Trust, Obedience, Forgiveness, These Three

It has been said that the contemplation of the old hymns is a great enrichment to one’s spiritual life; that one would do well to “read a hymn a day” along with daily devotions. This weekend as I was leisurely lying in bed thinking over my past week, which started off well and ended in dismal spiritual failure, the hymn “Trust and Obey,” composed by John H. Sammis (1848–1919) and set to music by Daniel B. Towner (1850–1919), was playing through my mind: “Trust and obey, / For there’s no other way / To be happy in Jesus / But to trust and obey.” I couldn’t help but think that it was no accident that the word “trust” comes before the word “obey.” In order to willingly obey, we must first freely trust; in order to trust, we must have a reasonable certainty of the outcome, or a reasonable certainty that whatever the outcome may be, it will be favorable because the one we trust has never done us wrong.

Of the obedience half of “Trust and Obey,” part of the fifth verse reads: “What He says we will do / Where He sends we will go.” Perhaps we would do well, however, to turn this around and state something equally true in regard to the element of trust: “What He says He will do / Where He sends He will go.” This is precisely why we can trust Him: He will not send us where He will not also go, for He not only makes a way, but He always leads the way as well. By the very definition of the words, a leader “walks ahead of” and a follower “comes along after.” This means that the leader will be the first to experience any potential pitfalls, toils, or snares, so to speak. At the least, the leader gives the follower confidence, because as long as the leader is on stable footing, the follower can be quite certain the ground will hold him up as well. If the path suddenly takes a plummet, the follower is not obligated to follow, having been forewarned by the leader’s falling.

There is a parallel here with what Paul writes about in two of the most abused and controversial passages of Scripture in the New Testament: those concerning the submission of wives and the husband being the authority figure of his household (Ephesians 5:21–33 and Colossians 3:18–25 respectively). The difficulty comes when one confuses his terms. There is a drastic difference between the office of dictator and the role of leader. A despot is concerned with none other but himself, ordering persons about, sacrificing others as need be for his own interests. A genuine leader, on the other hand, charges into battle first, accepts the same rations as his men, and follows the same guidelines to which he expects his men to adhere, which is the very thing that makes him great. With the first, we have a person who rules by power and fear, with the second, a person who leads by example and love. There is a tremendous responsibility associated with being a leader; taken seriously, in many ways the mandate Paul sets forth for men is the greater challenge. The man is, first and foremost, directly answerable to Christ for his family. To be sure, there are things outside of his control—rebellious teenagers, for instance, have minds of their own—but to the best of his ability, he must take care to fulfill his duty as the head of the household, for he will not fail to be held accountable before the throne of God some day.

If a husband is to love his wife as he would love his own body—even more, as Christ loves the church and offered Himself up for her—this means that he takes responsibility even when he does not feel like it, he pulls himself together and is strong outwardly even when his knees are knocking inwardly, he is the first line of defense between his family and the dangerous world crouching outside his door, he uses what courage and wisdom he has to make the difficult decisions everyone else dreads to make. If he is to be the leader he is called to be, he does not ask his wife or his children to do anything he himself would not also be willing to do; he struggles to lay aside his own ego for the greater good of his family. This is what Paul meant when he speaks of the headship of husbands and the submission of wives—see also Men and Women: Enjoying the Difference—and I would dare say there are few women who would not gratefully accept the leadership of such a man. In one of the many paradoxes of life, this submission is actually the road to the greater freedom, though, of course, it has to be built on—here’s that word again—trust. And in the same way that when a woman accepts the leadership of a worthy man, it frees her to lead a life that has fewer cares, so too, this is what is involved when—after discovering that our Savior is able to be trusted—we willingly submit to His leadership and obey, knowing He would never ask anything of us that: a) He himself would not do, and b) that was not for the greatest good of all, ourselves included. And what is it that He asks us to do? To trust and love Him and to love others as ourselves.

The reason loving others as ourselves makes us great is again because we are being leaders. There is nothing oxymoronic about the expression “servant leader”: if anything, it is a redundant phrase. Why are we able to love? Because he has first loved us; he, the leader, has shown us, his followers, what love really is. Not the cheap, self-centered, feel-good euphoria, but a selfless commitment, a deeper walk, a higher way. And how has he first loved us? We know that he was not only willing to die for us, but that he did do so. Consider this parable of the servant who owed a great debt to the king and his actions toward his fellow servant who owed him a much lesser debt:

It is easy for me to feel a smug and righteous indignation that the first servant got what he deserved since he was so unforgiving—after all, he should have been grateful. But then it strikes me with a sudden pang through the heart that I am that servant. Why is it then, that I am so often unforgiving: why do I fail to trust—much less obey? The answer, in my case anyway, can perhaps be found in a look at distraction and concentration.

Ever since I was a little boy, I have always been the sort of person who either does something all the way, or doesn’t do it at all: I am either one hundred percent committed or entirely apathetic. When I start a project, it must be finished, which explains why I work long into the night hours typing up papers, including many of these newsletters that you have the benefit of reading. This, I have learned, is part of the artistic personality—artists of every type are said to suffer from this same syndrome—which prompted my sister to nickname me “Major Major” when I was all of five. In many ways, this is a tremendous boon, and yet, as with anything in life, the flip side of our greatest strengths is none other than our most piteous weaknesses.

