We went to a local park to splash in a spectacular, new fountain. Its concentric circles rose and fell unpredictably. For a two-year-old, it was delightful. Stone played happily along the edges where the fountains were mildest. When he grew tired of those, he moved closer to the middle, running in and out and pulling me behind him.

All of a sudden, every fountain dropped into the concrete. He looked at me and ran to the center laughing, as if he were brave enough now that the hardest, highest water stopped. The smaller fountains started up again at the outside edges, gentle water rising and falling in irregular rhythms, but he didn’t notice. He was too busy with his happy dance. If he had, he might’ve been prepared for what was coming.

Within seconds, the next ring of water fountains was playing. More forceful than the outer ring, they rose higher and faster. Stone looked at me, surprised, trying to add it all up, but his brain wasn’t calculating fast enough to move him out of trouble. The strongest, innermost ring was certainly coming up in seconds, right where he stood.

I didn’t want to get soaked. While I’d brought a change of clothes for him, I hadn’t thought to bring one for myself, and I didn’t want to go in after him, “Stone, look at me,” I hollered just outside where he stood, trapped now by the closing ring of rushing water that terrified him. “Come to Mama, buddy. Come now.”

And just like that, he came, braving his way through the high rising water that stung his cheeks and forced his eyes shut. The thundering geyser barely missed him—it shot up the moment he stepped out.

Trust in-the-clutch shows where a person’s faith is. These passages tell more about what that trust looks like.

Numbers 16

You’d think that would be the end of it. You’d think everybody from that day on would be shaking in their shoes, minding their own business, thankful the bad guys are gone.

Here’s what happened: some of the Levites, led by Korah and two others, revolt against Moses and Aaron. They said every one of the Levites was just as qualified to be priest as Aaron was, not simply to do menial jobs around the tabernacle. What’s more, Moses and Aaron were acting like big shots running the community, Nu 16:1-3.

Moses is distressed; he says they’ve gone too far. He tells them to show up the next morning—all 250 of them plus the ring leaders–and bring their censors filled with incense. “God will take his stand with the one he chooses,” Nu 16:4-11 MSG.

The next morning, God instructs the Israelite community to back away from those ring leaders, and the earth opens up and swallows them alive, along with their families and everything they own. Then fire comes out from God and burns up the other 250 troublemakers holding incense censors, Nu 16:16:23-35.

Unbelievably, the day after this, people are grumbling against Moses and Aaron again. This is the day you’d think they’d be careful about what they say. But they complain that Moses and Aaron have “killed God’s people!” But God did it—weren’t they paying attention? Nu 16:41.

Moses and Aaron fall face down—again. It’s the third time they’re undone by the people and fall before God, pleading for them in this chapter. What to do when the people you’re serving want to kill you? Want to run you out of town? Blame you for what they’ve done? In-the-clutch, when the chips are down, Moses falls on his face before the God who hears him, and asks God to spare them, Nu 16:4, 22, 45.

But God sends a plague that begins killing the complainers anyway. Moses tells Aaron to get his censor, and Aaron goes among the people to atone for them before every last Israelite is taken out. God had threatened twice before to kill them all and start over with Moses—maybe he will this time? Nu 16:46-50.

Aaron stands between life and death for them, a perfect picture of what Jesus does for us, but not before 14,700 of them die. It was a severe judgment, but God is just and merciful. I’m guessing the rebellion went this wide, Nu 16:47-50.

It’s as extraordinary a story as the manna that shows up every morning, as Israel’s victory against Amalek because Moses’ arms are propped up, as the exodus from Egypt, as the Red Sea crossing. Through events like these, God’s done miraculous things to save them, things the people have witnessed firsthand, and still, nearly 15,000 of them have the wrong idea about who he is and what he’s about.

Moses say their complaining is against God, not against him or Aaron. The Levites rise up because they don’t trust God to decide who’s qualified to serve him. God needs their two cents; God can’t handle these issues himself. But Moses falls down because he knows only God has what it takes to save them. Big difference in trust. Big difference in results, Nu 16:11.

