The legendary actor and comedian Dick Van Dyke recently became a centenarian. He explains his longevity simply: he keeps a positive outlook and never gets angry.
Scientists agree with his theory.
In one study, people who were optimistic lived between 11 and 15 percent longer than their pessimistic counterparts. In another, those who were more optimistic were more likely to live into their nineties than pessimists.
Research shows that chronic stress and anger are linked to an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes, diseases that account for roughly 75 percent of early deaths. Stress is also linked to cellular aging. And researchers studying stroke survivors have found that optimism lowers chronic inflammation, leading to less severe strokes and less physical disability.
However, you and I didn’t need scientists to tell us what we innately understood, that happier people are typically healthier people.
If only knowing and doing God’s will were so obvious and intuitive.
“Yet your footprints were unseen”
I was reading Psalm 77 recently and was struck by verse 16: “When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; indeed, the deep trembled.” Some scholars believe Asaph was referring to the parting of the Red Sea (Exodus 14), while others point to Israel’s miraculous crossing of the flooded Jordan River (Joshua 3).
Whatever the specific reference, what God did was stupendous: “The clouds poured out water; the skies gave forth thunder; your arrows flashed on every side. The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind; your lightnings lighted up the world; the earth trembled and shook” (Psalm 77:17–18).
Now to my point: Asaph then prays, “Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen” (v. 19, my emphasis).
It is one thing to follow someone whose “footprints” are obvious to us. It is another to follow someone we cannot see, trusting that their word is true and their will is best, before we can verify either.
“The people passed over in haste”
When the Israelites passed through the parted Red Sea, its waters were “a wall to them on their right hand and on their left” (Exodus 14:22). Imagine what it must have felt like to risk your life and your family in this way, knowing that any moment the waters could come crashing down on you as they later did on the Egyptian army (v. 28).
Forty years later, the people found themselves on the bank of the flooded Jordan River. Again they crossed in peril of their lives, knowing that the flood waters could return at any moment to sweep them away (cf. Joshua 4:18).
No wonder “the people passed over in haste” (v. 10).
God similarly called Abraham to leave his family and homeland, “not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). And the Lord called Paul to leave where he had been to go to a place he had never gone (Acts 16:6–10).
Solomon famously advised us: “Trust in the Lᴏʀᴅ with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5). There are times when the first requires the second, when our “own understanding” is insufficient for understanding the ways of God, and we must trust what we do not see.
As Jesus said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). Accordingly, “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).
“I will remember your wonders of old”
As a longtime pastor and theologian, I am familiar with the texts I just cited. But that doesn’t mean I like them better than anyone else. I don’t want God’s footprints to be “unseen.” I don’t want to have to go out “not knowing” where I’m going. I want to walk by faith but also by sight.
It seems that God requires unseeing faith as though it is a precondition to knowing his will, a bill we must pay or work we must perform. But we are saved by faith, not by works (Ephesians 2:8–9). There is nothing we can do to make God love us any more or any less than he does right now, because “God is love” (1 John 4:8, my emphasis).
Why, then, must we so often trust his will before we understand it? Because this is so often the only way we can understand it.
How could God prove to the Jews while they crossed the Red Sea or the Jordan River that the waters would not return to drown them? How could he prove to Abraham before he went out “not knowing” that he would become the father of the Jewish nation as a result of his obedience (cf. Galatians 3:6)? How could he prove to Paul before he followed his Macedonian vision that the apostle would take the gospel to the Western world?
Relationships typically require a commitment that transcends the evidence and becomes self-validating. This is true of choosing to be married, having children, taking a job, or even reading this article—you can’t prove my words are worth your time today until you spend your time reading them.
As a result, when I want God to explain his will to me before I choose it, I am asking him to do the logically impossible, like making a square circle or naming the color of the number 7. At such times, I do well to follow Asaph’s example: “I will remember the deeds of the Lᴏʀᴅ; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds” (Psalm 77:11–12).
When I do, I will testify with the psalmist, “Your way, O God, is holy” (v. 13). And I will find the courage to choose this “way” myself.
“The secret of spiritual knowledge”
In Catholic tradition, today is “St. Joseph’s Day.” A ninth-century calendar mentions March 19 and Joseph, implying that this was the day he died. In 1621, Pope Gregory XV made the commemoration of this day official.
For Jesus’ adoptive father, God’s footprints were truly “unseen.” Joseph was told that his fiancée was pregnant with the Messiah and instructed to marry her anyway. He was told to flee Israel for Egypt and later to return. He was directed to settle in Nazareth, a town so small it is not mentioned even once in the Old Testament.
And his obedience changed both history and eternity.
The famed missionary Eric Liddell noted,
“Obedience to God’s will is the secret of spiritual knowledge and insight.”
Will you learn this “secret” today?
Quote for the day:
“The Christian man must aim at that complete obedience to God in which life finds its highest happiness, its greatest good, its perfect consummation, its peace.” —William Barclay
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