¹⁸ Many of those who had become believers were coming… ¹⁹ And many of those who had practiced magical arts collected their books and [throwing book after book on the pile] began burning them in front of everyone. They calculated their value and found it to be 50,000 pieces of silver.

 

They did not just decide that Your power was superior.

They decided it that Your power was all they needed. They disregarded what it cost and burned the back-up plan. That is very different than adding You to a collection of strategies to make life work.

You make life work. That’s it. There is nothing to add to be better equipped for what’s ahead.

If I have You, I have enough. If I don’t have You, everything else I might try is worthless, so there’s no point in toting them along, “just in case.” My idols never help me, and when I continue protecting their place in my life, I only confuse my heart’s interpretation of the events that unfold before me.

Did God answer? Or was it because I prepared so well? Maybe because I didn’t jinx it by saying it out loud too soon? All of the above?

I see why You trimmed Gideon’s army down to 300. It is easy to start parceling out the credit when I spread my dependence across several things.

Best to cut away all else I depend on so I will recognize what really made the difference.

What is my magic book? What do I revert to, hold on tight to, struggle to leave behind in those really challenging situations?

What is my “just in case?”

Isn’t it just anything, (even good things?), that I manipulate to try to control how life turns out?

Over-Studying?

Detailed planning?

Intricate preparation?

Meticulous budgeting?

Hoarded savings?

Flattery?

Charm?

People-pleasing?

Let me, like the Ephesians, burn what I bring to the table and depend only on You, throwing book after book on the pile until You are all I have left.

You are worth all that it costs.

Magic books are back up plans for if You fail me; tools for if I’m left to figure this out on my own. I don’t need them. Continuing to make space for them is like saving room on the shelf for poison. It punctures the watertight seal of trust and allows a black thought to seep in:

You might not take care of me and I had better have a plan for what to do when You don’t show up.

Letting the lie linger twists my heart to render You with suspicion. It tempts me to give up early and try something else, when it would have been so worth waiting!

Magic books are suggestions that You can’t be completely trusted, and I should burn them.

They have no place in a life held by Your promises.

“If you are the Christ, tell us.”

But He said to them, “If I tell you, you will by no means believe. And if I also ask you, you will by no means answer me or let me go. Hereafter, the Son of Man will sit on the right hand of the power of God.”

Then they all said, “Are You then the Son of God?”

So He said to them, “You say rightly that I am.”

–Luke 22:67-70

 

Sometimes, people ask a question when they’re not really seeking truth. When they think they know and are only asking to see if someone agrees with them or not. They are loaded questions that will unleash a pre-determined response upon the One who answers.

Leaders of men looked down on God Himself that day and asked this sort of question.

He gave them the dignity of an honest answer, but not before He called them out on what they were doing, and reminded them who was really in charge:

You have already decided what you’re going to do. You have already decided that what I say won’t make a difference. So you will go through with your mock justice,

but after this, I will take my rightful place in power.

And that is kind of the sum of things. You have shown Yourself to us. We face eternal wisdom, and half of our interaction with You is just trying to get You to agree with us, to do what we say. It is not trying to learn, not trying to understand, but trying to enforce our will.

You see through to the heart of our questions. You know who is trying to understand and who is just trying to get their way. How few even see that they are speaking to the One in the place of the highest power?

 

Powerful One-

Teach me to come to You open, and ask questions that are actually asking.

You know better than I do. Yet, how often do my questions just push for You to agree with me? How rarely do they depart my mouth bearing true openness to whatever You answer?

Do I approach You assuming that I know what You will say, that I can guess how You will proceed? When did my concept of You become so simple? When did I start believing I can predict what You will do, what You will want?

You allow us to think what we choose, but we so quickly decide that our thoughts don’t need guidance.

Mine do.

Help me to trust who You are, to believe what You say. Even when it does not line up with what I understand. If I am to be open toward something, help me to be open toward anything and everything You say. To discern what is truly from You, but then, to hear what You say for what it is and adjust my reality to line up with it, not the other way around.

When what You say doesn’t seem to make sense, help me remember WHO it is coming from: the One who stood against the entire administration of Israel, died at the hands of Rome, denied Death its own authority to hold Him there, and sat at the right hand of the power of God, just like He said He would in answer to a question that wasn’t really asking.

