My wife and I are very different people.  In fact, we’re opposite in every imaginable way except one.  Our faith.  We both take our faith very seriously.  While I’m more vocal and vision-oriented she is much more introspective and detailed.  I’m loud, she’s quiet.  I’m hood, she’s…not.  She’s never cared to maintain a blog although I obviously believe she has plenty to contribute.  The other day she shared some thoughts with me and I invited her to takeover a post to share those thoughts with you.  So, without further ado, here is my lovely bride, Kristy.

The other day on my way to work, I heard a new song on our local Christian radio station called “He Said” by Group 1 Crew.  This is a Christian band whose primary audience is…well, Christians.  Let me start by saying that I’ve enjoyed their music in the past and I know they mean well.  This song is meant to encourage and lift up those who are hurting, which is awesome, and we should always be doing so.  However, it is imperative that our encouragement is rooted in truth.  Check out the first part of the song:

So your life feels like it don’t make sense

And you think to yourself, “I’m a good person”

So why do these things keep happening? Why you gotta deal with them?

You may be knocked down now but don’t forget what He said, He said…

I won’t give you more, more than you can take

And I might let you bend, but I won’t let you break. 

The song left me with a few theological concerns.

Only Jesus Is Good:

As believers, we should never think to ourselves or believe that we are inherently “good” people.  If we are, then why do we need a Savior?  Only Jesus is good – perfect, blameless, spotless.  We, on the other hand, are born sinners and deserve nothing more than separation from God.  Sin keeps us from being inherently good.  This distinction is personal to me because I grew up being known as a “goody-goody” and “legal beagle” long before I became a Christian.  My good behavior was actually a hurdle to my Savior.  It took me well into adulthood to really grasp this great truth.

“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” –Romans 3:23 (NLT).

It’s why Jesus came, died, and rose again.  He took the punishment that we deserved, and when we accept Him, believe who He says He is, and confess Jesus as Lord, only then are we in perfect communion with God and get to spend eternity in Heaven.  People feel like they are good enough but we simply aren’t.  Coming to the end of ourselves is the greatest thing we can do.  I’m not sure why G1C felt this line was a necessary expression without addressing the fact that there is a better way.

More Than You Can Take:

It is common to hear “God won’t give you more than you can handle” but it’s simply not true.  God never made us that promise in scripture.  God often gives us more than we can handle!  In my life, for sure, and for many people in the Bible (think Job and the Apostle Paul).  If He didn’t give us more than we could handle on our own, then we wouldn’t need to rely on Him through the tough stuff of life.  Being broken with the weight of our own inadequacy is precisely how we learn to really trust Him!

What the Bible does say is that God will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, meaning we will never be in a situation where we have no other choice but to sin.  See 1 Corinthians 10:13.  God does not do the tempting, but He does permit us to be tempted.  I encourage you to read a full-length explanation on this subject here.

Broken For Our Good:

Finally, I’ve been bent and broken many times in my life.  Sometimes we have to be.  In fact, hitting rock bottom and acknowledging your brokenness to God is when He can do His most glorious work in you…and your faith grows stronger because of it.  Christians are killed every day for the sake of their faith in Christ.  If that’s not letting you break, I don’t know what is.

Just because a song is on Christian radio doesn’t automatically make it biblically sound. Let’s not water down our faith and throw around clichés that are not scripturally accurate.  God is a good God and He loves you immensely.  If you are hurting today, cry out to Jesus.  Talk to Him.  Ask Him what He wants you to learn from this trial.  He will meet you where you are.  You will bend, you may even break, but here is a truth we can count on in our trouble:

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” –Romans 8:28 (NLT)

My grandmother loved to build elaborate puzzles.  I was amazed at her patience for putting together these images that had hundreds of pieces and took hours upon hours to complete.  When she opened a box and dumped it out on a table I would get intimidated with the sheer challenge before her.  Where I saw intimidation, she saw a strategy.

A great way to give yourself a headache when solving puzzles is to simply grab any random piece and try to build from that point forward.  There are too many unknowns.  There are too many edges that don’t seem to match.  It’s a frustrating path that only leaves us believing that the company must have messed up somewhere.  Many of us in our lives try to solve our life’s problems that way.  There is a much better approach.

Start with the corners and edges.  

The corners and edges may not have an obvious impact on the focus of the picture, especially if it is a complicated picture.  It’s what you gain from the corners and edges however that make starting there worth all of the effort.  What do you gain by returning to the corners and edges?

A frame of reference for the rest of the picture.

My guess is that in your life situation y0u’ve been trying to solve your problem for a long time.  You have lots and lots of pieces spread out before you.  A few of them seem to match.  You have  a cluster here and a cluster there that show some signs of the overall picture.  Without a frame however, it can feel overwhelming.  The task can be daunting.  The solution may be days, weeks, months or even years ahead so what should you do?  Go back to the corners and edges. 

I can hear you now:  “But I have to fix what’s right in front of me!”  I know it’s tempting.  You have one puzzle piece and you’re determined to make it work.  You’re forcing it into spots that don’t work and you’ve convinced yourself that there must be come kind of defect… but the truth remains… go back to the corners and the edges.  Build in, not out.

Just like opening a puzzle box and wanting to start at the middle.  Don’t.  Start at the corners and edges.  Get back to your foundation.  If you’re a new or young believer, I have some news for you.  In order to grow in your spiritual life you will be taking many trips back to the foundation.  Like a safety inspector you will find yourself returning to your spiritual foundation often to check for cracks in the structure.

The corners and the edges are the foundation pieces of your life.   Go back to your foundations.  Go back to the corners and edges.  Go back to the last place you knew that you were walking with God.  Hold off on trying to solve the problem right in front of you.  It may seem tough to do but if you find the corners and edges… the foundation places… you will build a frame to your life circumstances.  Once you have a frame built, you can then make sense of the image revealed on the puzzle of life you’re struggling to solve.

I have do doubt that God has painted a wonderful image over the canvass of your life.  You may see only a glimpse and pieces of that image but if you go back to the corners and edges you will have a great frame of reference for what He’s trying to do in the center.

For further reading:  Luke 6:46-49