Sin is deceiving. It can color our perception of an event to be something completely other than what it is. It tempts us to think we have all the information we need to stop trusting God-to-be-God for us, and we’ve gotta take charge.

Like Korah, many of us are dissatisfied with our lots in life—the spouse we married, the children we’re raising, the home we live in, the church we attend, the government we’re funding.  Grumbling and complaining, pointing out what’s wrong with everything…this is a cancer that eats us up if we let it.  And it’s contagious; it gets picked up and passed around; it takes on a life all its own. 

Is your bell ringing? Or is that mine?

God is sovereign over where we live, who we live with, what our jobs are, who’s in authority. These circumstances are all handpicked by him for us. No one has ideal ones. There are sticky spots and sticky people everywhere we are.

The solution isn’t to find a way out from under them. It’s to fall down before the God who enables us to love our sticky people, who helps us thrive despite our deserts, who gives us gifts like these in disguise to purify and refine us. Hard people, hard places, hard circumstances are God’s tools for growing us, just the way they were for Moses and the Israelites.

Trusting in-the-clutch looks like believing God knows what’s best for you.

We don’t have to look any farther than to Jesus to see how to live with hard circumstances.

Mark 15

There are only two warm spots in this entire chapter: the women who watch Jesus’ crucifixion from a distance. They don’t run away; they’re present and grieving. And Joseph, who goes to Pilate and asks for Jesus’ body. Joseph wraps Jesus in fresh linen himself and puts him in his tomb, while the women watch, Mk 15:40-47.

Jesus left the sequences of events of this awful day in God’s hands. He could’ve influenced how it all went down. He had power at his fingertips to call angel armies if he wanted to. But he didn’t. He chose to let God make those decisions, from Pilate to tombstone. This was God’s plan for him, and he accepted it as best for everyone, Mt 26:53, Jn 17.

It’s only by trusting God-to-be-God that Jesus could step down from his glory and bear all the humiliations that happened. He was a willing participant, because he trusted in God’s goodness no matter the misery to himself. If even Jesus, God’s own Son, needed to trust like this, surely I must, Php 2:5-18.

Trusting in-the-clutch looks like giving your hard and hurtful circumstances to God to manage.

Psalm 55

David is dealing with bad guys of all kinds, but it’s the betrayal of his closest friend that hurts most.  In this psalm, he spells it out, but he doesn’t leave us in the dumps at the end. He ends in hope and says, “I trust in you,” Ps 55:9-15, 20-23 MSG.

He believes God hears his prayer, feels his pain, knows his desire for rest and peace. David tells him all of these things and says “God will help me.” Three times a day he calls out to God and finds his “life is well and whole, secure in the middle of danger even while thousands are lined up against me,” Ps 55:1-8, 18-19 MSG, emphasis added.

David asks God to “slit their tongues,” to “haul his betrayers off,” to “put them in their place, ” but he won’t do it himself. His advice for dealing with enemies is this: “pile your troubles on God’s shoulders—he’ll carry your load, he’ll help you out.” God throws bad guys out with the trash, but we don’t get to toss them, Ps 55:9-11, 22-23.

It’s tempting to want to make people pay for their wrongs against you. It’s human to want to see them get what’s coming, but it’s not your job to do it. God says, “It’s mine to avenge, I will repay,” He 10:30 NIV, emphasis added.

I’ve had to trust God with my enemy, and I’ve watched God bring his hammer. He doesn’t pull punches—every one of them lands. It’s been enough to sober me into worship rather than gloating. I don’t want to bring any of those paybacks on my own head.

Trusting in-the-clutch looks like leaving your enemies—even your closest friend—for God to deal with.

Prayer

God, I want to believe you’ve designed all the pieces of my life for my thriving and refining, even the enemies I’ve got. You hear my calls and sighs. You hold me up. Help me trust you when the fire gets hot and I want to hop out. Give me trust in your clutch on me.

In Jesus’ name.

Proverbs 11:5-6

Good character gives a good life; bad character brings a bad one. Integrity is its own insurance; evil catches crooks like flypaper.

Passages from Numbers, Mark, Psalms, and Proverbs are selected for today in The Yearly Bible.