Becoming an Expert

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Last week while in Illinois, I tried to find “my” expressway back to Michigan by using a short-cut. Sadly, my instincts were off, and I got lost, wasting a precious half-hour late at night. For this reason and others, my kids have urged me to buy a GPS. I don’t even know what the letters stand for.

But this week, with their recommendations in hand, I drove to Walmart to see if they had a GPS simple enough for simple-minded me. When I got it home, I couldn’t even figure out how to attach it to the car.

Thankfully, Klaus came to the rescue, giving me a short course in how to make it work. I can see, though, there will be a steep learning curve in using it, just like there’s been for every electronic gadget I’ve owned. That is, if a GPS is an electronic gadget. I don’t know that, either.

I often think of how little we know as we pace through life. For example, I understood only 1% of what Nate did every day of the week as a lawyer. And when the electrician put in our new furnace, it was a another mystery. When a nurse takes my blood pressure, I can’t figure out what she’s listening for with her stethoscope. On and on the ignorance goes. It’s a wonder I can tie my shoes. Come to think of it, I wear slip-on clogs.

Who among us can really claim to be an expert at something? As God looks down from heaven, he must get a kick out of someone claiming to be an authority on some subject. Compared to him, even a lifelong expert knows very little. But the more important question is, what is it we’re trying to get good at? Are we working to master the things that matter?

Scripture tells us if we want to be experts, we should start by pursuing a trio of subjects God refers to frequently: wisdom, knowledge and understanding. Wisdom is determining what’s right and then doing it. Knowledge is learning facts, investigating information. Understanding is putting the other two together with discernment.

Questing after these intangibles is a challenge, but there is a way to work on all three at once: just study Jesus. The Bible tells us he’s #1 at wisdom, knowledge and understanding. We may work hard to become experts at repairing cars, knitting sweaters, speaking foreign languages or running marathons. But the expertise that matters most is gained when we draw close to Jesus.

And as we get more and more wisdom, knowledge and understanding from him, he’ll direct us to all kinds of other information, maybe even the meaning of the letters GPS.

Wait a minute! I just remembered! It stands for Global Positioning System. Was it the Lord who brought that to my mind?

 

“The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him [Jesus]— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding… the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord.” (Isaiah 11:2)

A Revelation

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The word “revelation” means to discover something new, something striking or arresting. Today I had a revelation.

During these weeks leading up to Easter, my thoughts have been riveted on the magnitude of Christ’s sacrifice at Calvary, the single purpose of which was to help those of us who would be doomed without him, which is everyone.

Yesterday I blogged about my worst fear, that of seeing my children suffer without being able to help. Mel Gibson’s movie, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, depicts Christ’s last torturous hours, including the responses of his closest friends and relatives. His mother’s horror at having to witness the extreme abuse of her son, the one she bore and raised, was an emotion I completely understood, and I wept with her, during the movie.

Today God revealed another facet of those hours of severe torment, a revelation to me of his deepest heart. He, too, experienced the same terrible circumstance I wrote on my 3×5 card during my Bible study. He watched his own Son undergo horrendous torture without being able to help him. The one thing I fear most, he did.

Of course God could have helped Jesus. It was within his power to abort the crucifixion at any point during those awful 12 hours. As Jesus said to Pilate, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.” (John 19:11) But by withholding that power, by allowing the abuse, the beatings, the torture and the murder of his Son, God facilitated Jesus being able to open heaven to anyone who believes in him.

But how could God have possibly stayed his hand? How could he have watched it happen without stepping in to severely punish the ones hurting his guiltless Son? What possible gain could have outweighed such massive loss?

The fact that our names might appear anywhere in the answers to those questions is absurd. And yet they do. Despite the fact that we are corrupt, selfish, prideful, riddled with filthy sin, he loves us. He wants us. He could destroy us all and begin again with a pure people, unspotted by disobedience and disregard for him.

And yet, he wants… us. And that’s the reason he watched his Son suffer without stepping in, without stopping it when he could have.

The most famous verse in the Bible has a word in it most people gloss over. In John 3:16, Jesus is speaking and describes himself as “the only begotten Son” of God the Father, not just the “only” one but the only “begotten” one. That word “begotten” means “born of a father.”

Jesus was the born Son of God his Father, just as my seven children were born to me. God the Father chose to suffer through watching his Son lay down his life without stopping it, for my sake…and yours.

…an awesome revelation to me today.

“[Jesus said,] ‘For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative’.” (John 10:17,18)

A Torturous Thought

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In our ladies Bible study we’re looking at the biblical Job and his response to massive losses. A couple of weeks ago our leader asked, “What’s the worst loss you can imagine in your life? What one thing do you fear the most?”

She passed out 3×5 cards and asked us to write it down. I thought about Job’s losses, wondering which one caused him the most anguish. It had to be the death of his 10 children. Scripture describes his deep love for them, his concern for their souls, his consistency in offering sacrifices on their behalf.

By the end of the book, Job’s health and possessions were restored. He was twice as wealthy, except in one category: his family.

Yes, he fathered 10 more children, but what about the first 10? No one child can take the place of another. I wonder if Job ever quit mourning those 10 losses.

With the 3×5 card in my lap, I tried to imagine how I’d feel if all seven of my kids died in an accident. Was this the one fear, the one loss to write down? As I thought about it, an even worse scenario came to mind. What if my children had to suffer intensely, and I couldn’t help them?

I wrote it on the card: “to see my children suffer.” Our leader then asked whether or not we could entrust God with what we’d written down.

Last night Birgitta and I, in talking about Christ and the crucifixion, thought maybe we should view the movie PASSION OF THE CHRIST. We’d seen it seven years ago when it came out, but not since. Both of us remembered the raw torture inflicted on an innocent Jesus as shown in the film. It had been difficult to watch. But we decided to do it as one small way to participate in the Lord’s suffering.

The two-hour plot detailed Jesus’ last 12 hours and was just as wrenching as we’d remembered. This time through, I also noticed the secondary storyline of his mother, Mary. Although Scripture doesn’t describe her emotions on that last day, it does tell us she was there, focusing on her son and grieving.

In the movie, as Mary watches Jesus suffer physical torture, she endures emotional torture. Of course there was no comparison between the intensity of the two, and we’ll never know the extent of Jesus’ pain as he bore the sins of the world. But on the sidelines, Mary’s mother-anguish looked much like the fear I’d written on my 3×5 card.

She’d always known something terrible was going to happen to her Spirit-conceived firstborn, since he was the God-son whose name meant “to save the people from their sins.” And yet she stood at the base of the cross looking up at this precious one in such terrible pain and bore her own pain with courage.

She entrusted it to God for his purposes, and I must do the same.

“Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene… Jesus saw his mother there…” (John 19:25,26)