Three Gifts

Do not fear, for I am with you,

   do not be afraid, for I am your God;

I will strengthen you, I will help you,

   I will uphold you with my victorious right hand. 

—Isaiah 41:10

God offers us three gifts—strength, help, and support. These three gifts become the foundation of our faith praxis, both individually and as a community of faith. They are three essentials to embodying what we believe.

STRENGTH

When we think of strength, we may well imagine one of the competitors on ESPN’s “World’s Strongest Man” competitions—a huge behemoth of a human being, bursting with muscle, able to pull a semi truck a hundred yards by a rope. We may go in a different direction, remembering someone who exuded emotional strength in a moment of unbelievable stress—someone who endured the loss of a child, perhaps. We may think of someone whose beliefs and values are stone—nothing will move them from their opinions or outlook. 

Are any of these the strength that God has in mind?

As God deals with humanity, the Bible reveals that there are two fundamental issues with which God seeks for us to live—justice and righteousness. Justice is the way we deal with one another. It is being sure all have enough. It is being sure the Least of These have a voice and find comfort and care. It is being sure the equity and fairness are the base of decisions and outcomes. Righteousness is walking with God each moment. It is living with God at center, having God be the guide for the way we act and live and speak. It is being sure we acknowledge God always. It is being sure gratitude for each day and all that comes within it leads our response to God. Or as Jesus summarized them—it is loving God with one’s whole being, and loving one’s neighbor as oneself.

Anyone who makes the attempt to live in such manner immediately realizes that strength is absolutely necessary. It takes strength to live for others in a culture defined by Self. It takes strength to argue for compassion, generosity, and mercy in a culture defined by competition in which the strong survive while the weak get pushed aside. It is the strength seen in Pope Francis taking his message of embodied compassion to the very seat of government built on individualism, capitalist competition, and self-interest. 

HELP

As we think of help, we think of someone assisting someone else. It may be in a crisis—you come upon an auto accident and choose to stop, seeing if there is anything you can do for the folks in the wreck. It may be helping someone figure out how to do something—a math tutor sits beside a struggling student trying to master the rules and science of geometry, carefully explaining theorems and calculations until they become sensible. It may beholding get a project done—a husband and wife tackle transforming their yard into a garden, working side by side to get it done. 

Such is the help God offers. God helps us through the crises we meet in life, both personal and global. God offers grace to the person beset by sin, knowing they messed up, needing forgiveness to let go of remorse and regret. God offers healing to the person broken in mind, body, or spirit, assuring us always that there is nothing in all creation that can ultimately separate us from God (cf. Rom. 8), that all can be well. God offers direction to the person wrestling with the deep questions of meaning and purpose, sitting close by the person praying for guidance, opening possibilities before them. 

That help becomes our strength. It is the sure and certain presence of God. That presence is what makes the faithful stand for what they know to be of God within the world as the world is.

SUPPORT

The word God uses here is “uphold” (tamak, Heb.)—which carries the image of taking someone in your arms and literally helping them to stand as you stand right behind them, bearing their weight. As the prophet Hosea reflected on this work of God, he imagined a mother teaching an infant to walk, holding the child by the hands whose feet barely scrape the floor as they toddle across the room (Hos. 11:3,4). 

God promises to be this close to us as we seek to walk with God and love our fellow human beings with the compassion of Jesus. 

Remember that as we look at the many, many needs presented to us each and every day. As we watch the struggling flow of refugees streaming from Syria to anywhere else, God walks behind us, supporting us as we seek to find ways to respond in compassion to a truly overwhelming human misery. As we watch our children head to school, into the world, or perhaps behind the wheel for the first time, God is with both them and us, taking us by the hand to see us through the decisions, choices, and crossroads we meet. As we drive past the bums under the bridge, knowing that Jesus would be right there with them, God is right behind us, ready to lift our feet to move in grace to help. 

God supports every effort to love. Every, single one.

Trust this good news to be good. Trust these gifts to be with us. God is good and grace abounds—we can transform the world, one act of faith at a time.