Yet again, I’m not on Time’s “most influential people” list

It’s an annual rite of disappointment: Time releases its list of the one hundred “most influential people” and I’m not on it. It happened again today. Their roster includes “artists,” “icons,” “leaders,” and “titans,” none of which apparently describes me.

Not only did I not make the list, I haven’t even heard of many of the people who did, and I don’t know any of them personally.

But here’s the good news: Our grandkids are coming to our home for Easter weekend. If I believed in reincarnation, I would want to come back as my wife’s grandchild. Janet is already planning for the event—everything from Easter eggs to games and meals is in preparation. She wants our kids and grandkids not just to be fed and busy but to have the best weekend they can have.

This is how parenting is intended to work: We want our children and grandchildren not just to survive but to thrive, not just to get through life but to experience the best of life. If we published a list of the “most influential people” in our lives, they would be at the top. Their flourishing is our great aspiration and joy.

Why, then, do I struggle to believe that God wants the same for me? Why do I so easily question whether I can expect his best in my life?

My doubts have much less to do with him than with me. The good news is that Holy Week points the way to our Father’s greatest blessings every week of every year.

Two reasons for my doubts

One factor behind my doubts is that I know that God knows me too well for me to have any claim to his blessings on my merits.

I can understand that the God who “is” love (1 John 4:8) must love me on the basis of his character, not mine. Such love must want me to have the essentials of life. But to ask for or expect more seems like asking or expecting more than I should realistically aspire to seek from a holy God.

Another factor is that I am viscerally averse to the health-and-wealth “gospel” that has become so popular in my lifetime.

Whenever a preacher assures us that if we have enough faith we will always be healthy and prosperous, I think of Jesus on the cross and the apostles martyred for their faithfulness to him. I think of the fact that more Christians died for their faith in the twentieth century than in the previous nineteen combined. I think of dear friends in Cuba who suffer greatly for their commitment to Christ and of believers in Communist and Muslim lands who face horrible adversity because they follow our Lord.

In light of their persecutions, what right do I have to expect different, much less to expect to flourish in this fallen world?

“I pray that all may go well with you”

And yet we read in Scripture again and again that our God wants to “bless” us.

For example, Paul could testify: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3). John similarly wrote, “Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul” (3 John 2).

We are told that God is “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). We read of Joseph of Arimathea, a follower of Jesus who was so wealthy he could lend our Savior his tomb, and of Nicodemus, who contributed a very expensive “mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight” (John 19:39) for his burial. Among Jesus’ followers was a group of women who had such wealth that they “provided for them out of their means” (Luke 8:3).

The Bible nowhere says that “money is the root of all evil.” Rather, it warns, “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evils” (1 Timothy 6:10, my emphasis), which is a very different thing. And it teaches the rich “to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share” (v. 18).

A Cuban pastor explains persecution

One way to balance the biblical themes of persecution and prosperity is to recognize that “persecution for righteousness’ sake” is one pathway to blessing. Jesus said so: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (Matthew 5:11).

Persecution certainly does not feel like a blessing at the time, of course. When Paul was beaten with “many blows” and imprisoned in Philippi, for example, his pain would have been as intense as ours if we suffered the same (Acts 16:23).

But note what Jesus said next to his persecuted people: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:12). This promise perhaps explains how Paul and Silas reacted in their prison cell to their suffering: “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God” (Acts 16:25).

My Cuban friends would agree. When I told a pastor on the island that I was praying for persecution against his people to lessen, he asked me to stop doing so. Seeing the surprised look on my face, he explained: “Persecution is purifying our people and making us who God wants us to be.” Then he added that he was praying for persecution to increase in the US for the same purpose.

So, it is not a contradiction for God to want our best and for that best to sometimes involve intense suffering in this life. If the path to our eternal reward and temporal significance lies through pain, the benefit will always outweigh the cost.

Why God has blessed America

Another way to balance persecution and prosperity in God’s will is to recognize that the latter is often given as a means of blessing those who are facing the former.

A Cuban pastor friend was having dinner with my wife and me in Dallas one night when he said, “I have learned the reason God has blessed the United States.” I took great interest in what would come next since a Cuban’s perspective on our country and our history would be especially unique. I wondered if he was going to cite familiar answers to his question, such as our natural resources, the faith of some of our founders, and so on.

He did not. His explanation rang in my soul then and does so today: “God has blessed America so America’s Christians can bless the world.”

The Jewish people were conduits of blessing through whom the Messiah would come (cf. Genesis 12:3). Their greatest failures came when they saw themselves not as conduits but as containers of divine favor; when they came to believe that they were somehow superior to others by virtue of God’s blessing in their lives and nation.

We must not make the same mistake. When God prospers us, this is not because we are more worthy than others. It is because he loves us as a Father and wants our best, and because he wants the same for those he wishes to bless through us.

It was been well said that God measures success not by what we possess but by what we give. Let’s do the same.

What matters most to God

Holy Week reminds us each year of what matters most to God: us. He sent his Son to die on our cross, bear our sin, pay our debt, purchase our salvation, and rise from our grave. If you were the only person who had ever sinned, Jesus would have done all of that, just for you. He would do it all over again, just for you.

Billy Graham was right:

“The cross shows the seriousness of our sin—but it also shows the immeasurable love of God.”

The next time you doubt whether God wants only your best, return to the cross.