The Loss of Self-Reliance

What Makes a Good Christian?

2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.   

How Confident Are You in Yourself?

We had a problem with gophers in the lawn next to our sanctuary and it frustrated me to see the grass being ruined.  I went and got some gopher poison and used the normal strategy of probing the ground with a metal rod to try and find the soft spots which indicated a gopher tunnel was there.  I created a small hole that led down to the tunnel, poured the poison into the tunnel with a tool I had purchased and covered the top of the hole with some sod.  Of course you don’t know right away if you killed the gopher, you have to wait a week or so to see if new mounds of dirt develop.  They did!  I tried again, used the tool to probe for tunnels, thought I found one, poured the poison pellets down the hole I made and waited another week.  Again there was a fresh mound.  This went on for several weeks.  Fresh mound, fresh mound and fresh mound!  Realizing this gopher was much smarter than me, I began to pray for God to help me.  Eventually I quit trying to kill the gopher but after a month or so, it dawned on me that I wasn’t seeing any new mounds of dirt.  Had the poison worked after all, was the gopher back in the empty field?  What happened to my little enemy?  One evening, as I stood outside stretching after a long day of writing, I glanced over where the lawn meets the field and there perched at the edge of the grass was a grey cat with her eyes fixed intently on the ground.  Perhaps, I realized, as I stood and watched the stray cat alertly on guard, I had received unexpected help in my battle with the gopher.

What is your strategy when you are facing a difficult situation?  What do you do when you are injured or sick?  How do you respond to the loss of your job or a problem in your marriage?  Do you have a plan for dealing with your kids when they get into trouble?  What would you suggest to someone having financial problems, about to lose their house or struggling with depression or anxiety?  All of us have had gophers in our lives.  The question is, what to do about them?

Let me give an example of a gopher a rather famous person from the pages of the Bible encountered.  Jesus was in a sticky situation.  He had just fed a crowd of more than five thousand men with only five small loaves of bread and two little fish and although not everyone in the great crowd saw what happened, eventually word circulated about the miracle that had taken place.  As people whispered among themselves and slowly the discussions became louder and increasingly emotional, the connection between what had just happened and how Moses had fed the masses of Hebrews in the desert with Manna was made.  The people were desperate for one like Moses, a leader of supernatural proportions who could take them out of the political and religious oppression they felt living under the rule of the Romans.  It seemed amazing to them that right here on this weedy mountainside at the outskirts of town, the hero they all longed to lead them to freedom had appeared. This was too good to be true!  At first, the people in unorganized groups speculated among themselves what this might mean.  They talked about the ramifications of having such a one as Jesus take charge.  Finally, the scattered discussions became unified in both content and direction.  They had to find some way to get Jesus to be their king.

For most of us, this would not be a gopher; it would be the opportunity of a lifetime.  Who would not want to be a king?  Jesus didn’t.  Not this way and not at this time!  He had come to die for the sins of the people, not to lead them past the Romans and their armies.  Everything our Lord planned on accomplishing would be wrecked if He took this offer.  Yet it was not just a matter of declining.  After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, "Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world."  Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself. (John 6:14-15 NIV)  It is strange to think of being made king by force…a contradiction of terms.  How can one be king if forced by the subjects one rules to be that king?  Jesus wanted no part of this!  Yet how could He refuse the demand without putting His disciples at risk and keep Himself from being murdered before His time had come?  It was a gopher of immense proportions.  How did Jesus respond to this?  He went off by Himself to a mountain and the Father took care of the crowd for Him.

A casual reader might say that Jesus ran away from His gopher and this certainly could seem to be the case.  But going to a mountain by Himself we learn generally meant that He left to pray.  Sometimes He took His disciples with Him.  About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. (Luke 9:28 NIV)  We are told that Jesus often went up the Mount of Olives and we assume He did so to pray.  At least that is what He did on the night before He was crucified.  Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him.  On reaching the place, he said to them, "Pray that you will not fall into temptation."   He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed… (Luke 22:39-41 NIV)  Jesus, by leaving the crowd and climbing up the mountain made sure that He was aligned with the Father at every turn because He trusted the Father to see Him through whatever gophers He faced.

