GodReflection: Tenacious Trust
Gerald Kendrick, my first Bible professor engrained into me a phrase I will never forget. He would stand before the class with passion as he made real the Holy and declare, “the Bible is not a debater’s handbook.”
Always, his point was to use the Bible to know God and understand his purposes rather than to win an argument.
A rich vein within Scripture is found behind the facts of a story in an attempt to understand its main players. Who were they? What is the result of their encounter with the Holy? Is there something in their life I need to learn?
One person in Scripture that illustrates what Professor Kendrick taught is Saul of Tarsus. Who is this man woven into the history of the church by Jesus to become the Paul the apostle?
God creates each of us to be a unique one of a kind person. There will never be another Apostle Paul. Few people in Scripture—other than Jesus Christ—are the personification of tenacious trust more than Paul.
In 2 Corinthians 11 as he defends his apostleship—and his own commitment to the same Jesus he once attempted to eradicate—he cites what that trust cost him in a personal way.
I stand in awe as I read his laundry list of hardships:
His trust seemed to grow as he makes his list – hard work, prison, flogged, exposed to death, received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one, beaten with rods, pelted with stones, shipwrecked, a night and a day in the open sea, constantly on the move, danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from fellow Jews, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the country, danger at sea, danger from false believers, deprived of sleep, experienced hunger, thirst, cold, nakedness, and felt daily the pressure of concern for all the churches.
The only conclusion I can reach is that Paul’s life exemplified a tenacious trust that must have been grounded in his deep personal relationship with Jesus.
He knew his own evil track record. Yet, it was in the Holiness of Jesus where he found eternal cleanliness and forgiveness.
He knew Jesus above all.
I can’t help but wonder about his three days in the dark after the light blinded him on the Damascus road. Did Jesus sit beside him in the darkness of repentance and reassure him as he basked in a warm bubbling simmer of love and forgiveness?
Is it possible that during the three days of darkness while in the house of Judas on Straight Street, that in addition to the vision Saul had of Ananias arrival to restore his sight, it was at this time that Jesus gave Saul the tour of heaven and an introduction to Holy God?
When Paul wrote to the Corinthian church of hardship that came about because of his day in and day out trust in Jesus he concludes:
I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows—was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell (2 Corinthians 12:2-4).
Here’s my take away.
Tenacious trust is found where a person truly has joined their heart with Jesus’ heart.
I can never be the apostle Paul.
Nor do I know the details of his personal encounters with Jesus. But something happened on those occasions that caused a man to change his agenda from murder to discipleship.
I think he had a heart transplant.
In those encounters he found his discipleship driven by submission to a Holy call and as the result he was transformed into personified tenacious trust.
That should cause me to examine my own level of trust, don’t you think?
Stay tuned.
Dr. Gary J. Sorrells
A GodReflection on Tenacious Trust Personified
God Reflection 