Tag Archives: resilience

Unexpected testing

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In my last post I looked at the remarkable sources of God’s provision for the prophet Elijah: God mobilizes scavengers, multiplies the assets of the poor and enables the marginalized to contribute. In doing so, God challenges the assumptions and mental blocks of the privileged and presumptive sources of provision—people like me. In fact, the story is told in a way I can identify with, because its focus is Elijah.

However, even as God is working his purposes in Elijah’s life, he’s also working in the widow’s life. He yearns for her to know him, and he’s using Elijah to bring about his purposes for her. The widow’s version of this story might read a lot differently, but there’s not much detail on which to build that retelling. So we try to read into the woman’s actions and the small handful of words captured in this story.

For instance, I would like to know if, when she enters the scene, she already has a spark of faith. Did God reveal in some way, prior to her meeting Elijah, his plan and calling to her? Even as she has lived on the edges of Israel’s border, has she been seeking Israel’s God? I also wonder how this widow responds to God’s daily miracle. 

In the previous act of this story (1 Ki 17:8-16), this widow took a leap of faith to trust the man of God. In this final act (1 Ki 17:17-24), she faces a crisis of faith. Just as things are starting to look hopeful, her son dies, and this setback seems to confirm her worst fears: that this God is just like all the others.9 For most people in her situation, there is no rags to riches outcome. She may even have been bracing for bad news because it figures, after the series of misfortunes she has experienced. Her words reveal her resentments and core beliefs: she asks Elijah what he has against her, but she’s really asking what God has against her. This loss might not be as painful if her heart hadn’t opened a bit.

It’s interesting that she raises the issue of sin (v18). Romans 5:13 tells us that “sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law” (see also Rom 5:15); therefore, she’s not under the Hebrew Law. However, she understands in some way that she has missed the mark; she’s not in right standing with God. 

In that comment, she reveals that she understands sin has a price. But she also reveals that she was expecting grace, the primary characteristic of Yahweh she has personally experienced so far. In her pain and anger, she reveals a level of conviction and a fragile faith. 

Digging further, history tells us that worship of Baal sometimes required child sacrifice. Now the God of Israel seems to have taken her son. So again, is this God any different? It’s an enormous test of her faith, beyond what many fledgling believers could withstand. 

In fact, this is where Western believers sometimes get tripped up in their faith. Why would God allow this kind of trial when the woman’s faith is so fragile? It’s appalling to read stories like Jesus confronting the rich, young ruler and then watching him walk away (Matt 19:16-22) or offending his followers and chasing away those who weren’t serious (John 6:60-66). Why wouldn’t the God who doesn’t snuff out a smouldering wick or break a bent reed (Is 42:3) shelter this widow’s simple expression of faith until it’s strong enough to withstand a storm? What if her faith breaks? 

Elijah’s response suggests he has the same mindset; he even seems to be having his own crisis of faith. He doesn’t speak to the woman at all: no compassion expressed for her loss, but instead, a brusque, “Give me your son” and a march up the stairs to his room. His prayer reads to me as rather accusatory: God, did you bring tragedy on her? Did you kill the boy? Perhaps he expected his presence in her home to have brought her some kind of covering rather than make her life worse.

The passage says God listens—even to sullen, angry prayers like Elijah’s. Yet, for Elijah, the son’s resurrection was probably more of a relief than a moment of great joy. Maybe the woman’s faith will survive this crisis now.

Don’t miss the amazing faith in Elijah’s prayer; he asks God for something no one had ever dared to dream of before. Up until this moment, death was always the end. We get used to the New Testament stories, but this was the first recorded resurrection in the Bible.

Take a minute to read one of them: Luke 7:11-17. Jesus is traveling in Galilee when he encounters a funeral procession. The only son of a widow has passed away. Jesus raises the young man to life, then gives him to his mother. In this parallel story I see two insights into the Zarephath story.

First, Jesus responds with compassion and cares for the widow before addressing death. The contrast to Elijah’s bedside manner exposes where his response was lacking. Perhaps the difference is simply one of character and personality: Elijah was full of faith, but he was also a flawed individual who was prone to emotional ups and downs. But it also reveals power and knowledge: Jesus knew how the story would end, because even then he had authority over death, while Elijah was pleading for the impossible.

