In my last post, I alluded to commands of God which don’t feel life giving. What did I have in mind? I think of anything which denies me something that I want. We don’t need to stretch our imagination very far to come up with many examples. I will give two.
The first example of how God’s law doesn’t seem to impart life I have witnessed in the lives of my five wonderful grandchildren! I have had a front row seat on many occasions to times when the command of God to obey their parents has not seemed life giving to them. They want something – it could be sugary sweets for breakfast, or a movie to watch that all their friends are watching. I remember when our kids were young, there was another family in our church whose mother would often say to her children, “Others may, but we may not.” I held them up as an example to my own kids. I’m sure those kids and my own sometimes wished they had not been born into their particular family!
Similarly, my grandchildren find it deeply frustrating to have their desires denied. Sometimes they throw tantrums, or storm off into their rooms, slamming the doors. Sometimes they say angry words to inflict pain upon their parents. Even when they repent, they rarely say to their parents how grateful they are to have their desires blocked, how life-giving it is that their parents are making wise choices to withhold from them what isn’t for their good. They are children after all! Their vision isn’t clear and their wisdom is not very mature. Not getting what they want feels like death to them, not life. And those feelings simultaneously point to a truth and a falsehood. Giving something up does result in a kind of loss, but what is gained by choosing obedience is far greater.
The second example has been in my own life, seeing how God’s calling on my life has meant giving up some personal ambitions. Obedience to God requires death to self, but the Bible tells us that death to self is the path to life. Jesus taught his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” (Luke 9:23-24) Self denial is a form of dying to oneself. Hopefully as we mature as followers of Christ, we begin to practice self denial. We learn to understand that dying to self is the path to true life and fruit. Our Savior charted this course for us by taking on human flesh and literally dying on the cross. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Jesus genuinely suffered as he died, and our dying to self is also painful. Perhaps as adult Christians, we know better than children that these feelings of death will not last forever, but they still are not pleasant. And Jesus said we must take up our crosses daily. Some choices we make once and get to see the fruit in our lives. Others involve daily sacrifices, with seemingly little benefit. We might all be able to list personal choices in both categories.
I would say the bearing of my four children (and mothering others through campus ministry) was a choice I made in my 20’s, which has yielded such beautiful fruit. How I died to myself only rarely occurs to me now, because the sense of life from that choice is so strong. But I gave up a career which might have yielded greater personal recognition and remuneration. I was set to enter the military, when instead I chose to marry a man who was headed for the ministry. When I declined my regular Army commission in Military Intelligence, one of the ROTC training staff told me he thought I could advance far in the military, and was I really sure? He thought I was a gifted leader, but I chose a life of serving instead. Once in a while, I wonder what rank I would have achieved. But mostly, I think of the people I have served, who have so amazingly enriched my life and expressed their thanks, and I know I would not have wanted to miss them and all that God has taught me through them!
There are commandments in God’s Word which impact some and not others, which are harder to obey for some and not for others. Obeying our government to put off drinking until age 21 bothered some college students, but there was another group who expressed “That’s not hard for me; I don’t even like the taste of beer and wine.” For all of us, obedience can be harder and more costly in one area than another. For me, an area of costly obedience is in adhering to biblical limitations on the uses of women’s spiritual gifts. When Ruth and I began this blog in 2017, we wrote extensively on what we believe to be role distinctions God commands between women and men. You may not agree with me on what the Bible teaches, but that is not my aim today. I am merely making the point that I accept as commanded some limitations on my use of the gifts God has given me. My faith has cost me something in terms of self-expression, something which I feel on a regular basis, particularly as I have grown older and increasingly am following younger male leaders. As I already noted, I have gifts for leadership, and teaching as well. No matter how many egalitarian books I have read positing that no distinctions apply today limiting women’s roles in church and family, the Spirit has convicted me through various passages that God wishes me to trust and obey him, observing to the best of my ability particularly the limitations of 1 Timothy 2:8-15. You can read my past post on that passage here. As I do that, I am dying to self, dying to my desire for recognition and expression. As the Lord leads me, I often input my ideas to men in positions of leadership, without constraining them to accept my thoughts. I do that because I see biblical precedent for women to share helpful wisdom with responsible men (1 Samuel 25, 2 Kings 22:14, Genesis 2:18).
We all have different areas where God’s authority and commands constrain us in real and daily ways. How will we speak of that to others? I want to follow Jesus and say, “Not my will but yours be done.” (Mark 14:36) There is joy and life set before me, even as there was for the Pioneer of our faith. (Hebrews 12:2)