Psalm 42

I hear the tumult of the raging seas
as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.
But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me,
and through each night I sing his songs,
praying to God who gives me life.

Psalm 42 : 7-8

Perhaps there are some who are natural athletes, strong and capable, accomplishing great things without any help. I am so happy for them. But the Christian faith is reserved for those who can accomplish nothing on their own, for they are broken, poor and weak. Jesus is hope for the broken and rubbish to the strong. Jesus does not promise riches or security, privilege or advancement. Every single disciple of Christ died in poverty, most were murdered for their faith. The Christian faith is to understand our inability to be whole, to see the athletes rushing past us and look down at our own feet that are lame and give thanks to God because our lameness requires even greater dependence on Jesus. To be a Christian is to rely on Jesus Christ, like finally walking with crutches after a lifetime of hobbling along. When some say Christians are weak because they need faith like a crutch to prop them up, I say yes! We do! And we are called to rejoice in our weakness!

Just as the Christian’s Lord and Saviour lived on this earth among social outcasts and died a criminal’s death, so the Christian gives thanks for our weakness because we can love others better for it. How much empathy can an athlete who has never stumbled have for one who can barely walk? But we, who bear scars on our hands and knees from falling give thanks for them, for we know what it is to struggle. So we follow Jesus by loving people and repenting of our failure to love the way we should.

Indeed, to be a follower of Jesus is to live in the thick tension of a world of injustice, inequality, pain and evil; while believing Jesus is a a good God. How can there be a good God in a world so rife with hate? How can there be a God at all when hurricanes destroy innocent lives and genocides wipe out families, when our loved ones don’t make it and children die of hunger? However, the Christian faith views the world as unnatural, a place of fundamental brokenness, created with perfect harmony, but flawed by the river of sin running through it. According to Genesis, it is natural for the lion to lay with the lamb peacefully. The first death in the Garden did not happen until Adam killed animals to cover his nakedness with their skin. The lion now hunts the lamb because we have made unnatural what is natural with our fallenness. There is no natural humanity, only an unnatural humanity, deeply flawed and capable of great harm. It is our new human condition. We do not ask, how can there be a good God when there is so much injustice, instead we ask for deliverance from who we are, people of great injustice. And that is why Christians are a people who know they need new hearts, completely different than the ones we have that value personal gain, advantage over others, our own glory. Instead, Christians are people who look to Jesus for a new heart, one that sees our complicity in the brokenness of this world and weep over it. And when we struggle to trust in HIs goodness, when our heart strays, Christians cry out to remember where our hope comes from. It is to look to Jesus even in the darkness and hold on for dear life, and say, Bind my wandering heart to Thee.