How is such unswerving focus a weakness? Well, as I have already stated, there is a strong artistic element to my personality that counterbalances my starkly analytical bent. This artistic component is seen to a greater or lesser degree in nearly everyone, but is especially prominent not only in artists of traditional type, but also in mystics, philosophers, and other such intuits and visionaries. I suppose the common denominator is the imagination, the organ of creativity and the construct of meaning. Such an imaginative and creative mind can at times be well nigh photographic in its ability to hold and recall information, though it will invariably rearrange and adapt its ideas into a new form. And if it be true that this mind is, at least at times, nearly photographic, this also means that it is highly impressionable: to be photographic, impressions are of necessity easily formed, stamped onto the memory, awaiting further development in the laboratory of the mind. And yet, we all know that impressionability is not always such a good thing. An impressionable mind is easily overloaded, sidetracked, and distracted. Perhaps this is why the artistic personality is often characterized as being a bit scatter-brained?

Early American pioneer of psychology William James, who wrote the first textbook on the subject in 1890, maintained that concentration is the necessary exclusion of all other stimuli so that one may better process the single stimulus of interest. At every moment, we are bombarded with sensory perceptions. As you are sitting at your computer reading this newsletter—or in your easy chair if you have printed it out—you have necessarily tuned out many of the sense impressions around you. Until I mentioned it, you probably were only vaguely aware at best of the temperature of the room, the pressure excerpted on your backside from the gravity holding you to your seat, the sound of the atmospheric noises around you, the weather outside, the strain on your eyes from the muscle control required for long periods of intensive reading. These and a thousand other stimuli you have tuned out so that you are better able to focus on your reading. Of course, there may be other things on your mind vying for your attention: you may find your mind wandering as you process some thought or idea tripped by something I have written or said. In this way, you are personalizing my writing, making the ideas your own, accepting some, discrediting others, and integrating the result into the vast pool of information you have already assimilated in all your years under the sun. Yet the fact remains, whenever we concentrate on something, this means that there are many other things we disregard: we selectively process sensory input on a daily basis.

So why do I mention this? Good question. Have you ever heard of the “Red Herring Fallacy”? In the formal study of logic, philosophers have identified a number of problems in the processing of thought that necessarily end in error. One of these, as I have mentioned, is the “Red Herring Fallacy.” A herring is a type of fish that is salted, then smoked until it turns a reddish brown color. Dogs have a much stronger sense of smell than humans do, and this is particularly important in hunting dogs, for the hunter relies on the dog’s sense of smell to track game. To keep hounds from being misled, trainers sometimes will drag a red herring across the scent trail, teaching the dog to stay focused on the game and not be led astray by the smell of the fish. A “Red Herring Fallacy” therefore, is when someone tries to interject a counter idea into an argument to distract his opponent away from the main issue that is being debated.

There are many fallacies that have been identified and labeled, many of them having more than one common name. Christian apologist and professor Dr. R.C. Sproul mentions one such example he uses with his seminary students to demonstrate how logic can be misused. He first states his thesis: “Cats have nine tails.” He asks his students if they agree with this premise, and of course, they say no. He then asks them, “Have you ever seen a cat with eight tails?” When they negate the question, he then restates his premise: “Therefore, no cat has eight tails, agreed?” They confer their consensus.

“Now then,” he says, moving on to his second premise, “if I have two boxes here in the front of the room, one of which contains a cat, and the other of which contains no cat, how many more cats are there in the box that contains the cat than in the box that contains no cat?” The answer is, of course: “One.”

“Okay, if there is one more cat in the box with one cat than in the box with no cat, how many more tails are in the box with one cat compared to the box with no cat?” Since his students are convinced that cats only have one tail, they respond that there is only one more tail in the box with the cat than in the box that has no cat.

He concludes his premise by saying, “We have agreed that no cat has eight tails. We have also agreed that a cat in the box has one more tail than a box with no cat. Since no cat has eight tails, and one cat has one more tail than no cat, eight plus one is nine: therefore cats must have nine tails.”

He goes on to explain where the error occurred in his argument. Midway through, he switched the meaning of “no cat.” In the first half of his argument, “no cat” meant every cat, because no cat, unless an anomaly of nature, has eight tails. In the second half of his argument, “no cat” meant the absence of cats, for the box with “no cat” did not have any cats in it. He then took premise one of “every cat” with premise two of “no cat” to try to prove that “all cats have nine tails.” While Sproul laughingly admits that this extreme example is not likely to mislead anyone, much more subtle and insidious examples abound all the time in the courtroom and even in the writings of thinkers of renown.

When it comes to the aspect of concentration, one must be careful his concentration remains focused on the object of his consideration. If I wish to arrive at my destination just beyond the opening between those two trees yonder, I must concentrate on them, never taking my eyes off them, never looking at the ground. So too, when I steer my car down the street, I do well to look ahead of me, for if I spend too long in looking down, I will likely find myself in the ditch or on the curb—or worse. If I decide to go bowling and I want to achieve any degree of success, I must forget my feet, forget the lane, forget the gutter, and focus only on the front centermost pin, bending every ounce of my concentration and being into propelling the ball straight into it. My concentration may be impeccable, but if I focus it on the wrong thing, I am as the man who unknowingly makes the brilliant touchdown for the opposing team.

