too.