Second, we see the response of the witnesses: fear seizes them and they glorify God. They conclude two things: Jesus is a great prophet, and God has visited his people. The Sidonian widow concludes the same thing about Elijah and God:

  • She says, “Now I know.” She has experienced it herself.
  • She recognizes Elijah as a prophet—his words are truth, and in his mouth are the words of Yahweh.
  • When she identifies Elijah as a man of God, she refers to God as Elohim—the supreme God, the God of gods, the God over Baal.
  • The deeper message is a profession of her belief in God. She no longer refers to Yahweh as Elijah’s God, as she had in v12. God has visited her.

In God’s miraculous resurrection of her son, she encounters even greater power and even greater grace than she has been experiencing on a daily basis.

So why does God give her such an extreme test? I believe he knows that her faith can’t stay in its current condition. Elijah will soon be leaving, and she needs to be able to stand on her own feet. It is time for her to reach a decision about whether she and her household will believe, and serve the Lord (Josh 24:15).

I started this series researching to see how non-Westerners read this chapter. The North American approach would likely be to coddle such fragile faith by protecting the seedling, growing it carefully and guarding it from any real test in the early years. Many in the East and the South would say that’s unrealistic and point out that too much water or protection of a plant leads to shallow roots. Years later, when the plant is growing and should be mature, it is actually still fragile because of its roots. They would expect sacrifice, suffering and danger to come for a new believer, and rapid root growth is necessary for resilience.

We don’t know what happens with this woman after this. But her story can’t be looked at in isolation. Her line will now continue, and when seeds of faith are planted, you never know when they might pop back up again. We’ll look at that in our final post in the series.

References (intentionally seeking non-Western views)

9. Tse, Justin. “Elijah.” (Hong Kong) A Sermon for Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Proper 5. Patheos. 27 July 2016. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/ecperson/2013/06/10/preaching-elijah/

Elijah series:

Studying shrewdness: Jacob’s legacy

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Let’s continue our study of Jacob’s family line, recalling Jesus’ admonition that the people of the world are more shrewd in their context than we are. We should study and learn from their tactics, while not reproducing the motivations. In these two examples, the heart is certainly not admirable.

Episode 2b: Leah vs. Rachel

At the same time Jacob is the protagonist in the drama with Laban, he’s a secondary player in a battle of wits between two sisters who learned shrewdness from their father Laban (Gen 29:31-30:24). Placed in a competitive position by their father’s deceit, Leah and Rachel now play out an epic domestic battle over their husband’s love and attention, and the requirement their culture has placed on them to gain value by producing male children.

Redemptive lessons:

  1. Shrewd people recognize points of leverage. Leah and Rachel are brutal in their attacks on each other because they know each other so well. The same trait can work the other way as well. Rick Lawrence defined shrewdness as “expert application of the right force at the right time in the right place.” Expertise comes from familiarity, and these sisters certainly had that in spades.
  2. Shrewd people never stop with no. When God withholds the fruit of the womb from Rachel, she finds another way: offering her servant as a concubine. While Rachel’s act was selfish and rebellious, it’s not unfamiliar to Jacob, whose grandparents did the same thing (Gen 16). As I’ve said before, tenacity, resilience, creativity and resourcefulness are built into the megacompentency we recognize as shrewdness.
  3. Shrewd people are singleminded in their pursuit of a goal. They have clarity about what they want, and pursue it with passion. One reason many believers don’t practice the same art of shrewdness is that we don’t have a clear goal, and we’re not as committed to finding a way to get there as Leah and Rachel were.

Episode 3: Simeon and Levi vs. Shechem

The shrewdness gene goes completely out of control in this story from Genesis 34. Jacob, of all people, would curse his sons for their deception (Gen 49:5-7). While the clan camps outside the town of  Shechem, Jacob’s daughter Dinah is raped by Prince Shechem. When the prince then asks to marry Dinah, the brothers agree, on the condition that all males in the city get circumcised. “While all of them were still in pain,” Simeon and Levi go into the city, kill all the males in the village, plunder their goods, wives and children, and rescue Dinah.

Is there anything redemptive we can apply from this brutal story?