So too, the enemy often drags a red herring across my path—as though I need any help!—and if I am not focused on the sweet scent of my Savior and Lord, I will quickly find something fishy has happened, and soon the fleshly smell of carnality stings my nostrils. Too late, I realize I have lost my way, and I must again turn back to the relentless Hound of Heaven who pursues me even as I pursue Him. Why is it that I do not trust more? Why do I so often doubt? It is partly because I am impressionable and easily distracted, my “Major Major” personality majoring on minors and making mountains of molehills, as the two clever clichés go. When I am tempted, I suddenly forget all that I have learned in the past, am blind to the consequences of the future, and with unswerving concentration which must jolly well give the devil a grand laugh, I focus only on the immediate gratification of my moment. The problem, you see, is not my power of concentration, for I have honed that to an exacting degree. The problem is what I choose to tune out and what I choose to dial in. Do I focus on Christ, remembering all He has done for me, how He has forgiven me countless times—and thereby find it within myself to trust and obey Him? Or do I concentrate only on the moment and my immediate pleasure, forgetting that He has always been there for me and has promised never to leave or forsake me? Who do I hold most in my center of focus? Myself, or my God?

If I should happen to stumble and fall—even very badly—even again and again with the same private sin—I must not spend so much time focusing on my own dreadfulness that I take my eyes off Him. When I am in the throes of guilt, my secret sin recurring again and again, I know I need to turn to God: but my own guilt and shame hold me in their iron grasp. I ruminate over and over again in my mind, half praying, half cursing myself: “I must stop sinning like this. I have no excuse. I keep going back and doing this again and again. Lord God, you seem so distant. I know the fault is all my own. Oh God, why can’t I gain victory over myself? Is there hope for such a one as I? Why, oh why do I keep on sinning like this? Yet if given an opportunity to do the same thing again, I know myself: I am certain I would do it again . . . if not now, then later.” You see the problem with this type of thought pattern, don’t you? Who am I focusing on? All I can see is my guilt and my shame, never focusing for long on my Lord and Savior beyond, for my embroiled thoughts keep turning back on themselves, my monstrosity’s ugly head filled with angry, gnashing teeth, my thoughts consumed with despair over my own sin-sick condition. I feel too hopeless to be forgiven, especially when I am certain that I will only return again to my secret sin like a dog returns to its own vomit—it is only a question of time. What’s more, these thoughts help reinforce my sinful behavior, because I am in effect telling myself that I am destined to fail and that there is no hope for me. I am exactly where Satan wants me then, for my thoughts are turned away from God and onto the churning waves of my own anguish and despair.

Why do I keep on sinning, the same old lusts surfacing again and again? It is because there is a part of me that enjoys it. If there weren’t, it wouldn’t be the problem that it is. What I need to do, then, is to pray, as my Lord has taught me: “And lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil.” I ask Him to remove my desire to do the sinful thing, trusting that He will in His time if my faith does not waver. The worst thing I can do is hide from Him like my ancestors in the Garden of Eden. The second half of this clause—“for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever”—explains my power source, none other than my “Father which art in heaven.” In fact, the entire prayer found in Matthew 6:9–15 is filled with wisdom and is good to pray whenever our emotions are so turbulent we can’t coax a single honest prayer from our heart.

Often, my greatest difficulty when it comes to asking for forgiveness is feeling forgiven, especially when I keep on sinning. After King David committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband Uriah the Hittite murdered, he too struggled with this guilt of forgiveness. (The entire story is found in 2 Samuel 11 & 12:1–25.) In his beautiful Psalm 51, we find him wrestling with himself, agonizing as we all do when we have sinned. He first confesses:

As he prays for forgiveness, he implores “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” He quiets his troubled soul with this assurance: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” Never forget that David was the same man of whom God said “he is a man after mine own heart.” You and I are not so different: I don’t imagine very many have committed murder, but if you have, it doesn’t matter, for all grace is imputed: His life for ours. There is forgiveness for all. There is always a second chance. No matter how often we keep sinning, let us never stop returning to the Father, turning our eyes away from ourselves and our despair, and seeking the only comfort, consolation, and forgiveness the Universe offers. Then—and there—we can be renewed, restored, our feet once again set on the path of righteousness.

And so I say: Where He sends us, He has gone: He has been our leader. A leader leading implies followers following. As He has led, so He expects us to lead our lives; as He has loved, so He expects us to love: not of our own strength, but as we follow His example, for He leads us onward and ever. He has shown us what true love is by loving us, He has shown us true forgiveness by always forgiving us no matter how often we ask. We are expected to do the same—“forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Indeed, “What He says He will do / Where He sends He will go”; therefore, “What He says we will do / Where He sends we will go.” And now abideth trust, obedience, forgiveness, these three; but the greatest of these is forgiveness: Christ’s unmerited grace, freely given, and available to all.

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

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