Roadside Assistance Series

This year was my 34th re-birthday. I celebrate it every year. I became a Christian in 1984. And I look back on those thirty plus years with amazement and wonder. God’s fingerprints are all over them. Do you ever do that? Look back and see what God has done?

I’m sure most of you know the poem, “Footprints:"

"One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky. In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints. Other times there was one set of footprints. This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow, or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints. So I said to Lord, “the You promised me, Lord, that if I followed you, ou would walk with me always. But I noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of prints in the sand. Why, when I have needed you most, have you not been there for me?” The Lord replied, “The times when you have seen only one set of footprints Is when I carried you.”

That poem is famous, and justly so, because it is so true. But sometimes I think that my life is less like that beautiful picture than one I drew in a small group leaders training class back about 15 years ago. The trainer asked each of us to draw a picture of how we saw our walk with the Lord at that moment in time, and I drew a figure dressed in Biblical robes (recognizably Jesus) dragging along a kicking, screaming, rebellious 2-year old - by the hair.

My prayer for far too much of my Christian life has not been so much “deliver me from evil” as “deliver me from pain and inconvenience and embarrassment.” How many of you can say - deep in your heart, without admitting it to anyone but yourself and God - that you have not experienced similar feelings of rebellion?

This single line: "and do not bring us to the time of trial" takes us right into those feelings of rebelliousness and blame, when we ask God why on earth he’s brought - name one - illness or unemployment or loneliness or confusion or - there’s a whole list of possible trials to pick from. Maybe you’ve matured enough in your faith so that’s not your heart’s automatic cry when things go wrong. I’m working on it myself, and have actually seen some progress recently.

Because we don’t want to be tested, do we. We don’t relish being brought to a time of trial, when we come to a crossroads and are asked to choose the path of faith or the path of doubt, the path of obedience or the path of resistance, the path of confidence or the path of fear. We don’t relish being asked to put our faith on the line, and find out for sure what it is really made of, how deep or solid our confidence in God actually is.

The traditional words we use when we say the Lord’s prayer are somewhat different. We say “lead us not into temptation.” And that’s not such a challenge for us to understand, because of course since we know God isn’t the one who doesn’t tempt us. “No one, when tempted, should say, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one.” [Jas 1:13] No one with any sense wants to be tempted.

But to be brought to the testing point, to be brought to the time of trial, that’s another matter, isn’t it. Because God is perfectly within his rights - as a just God who desires for us to grow strong in our faith and confident of his goodness - to give us the occasional pop quiz or even a full-blown Spiritual Achievement Test.

We don’t like these times of trial, but the fact is that they are good for us. This is why at the beginning of his letter James tells us, “My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.” [James 1:2-4]

Scholars disagree as to how to translate this passage - the language is a little ambiguous and the fact is that we don’t know whether Jesus is teaching us that it’s okay not to be eager for our faith to be tested, or whether it’s a plea to be kept safe from the final judgment, the last great testing of the saints at the end of time, or just for help in dealing with the little everyday temptations that lurk in our paths like roller skates on the stairs, just waiting for a careless moment to send us flying.