Will Hill’s Thoughts

HORSES & CHARIOTS
The downfall of today.

‘It is easy to persuade papists to lean on priests and saints, on old rags and painted pictures — on any idol; but it is hard to get a Protestant to trust in the living God.’ -William Arnot, 1858

I am constantly being reminded of the fast-paced, in your face, get outta my way world we live in. Things today are simply built for speed. We build fast planes, cars, subways, and trains to get people to their destinations quicker. Fast food restaurants which make processed ‘food’ available at a rapid rate to allow for minimal time consumption. PDAs run ramped on the World Wide Web receiving emails at 749832 gigawatts a second to allow the user to be up to date on the latest news, weather, or stock reports. Supermarkets and post offices boast of ‘No Wait’ with the new check-out-yourself systems. Technology is moving us right along into the future faster than we even realize. Heck, IPODs are advancing so quickly they make IROBOT look less like a movie and more like a documentary film from the future.

There is no denying the fact that we live in that future. You know, the time that all those sci-fi movies from the 70s and 80s portrayed ever-so inaccurately. I doubt that any filmmaker could have imagine that some 30 years from then, that there would be a contraption that would allow you to communicate via phone & email, take pictures, play music, monitor your heart rate, keep your calendar schedule, remind you of appointments, keep all your contact information for friends and clients, and surf the endless world wide web. And as if that wasnt enough, it also has games on it in case you get bored with the other half a million features. Top all of that off with the fact that its virtual weightless and owned by millions of people. Whew! Didnt see that coming. Not sure what Im talking about? Check out www.apple.com they really do some amazing things. Nonetheless, we are driven by scrupulous amounts of technological toys.

It wasnt until this summer, at a summer camp I was leading worship at, that I realized a truth that Ive read in Scripture a myriad of times. It comes out of Psalms 20.

1May the LORD answer you in the day of trouble!
May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!
2May he send you help from the sanctuary
and give you support from Zion!
3May he remember all your offerings
and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices!
Selah
4May he grant you your heart’s desire
and fulfill all your plans!
5May we shout for joy over your salvation,
and in the name of our God set up our banners!
May the LORD fulfill all your petitions!
6Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed;
he will answer him from his holy heaven
with the saving might of his right hand.
7Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.
8They collapse and fall,
but we rise and stand upright.
9O LORD, save the king!
May he answer us when we call.

I could make this blog a short novel, discussing each verse and its relevance in our lives today, but Ill refrain for your reading sake. Ill just focus on verses 7 & 8. Like a suddenly shocked child in an unannounced game of peek-a-boo, this verse hit me like a ton of bricks.

7Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.
8They collapse and fall,
but we rise and stand upright.

So quickly Ill give you some background information to help this make more sense. King David wrote the Psalms, as of which, Im sure you are well aware of. During his days, things were a lot like today. War happened, famine happened, real stuff happened to real people. Except in his day, kings went to war; they just didnt send their people off to fight the battle. So you can imagine his state of mind, ‘Always Prepared’. Its kind of like the boy scouts motto. He was always ready to do business with anyone that wanted a piece. He had problems to worry about just like you and me. Even the greatest of men may be much in trouble. His crown, his head, nor the grace in his heart could make him free of it.

This Psalm was written as an anthem that the people would shout and sing as a prayer when the king would go out to battle. It was a song of victory and of safety. It was not just a nice custom on their part, as when we gather on New Year’s Eve to sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and fill our hearts with nostalgia. It was a genuine prayer, an expression of their faith, a song of trust in the power of the living God who would keep the king and his armies in the midst of desperate battle.

So now that you know what this chapter speaks to, youll better understand why verses 7 & 8 floored me on the ride back to the 8th grade bunk house where I was barely sleeping.

For many years I have relied on my talent, my ability, my know-how, my will to do & create. Many times, often unbeknownst, I would find myself trusting in me, not in the Christ in me. As I rode in the back of the pick up truck that night, I started thinking why Kind David would have compared horses and chariots to places of trust or security. Then I started to think about the wars in that day. I really had to pull back to high school history class for that. During those times, countries had no guns, battleships, planes, or GPS. They had horses & chariots. For them, their strength, security, and focus was on what they thought that could tangibly control. I was beginning to see why David would place such a material object in focus view of such an issue like trust. David was a song writer. He took things around him and made them pliable with his words. He made matters of trust equate to things that people really placed weight on, whether they realized it or not.

So this really got me thinking. What does the world of this day trust in? Money, cars, cell phones, internet, countries, armies, etc. you get the point. Pretty much all of the afore mentioned in paragraphs one and two. You can fill in the blank with whatever suits your fancy. The fact of the matter is we are a very trusting people. We might not realize it, but try doing without some of things you filled in that blank with. You trust in it, or it itself. This world functions off of trust. What do you think faith is? Youve already exercised faith hundreds of times today, you just dont think about it. If youve drove a car, you had faith in the brakes. If youve sat in a chair, you had faith that it would hold you. Even reading this article proves your faith in your computer to work and function as you believe it should.

That being said, O what a revelation it was to me, when God told me that I had been making my talents and gifts into my own modern day horse and chariot. Taking a God-given gift and elevating higher than allowing God to work. I was trying to rely on my own strength and as verse 8 so eloquently says, ‘They collapse and fall’ And they do. And they did.

A great friend of mine recently told me that, ‘If your talent outweighs your character, youre worthless.’ Im pretty sure I was on that fast track. Worried and concerned about what I could do with my gifts, rather than yielding them. By striking down my horse and my chariot, I am allowing my character to be developed. Allowing it to grow in the fashion in which God has designed.

Know that ‘Vain is the confidence of all wickedness’.

Lets dont stop there.King David doesnt stop there. He continues on in the later half of verse 7 to say that although the rest of the world around him was placing their trust in false hope, he would trust first and foremost in the Lord. Here his faith is duly noted. The quite, confident expression of a man, a king, who has learned where the true power lies, the only source of power in the world. He stands up and says, I refuse to trust in anything secondary, but I will solely trust in the Lord my God. What a statement! To boldly proclaim his undeniable trust in God and God alone. He goes on to say later in the latter section of verse 8, that trusting in God alone cause him to rise and stand upright. As we trust in Christ solely as our source of hope, strength, & life, then and only then will be able to rise and stand uprightly in the knowledge of the truth.

I find it often easy to coast through the days and weeks of life. I find myself getting lost amongst the fast moving world around me, lost in things that collapse and fall. Am I placing my trust in faltering things, in material goods, in my own skills? (I john 2:17)Or am I focusing and placing my sole trust on Christ and Christ alone? I long for it be said of me that my sole trust, my one hope is Christ alone, that others may trust in _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (whatever) but Will Hill trust in the Lord. I too pray that that is/becomes your hearts desire.

Thanks for reading my blog. The only question left for you is.

Whats your horse and chariot look like?

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 25th, 2006 at 10:42 pm and is filed under Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.