Sometimes great faith can
lack great wisdom.
Ephesians 6: 17 Take the helmet of
salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
18 And pray in the Spirit on all
occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.
It occurred to me in
thinking about this that Peter was a fisherman not a soldier. In his intensity, he grabbed the soldier’s
sword and had no clue how to really use that sword. I think he probably wasn’t aiming for the ear
but for the head. Jesus had to do damage
control. It may be good that he didn’t
know how to ‘use’ it. Jesus may have had
to raise a soldier from the dead on his way to crucifixion. That’s quite an interesting rabbit trail
which I won’t follow.
I’ve heard it expounded
that the word of God is the ‘sword of the Spirit, not the sword of the
believer.’ That is another bunny trail,
but I will say here that if we are in Christ, we have his Spirit, living in,
interpreting, protecting, and instructing us all the time. We are somewhat clueless about this sword,
but if we have become one with Christ, then the argument about it being the
Spirit’s sword is mute except for our lack of understanding and training which
is part of His job in our lives.
Peter had been listening
to Jesus teaching them about the days that were quickly approaching, but he
didn’t really understand at all. None of
them really understood. Peter was the
only one who grabbed the sword though, so he stands out.
Jesus said a lot of things
to believers that require faith, understanding and an open ear to the Spirit
inside of us. They are valid. They are valid. They are valid. We don’t understand. First of all, we miss the spirit of what is
said most of the time.
Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the
Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
John 14: 12 “Very truly I tell you, whoever
believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do
even greater things than these, because I am going to the
Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that
the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for
anything in my name, and I will do it.”
We like power don’t
we. But power without control is
destructive. That isn’t the reason for
the power. We get all about ‘pulling
down’ and ‘casting out’ and while that has its validity, we are senseless
children who have much more faith in our own judgment and desires than in the
wisdom, love and plan of God. Most of
the time we not only don’t know what God is doing about us, we don’t really
care. We want what we want.
Matthew 17:20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if
you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain,
‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be
impossible for you.”
Matthew 21: 21 Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt,
not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you
can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the
sea,’ and it will be done.
What if someone wants to
cast my mountain –the one I live on- into the sea? What would the effect of that be for me and
the others around me? What if that
person really is a servant of God and really wants my mountain gone? My hope is that the Spirit will interpret that
prayer to the Father for my good as well as the good of the one who prayed. For, I have prayed intense prayers that
wielded the sword of the Spirit mightily and had my faith strengthened. I have also wielded that same sword
intensely, spoken in strength and faith to no apparent result.
We are pretty easy on
ourselves here. We build excuses for why
God just didn’t answer or perform when the truth is our emotion and opinion
were so loud we did not and could not hear anything the Spirit would say during
that prayer. The telling thing is that
God is patient and good to us anyway even when we pout and yell and
misrepresent Him so completely. We are
learning, we are failing and trying again and one day we start listening for
the Spirit’s instruction no matter how much our gut wrenches.
So what is the
conclusion? Read. Pray.
Learn. Listen. Read. Pray. Learn.
Listen. Use what you have. Study the sword and learn to use it wisely. What if you embarrass yourself? What if you are clumsy and don’t understand
what God is doing? God is big enough to
take care of it; He is smart enough to understand it and not give you a stone
when you need bread. Trust his wisdom
and love. Like the best ‘daddy’ in the
world, He cares what His kids need; He cares what His kids want. But He is wise and loving and way beyond
where we are. Knowing that, ask always. The wisdom will come and He can handle it
until it does.
