Tariffs, Ukraine, North Korea, and strange state laws

On a much less intense level, I recently discovered some interesting laws on the books in various US states:

• It is illegal in Oklahoma for a person to “overhear discourse” and then to “repeat or publish the same to vex, annoy, or injure others.”
• Since 1848, it has been illegal in the state of Massachusetts to kill a pigeon.
• Vermont gives you the right to dry your clothes by hanging them on a clothesline.
• Alabama prohibits you from fraudulently pretending “by garb or outward array to be a minister of any religion, or a nun, priest, rabbi or other member of the clergy.”

We often hear that “all politics is local,” meaning we tend to value politics and politicians through the prism of what is most valuable to ourselves. In news coverage of proposed tariffs, for example, most reporters quickly pivot to whether they will hurt US consumers or not. The UK is concerned about Ukraine in large part because a war there could involve the rest of Europe. South Korea reports on North Korean troops because they share a dangerous border with them.

States have laws that apply only to themselves, and that’s fine with the rest of us. I’m glad my neighbor doesn’t hang their clothes on a clothesline in their yard, for example, but I don’t live in Vermont.

However, this natural and understandable territorial focus can become a massive issue for our souls.

Asking your lawyer to perform back surgery

I happened to read Exodus 8 this morning as part of my personal Bible study. Here Moses warned Pharaoh that God would send a plague of frogs into Egypt that would “come up into your house and into your bedroom and on your bed and into the houses of your servants and your people, and into your ovens and your kneading bowls” (v. 3). And this is just what happened as “frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt” (v. 6).

Here is why this narrative caught my eye: it stands in clear contradiction to the territorial deities that frame the religion of much of the world for much of human history.

The Egyptians had gods for all kinds of needs and circumstances. So did the Greeks and the Romans, which is why you prayed to Mars if you were going to war and to Athena if you needed wisdom. Even the brilliant Athenians constructed altars to every conceivable deity and even to the “unknown god” (Acts 17:23).

Such a pantheon is necessary if your religion is transactional by nature.

If you need help with your crops, it helps to have a god who focuses specifically on them. Sailors were grateful that Poseidon (or Neptune) was interested especially in the oceans. Families seeking children could seek the help of Venus. Having one god for every need seemed less efficient and effective.

This is only logical. You wouldn’t necessarily ask your doctor to represent you in a court of law or your lawyer to perform your back surgery. You don’t read books on horticulture to learn how to repair your car. Specialization tends to lead to success within specialties.

So it can seem for our souls as well, to our great detriment.

God “pervades all things and transcends all things”

If you think there is more than one god in the universe, you by definition must accept the fact that none of them is uniquely supreme. The Bible, by contrast, offers us a single God who is perfect and complete in every way. He is all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful, and all-present.

This is actually very good news.

You want a God who not only wants what is best for you but knows what that is and can bring it to pass. You want a Lord who is just as present in your life and circumstances as in your neighbor’s. You want a King who rules the entire kingdom and can work providentially for the good of every subject who lives therein, yourself included.

And this is just what we have.

• He is the Lord for all life, assuring Noah that his rainbow after the Flood is “the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth” (Genesis 9:16).
• He is the Lord for all time as “our dwelling place in all generations” (Psalm 90:1) since “from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (v. 2). 
• He is the Lord for all places and is “not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27).
• He is all of this, all the time: “I the Lᴏʀᴅ do not change” (Malachi 3:6).

In the “Instructions” of the Irish missionary St. Columbanus (AD 543–65) we read: “God is everywhere. He is immeasurably vast and yet everywhere he is close at hand.” As a result, Columbanus asked:

Given his indescribable and incomprehensible essence, who will explore the Most High? Who can examine the depths of God? Who will take pride in knowing the infinite God who fills all things and surrounds all things, who pervades all things and transcends all things, who takes possession of all things but is not himself possessed by any thing?

“The only path of no regrets”

The key is to trust our Lord as holistically as he is holistically Lord.

We need him in every dimension of our lives. We need his provision for our physical bodies, his wisdom for our financial decisions and vocational lives, and his forgiving grace and mercy for our many sins (cf. Ecclesiastes 7:20). Because “he is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20), we are foolish if we constrict and restrict his abundant power and provision in any way.

This means that we begin every day by submitting that day to his Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), asking him to control and empower every dimension of our lives. We stay submitted to him as a “living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1), trusting him for his best in each moment and circumstance of our day (John 10:10). And we “make known his deeds among the peoples” as we “proclaim that his name is exalted” (Isaiah 12:4).

Billy Graham asked, “There are a thousand things you can do with your life, a thousand ways you can spend it—but how many of them will enable you to have no regrets at the end?” Then he answered his question: “Obedience to Jesus is the only path of no regrets.”

To this end, let’s make Paul’s prayer our own: “May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). And let’s echo the intercession of the spiritual genius Oswald Chambers, who prayed in his private journal:

“O Lord, in complete need I turn to Thee. Come to me physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually, and cause me to effect the manifestation of Thyself that is glorifying to Thee.

All of God there is is in this moment.