How past experience frames present faith

The Federal Reserve has raised rates for the first time since 2023, voting unanimously to increase the benchmark federal funds rate by a quarter point to a 3.75–4 percent range. The increase is intended to “deliver price stability” and return inflation to the Fed’s 2 percent target.

The decision comes despite President Trump’s insistence that the Fed should lower borrowing costs. It was announced just months before the midterm elections, in which affordability will be a major issue among voters.

If you’re like me, you know little about national economics and the complex factors that affect prices. You’re therefore likely to trust the sources you trusted before this news broke. Your past experiences frame your present decisions.

This is a pattern true to life, one that is especially relevant to our souls today.

“David and his men went to Keilah”

In 1 Samuel 23, we find David and his band of four hundred men continuing to evade murderous King Saul. Despite the Israelite king’s desire to kill him, David still cared for the Israelite people. And so, when “they told David, ‘Behold, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah and are robbing the threshing floor’” (v. 1), he became concerned for them.

As a result, “David inquired of the Lᴏʀᴅ, ‘Shall I go and attack these Philistines?’” (v. 2a). Back came the answer: “Go and attack the Philistines and save Keilah” (v. 2b). When he announced the planned attack, however, “David’s men said to him, ‘Behold, we are afraid here in Judah; how much more then if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?’” (v. 3).

David could have insisted that they follow his lead or face his wrath, or he could have abdicated leadership and acceded to their fears. Instead, “David inquired of the Lᴏʀᴅ again. And the Lᴏʀᴅ answered him, ‘Arise, go down to Keilah, for I will give the Philistines into your hand’” (v. 4).

This time, David’s testimony regarding God’s will was enough for his men: “And David and his men went to Keilah and fought with the Philistines and brought away their livestock and struck them with a great blow. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah” (v. 5).

When I read the narrative today, this question emerged immediately: Do those I lead trust my leadership enough to risk their well-being to follow me?

“A vision appeared to Paul in the night”

As a pastor and now a ministry founder, I don’t do anything that would cost my team their lives. I’m not a military leader of soldiers on the battlefield or a police captain asking officers to endanger themselves in the line of duty.

But the team members with whom I serve have aligned their careers and the support of their families with me and our calling. They have chosen to serve God by serving him with me. Readers similarly choose to trust what I write enough to read it.

When I invite others to follow me because I claim to be following God, why should they pay a significant price to believe me?

Paul’s ministry team faced the same decision: When “a vision appeared to Paul in the night” calling him to “come over to Macedonia and help us,” none of his associates saw the vision (Acts 16:9). Nonetheless, they immediately “sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them” (v. 10). Like David’s men, they followed Paul because they believed that he followed God.

In both cases, they illustrated a maxim I have often repeated over the years: all relationships require a commitment that transcends the evidence and becomes self-validating.

From evidence into relationship

David’s men examined the evidence: they knew he had been anointed by Samuel as the next king of Israel (1 Samuel 16:13). His victory over Goliath was further proof of his divine calling (1 Samuel 17), as were his successes in battle (1 Samuel 18:7).

Jesus’ followers could similarly point to evidence regarding his authority. By Matthew 4, John had identified him as the Messiah (John 1:29–34), he had turned water into wine at Cana (John 2:1–11), he had cleansed the temple (John 2:13–22), and he had led the Samaritan woman and their village to himself (John 4:1–42) before returning to Galilee (vv. 43–45).

However, David’s men could not know what we know—that Saul would be killed in battle, David would ascend to the throne, and he would go on to become Israel’s most beloved king. Jesus’ followers similarly could not know that he would one day die an atoning death for their sins and rise in triumph from the grave.

In both cases, they stepped beyond the evidence into a relationship that became self-validating, and their lives and our world would never be the same.

“Every moment, thank God”

You and I face a similar dilemma in trusting our challenges to Jesus today. We know all he has done in the past, but we cannot be certain he will do the same in the present. He often healed the sick in the Gospels, but not always: Paul pleaded three times with the Lord to remove his “thorn in the flesh,” but God chose to redeem his suffering rather than end it (2 Corinthians 12:7–10).

When our older son was diagnosed with cancer, God did not answer my prayers for his miraculous healing. As a result, he had to go through surgery and radiation and still undergoes an annual MRI even today. When our youngest grandson was diagnosed with leukemia, again God did not answer my prayers for his miraculous healing. He and his family had to endure three years of chemotherapy and all that went with it.

Both are cancer-free today, for which I am beyond grateful, but neither was healed in the way I prayed for their healing to come. And I can recite a long list of friends and church members over the years who were not miraculously or medically healed. While I know God healed them eternally by taking them from their diseased bodies into his perfect presence, their physical deaths came despite our prayers for their physical healing.

So, in trusting our lives and challenges to the Lord, this is all I know to do: identify what he has done in the past, claim the fact that his character does not change (Malachi 3:6), and ask him to do what he has done before or whatever is best today.

If he does not heal your body or your loved one as he has healed others, this does not mean that he is incapable of doing so or that he loves you any less than those he has healed miraculously. It simply means that his ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8–9) and that he is acting according to a plan we cannot understand in this world but will in the next (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:12).

Rick Warren encouraged us:

In happy moments, praise God, In difficult moments, seek God. In quiet moments, worship God. In painful moments, trust God. Every moment, thank God.

Which “moment” is yours today?

 

 

Denison Forum