Two of those don’t even fit into my realm of reference. Facing human authorities I can picture, but winning against death…after You died? What does sitting at the hand of power even mean?

So when what You say makes me question, help me remember that it’s coming from past my realm of reference…and the source has proven itself very, very trustworthy.

 

“Therefore settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist.”

-Luke 21:14-15

How opposite from my thinking.

From my society, where it is responsible and good to analyze and over-analyze every word you say and prepare your speeches in detail and plan for every possible outcome. Yet this verse offers a challenge:

Don’t plan.

Don’t prepare.

Don’t think ahead.

For once, just be where I am and trust Him to give me what I need when the time comes. Settle it now, that this does not and will not depend on me. Get my heart to a place that I am okay with that; that I am ready to step forward, watching, waiting for my God to come to the rescue; placing myself totally at His mercy; banking on His faithfulness by refusing to build a back-up plan for if He doesn’t come through.

Let this be my preparation rather than crafting clever words for a situation I haven’t even seen yet.

There are times where planning is appropriate and good. But there is never an appropriate time to plan for His failure.

He never fails. And that means He will never fail me.

 

Lord-

Help me to check my heart: is it preparing to depend on You? Or is it preparing itself to not need You, just in case?

The latter is a poisonous thought that sends me spinning into countless anxieties. It feeds the conviction that I must prepare for and manage anything and everything possible in order to guarantee a certain outcome . When you strip it down, this very responsible-looking mindset is really just a decision to live in fear.

It is the tragedy I become when I have set aside the precious promise that You will take care of me.

But You will take care of me. Whether I believe it or not. So how will I prepare my heart?

Will I train it to gaze bravely ahead because help is coming?

Or to constantly scan, warily check over my shoulder, furtively glance and jump at every shadow because I’m never sure that I’m safe; never sure that I have accounted for everything; always haunted by the nagging suspicion that I have missed something vital and this will all fall apart.

I have lived too much of my life this way.

So, Lord, in all my preparations, let the most important one be the settling of my own heart.

I can scrap any just-in-case plans for if You don’t help me. Those are a waste of time and energy.

“Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him;
I will set him on high, because he has known My name.
He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble;
I will deliver him and honor him.”

–Psalm 91:14-15

“So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple.”

–Luke 14:33

This is not the kind of journey where you bring your most treasured possessions along. This is the kind where you look at them long and hard and decide, “I don’t treasure these anymore…I treasure the One I follow.”

I can spend my whole life in a hobbit hole making sure the doilies are straightened, the shelves are dusted, and the pantry is in order; loving and pouring my life into stuff. Or, I can fling open the door and race down the path after You, knowing that I may never see what seemed so important again, and as I let it fall behind me, exclaim,

“I’m going on an adventure!”

Lord-

Help nothing that I have grow in my affection to where it has my heart. Not my job, not my savings, not my plans, not my relationships, not my reputation, not my pleasures.

Help me to weed away misplaced dependence. Affection is fine, but it has a darker twin that slips into its stead: need. Where appreciation becomes demand. Where ‘I’m delighted to have this!’ becomes ‘I HAVE to have it!’

Guard my heart from these subtle shifts and teach it to worship You alone.

Thank you for bringing me this far. Thank you that I can look ahead, with clear eyes and steady breaths, knowing that whatever is out there, You will walk through it with me. So help me learn to cling to You, steady, fearless One, not to things which can so easily be lost.

Then Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.”

The men at the table said among themselves, “Who is this man, that he goes around forgiving sins?”

And Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

-Luke 7:48-50

Who is this man?

Who just goes around forgiving sins?

Who says to the guilty, ‘go in peace.’?

Who holds nothing against me?

Always, when I am forgiven by humans, I walk away with suspicious, reluctant relief. As if the anger is appeased for now, but only for now. I owe something. The issue isn’t over.

I do not go in peace. When is the issue EVER settled among humans?

But with You, it is, just like that.

When You forgive, the disruption is over, so that the one given forgiveness (for it is a gift), may walk away unruffled, unconcerned, knowing they have lasting peace with You.

We are held to a standard of grace, not perfection, that we may walk away at peace when forgiveness readily crosses your lips.

You are still the one that goes around forgiving sins.