Let’s look at one more gopher, a tenacious one encountered by Jacob, the father of the nation of Israel.  After tricking his father Isaac into giving the prophetic blessing to him rather than Esau who was supposed to receive it, Jacob fled for his life.  Esau was so furious with Jacob for stealing the blessing of their father that he made plans to kill him.  More than twenty years later, Jacob decided to return home.  Jacob was rich, had two wives and two concubines, had twelve children with one on the way but he had a giant gopher facing him.  His brother also was rich, had an army of servants and friends and Jacob did not know if Esau still wanted him dead.  That is something that can keep you up at night.  The Bible tells us that when Jacob discovered that Esau with four hundred men was coming to meet him, Jacob feared not only for his life but for that of his entire family.  In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well.  He thought, "If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape."  (Genesis 32:7-8 NIV)

Jacob’s response to the threat of his gopher was swift.  Then Jacob prayed, "O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O Lord, who said to me, 'Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,' I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two groups.  Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children.  But you have said, 'I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.'" (Genesis 32:9-12 NIV)  Jacob prayed.  He was carefully and with perhaps a certain amount of hesitancy putting some of his trust in God to take care of him.  We know he did not completely believe he could trust the Lord with his gopher because he figured out a scheme that he hoped would appease his brother’s anger.

…from what he had with him he (Jacob) selected a gift for his brother Esau: two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.  He put them in the care of his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servants, "Go ahead of me, and keep some space between the herds." (Genesis 32:13-16)  As we shall learn later, this strategy was completely unnecessary and reflected Jacob’s belief that the gopher was bigger than the one to whom he prayed.  That evening, as Jacob remained alone on the side of the Jabbok River opposite to where Esau and his soldiers were coming, a man approached him and the two engaged in a wrestling match.  Jacob believed it was God and we can be certain it was.  For hours they fought, neither gaining the advantage.  Finally at daybreak, the Lord decided to end the match.  When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.  Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak."  But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."  The man asked him, "What is your name?"  "Jacob," he answered. Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."  Jacob said, "Please tell me your name."  But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there.  So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared." (Genesis 32:25-30 NIV)

There is in this exotic story something we must face and that is our tendency to rely upon ourselves for everything until we are broken by God.  Jacob prayed that the Lord would protect him and his family but he didn’t trust God to do it.  That is why he came up with his plan to pay for his brother’s forgiveness.  What is fascinating is that Esau didn’t even want the flocks, was not certain they were actually for him until after he ran to Jacob and embraced him with great weeping and joy at seeing him again.  But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept.  Then Esau looked up and saw the women and children. "Who are these with you?" he asked.  Jacob answered, "They are the children God has graciously given your servant."  Then the maidservants and their children approached and bowed down.  Next, Leah and her children came and bowed down. Last of all came Joseph and Rachel, and they too bowed down.  Esau asked, "What do you mean by all these droves I met?"  "To find favor in your eyes, my lord," he said.  But Esau said, "I already have plenty, my brother. Keep what you have for yourself." (Genesis 33:4-9 NIV) Only God could work such a miracle in the human heart.  What seemed like certain disaster for Jacob was an overwhelming triumph of grace.

Let us consider the end of Jacob’s wrestling match with God and the Lord’s decision to cripple Jacob.  With all his power Jacob wrestled with the Lord; using his strength to try and gain what God was already willing and happy to give him.  Jacob wanted the Lord’s blessing and like he did with his father, tried to gain it by his own effort.  Do we not fall into the same silly pattern as Jacob, having so little trust in God to take care of us and so much faith in our own ability to take care of the gophers we face?  God took Jacob’s hip out of joint because in order to build Jacob’s life right, it had to be broken.  What seems so simple, to trust God, is perhaps the most difficult challenge we face.  Most of us fight so hard to maintain our independence when it is absolutely ridiculous!

Proverbs 3: 5 says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. (NIV)  In the New Testament, the call to trust God is put this way.  May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13 NIV)  Imagine the absurdity of a five year old child telling his father that he doesn’t need to live at home any longer, he will just get a job and rent an apartment.  We are like that child stubbornly refusing to really trust God with our problems and challenges.  Why not pause and like Jesus and go before the Father and ask His help?  Until Jacob realized he could completely trust God with his gophers, he made a mess of nearly everything he touched.  Once he reached out to the Lord, God guided him through all the challenges and hardships he faced.  What about you?  Will it take God to damage your hip or worse your ego before you realize how every breath of yours is dependent upon Him?   Why wouldn’t we trust our Savior with our problems?  We might be amazed at how well God takes care of us if we would go to Him first with every need we have.  Life is too short to waste it on worry or worthless plans.  Go to God first and let Him guide you through to the end!