  1. Shrewd people understand their adversary. Jacob’s sons recognize the lust and greed (Gen 34:23) of the people of Shechem and expertly pull those strings to convince them to do something radical: get every male circumcised. Like a good phone scam, they require a deposit in order to get all this wealth in return. We can also pay attention to the motivations of others. For instance, an innocently shrewd negotiator will match motivations of both parties so everyone wins.
  2. Shrewd people use empathy to advantage. Simeon and Levi attack at the point of greatest weakness and pain. How did Simeon and Levi understand the right moment? Through empathy; they were very familiar with the healing process of circumcision. We can also use study and personal empathy to find the right moment for action.
  3. Shrewd people find ways to lower defenses. Genesis 34:25 says Simeon and Levi also attack at the point of Shechem’s greatest sense of security. The dream of intermarriage and the resulting transfer of wealth slows down the men of Shechem. In this case, it was empty promises and deceit. But the same principle of finding the right moment and not pursuing a frontal attack can be applied innocently as well. Rather than try to convince someone of something when their resistance is highest, there are ways to lower their guard and win them over.

By the way, God can redeem curses and evil shrewdness. In Exodus 32, Levi’s descendants choose the Lord’s side even if it means opposing their brothers, and so Moses blesses them and sets them apart. In Numbers 3:12, God chooses the tribe to be his redemptive substitutes for the people of Israel, and makes them his priests.

So here’s the point: you can find redemptive lessons in any example of shrewdness, no matter how evil its application. It’s a matter of studying and flipping the story around. That was Jesus’ point. Where do you see shrewdness applied in your context? In your world? How can the story of Jacob and his extended family help you improve your skills at gleaning out the principles so you grow in shrewdness?

Shrewd Series

Falling ability

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When I was learning to ski back when I was in high school, I was taught that the most important thing to learn is how to fall well. Now, there’s two ways to judge quality. When you’re on the ski lift, and you see someone wipe out spectacularly below you, you judge a good fall by factors like whether both skis and poles separate from the individual, what body parts hit snow at high speeds, number of twists, etc. When you’re the one falling, you use different parameters. You want to fall in such a way that your skis don’t twist and cause knee damage, that you don’t hit stationary objects, and that you are able to get up again. During the recent Olympics, we saw some people who knew how to fall. Do you remember Anja Paerson, the female downhill skiier who crossed the finish line on her face? She ended up getting bronze two days later. That was someone who knew how to fall.

I think what Michelle Braden would tell you is that leaders need to know how to fall. They need to be able to get back up, stiff and bruised as they are, and try again. When gauging leadership potential we need to consider, What is a young person’s ability to fail and then recover again? Do they understand how to do that? As I think about her question, “Do they understand the process to recover from failure?” I suspect most organizations don’t have any kind of articulated process for that. What they have instead is a track record. I heard recently about an executive in Orlando who very publicly blew it in managing a division of the company. The CEO took him under his wing and gently restored him and built up his confidence again. He is now CEO of a division of that company. How many people in the company watched that happen? I guarantee you there are leaders in that company who have followed that same model to restore others. And I guarantee you the young leaders and aspiring leaders in that company noticed.

So, I think there are three points that are worth discussing. First, stop and ask yourself: What is your organization’s track record for recovery from failure? What can you as a leader do to change or build on that track record?

Second, as established leaders, keep your eye open for failure. Look for young people who show fortitude and resilience in failure. We can look for those who can take the heat and handle pushback. We can look for those who can stand by a decision that blew up on them and not make excuses. We need to be quick to come alongside them and not let them stay down too long.

Third, take a moment to think: What was your first big failure? What lessons did you learn from it that you still apply today?

I like to warn graphic designers that a day will come when they would cost their company money because of a bad decision. If they are lucky, it will only cost the company hundreds. My first big mistake cost my company a couple of thousand. I remember getting the bank stationery back from the printer and picking up the first sheet of letterhead. It felt like it was printed on copy paper. I got a big knot in my throat. I had to go to the namesakes of our public relations firm and own my mistake — that I had trusted the recommendation of our print broker without verifying the paper myself. We of course reprinted the job. That situation ended up breaking my relationship with the printer that we had used for years, and I probably could have handled that situation differently. My boss never complained about the cost. But I’ll tell you this: I worked harder at my job after that point. I swore I would never disappoint my boss again. And to this day, I trust my vendors but verify everything.

Failure is great leadership development… if you know how to fall well.