Lord-

Thank you for offering me grace over and over and over. Thank you for setting aside my shame, for stripping it of its grip on me.

Show me how to offer this grace to other people. Show me how to hold others to this sweet standard of ‘I will forgive you, no matter what.’

Show me how to accept it for myself, and so live,

happily imperfect,

shameless,

free of burden,

delighting in a good, good Savior,

intriguing others to ask,

‘Who is this, who goes around forgiving sins?’

“So the people asked him saying, ‘what shall we do then?’ He answered and said to them, ‘He who has two tunics, let him give to him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise.’ Then the tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, ‘Teacher, what shall we do?’ And he said to them, ‘Collect no more than is appointed for you.’ Likewise, the soldiers asked him, saying, ‘What shall we do?’ So he said to them, ‘Do not intimidate anyone or accuse falsely, and be content with your wages.'”
-Luke 3:10-14

I stared at this set of instructions for a long time trying to find a common thread.

Caste after caste asked the Voice in the Wilderness what they must do, and he was not afraid to call them out on how things really were.

Don’t ignore people who don’t have what they need.

Don’t take more than you should from people.

Don’t use your power to take advantage of people.

But the last answer caught my attention most: “Be content with your wages.”

Perhaps because that is the root of all the others. When you don’t think you have enough, you treat other people badly. You misuse your position. So this was John the Baptist’s answer:

Do you have two tunics?

Then decide you have enough.

Spend your energy taking care of other people instead.

I have more than two tunics. But I have been discontent with my wages, and fearful of the school bill looming. I am quick to decide I don’t have enough. Do I even think about how that translates into my treatment of others?

Guarantee I haven’t given away as much as I should, if only because I haven’t been paying attention to who might need it.

Self-absorbed people handle others poorly. They are running blind, frantically driven to meet needs that are already taken care of, rushing past and bulldozing over the real needs before them.

Lord-

Help me to start with the root. Help me choose to be thankful for what You have chosen to give me-to be “content with my wages,” and so ready to fight for others, instead of pushing them down to reach for what I think I need.

Do I have two tunics?
Then help me decide that I have enough.

“A certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word…

“…Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore, tell her to help me.”

And Jesus answered, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken from her.”
–Luke 10:38, 40-42

Martha invited You into her home, but she did not sit at your feet.

Mary did nothing else, and it was enough.

One thing is needed.

Many things distract my mind, many things gnaw at my heart, but ONE thing is needed. That means the rest is optional.

I can do much work, much serving, much that is honorable, and miss the one thing that was NEEDED.

I can invite you in and then totally ignore you.

Or, I can lay aside my many priorities, lay down my many worries and tend to that one thing; it will not be taken away. Nothing else will swoop in and become more important. I will not look back and regret how I used my time. I can choose one thing, no matter how confusing and in pieces the rest of life is, and rest easy knowing I made the right choice.

“The human spirit can endure a sick body, but who can bear a crushed spirit?”
–Proverbs 18:14

A broken spirit, who can bear?

Not me.

Again and again I drop here, exhausted, exasperated, discouraged, and ask you for help. I cannot handle it out there.

Just when I start to feel like my bubbly self again and I’m noticing the sunshine and breathing in sweet friendship and finally feeling my tentative roots sink into the warm earth and settle; I am blind-sided by another blow that knocks the wind out of me and bowls me over, leaving me raw and exposed.

I cannot wait for things to stop hitting me to feel grounded and content. Life is a storm, always blowing, always hitting hard. I cannot afford to wait for a lull to be ok.

It is better to leave the house and my life a mess and sit at your feet, leaning forward into what you will say, than to waste away inside as I attempt to make sense of things and fix and clean and polish, all the while casting dirty looks toward those who don’t seem to notice I need help. They are the wrong ones to ask.

When I feel exhausted and frustrated and beat down, I must decide this: I need help. It is not beautiful to push forward, tired, hopeless, steps dragging with many worries and troubles, because I “should.”

Hope is found at your feet.
Help is found at your feet.
Rest is found at your feet.

One thing is needed.

I cannot bear a broken spirit. So teach me that it’s ok to drop the ball and leave the mess and come running for help.

One thing is needed.
It’s you.
And it will not be taken away from me when I need it most.