Invitation to Trust God

In college, a coworker and I started a travel club. It was called the S.E.T.T. club, which stood for Students for Education Through Travel. Our motto was “Get SETT to see the world.” We had all we needed—except people willing to join. That’s where our campaigning, recruiting, and selling the idea came in. I bring this example up because I’ve heard it said that God is like someone wanting to start a club, a club called church, sponsored by Jesus. Just like the club I started years ago, in this scenario, God would have to go around recruiting and selling the idea to people in order to get a following. After all, Jesus asked many people to “Follow Me” during His ministry.

There are obviously a lot of problems with thinking God is doing whatever it takes to get people to join His club. One of the biggest problems is the age-old question, “How can a loving God allow bad things to happen to good people?” to which there are a host of answers. Within this dilemma, many people claim they couldn’t, or wouldn’t join God’s club—the church—as if to say, if He expects to entice new followers, He needs to have better incentives. And since He’s the all-powerful God of all creation, He should be able to deliver on this pledge.

But God revealed His plan through Christ, not to win a popularity contest or to have the most “likes” on Facebook. Instead, His was a plan of salvation, or simply put, an escape strategy out of a world corrupted with sin. However, it takes wisdom to recognize it as such. 1 Corinthians 2:7-8, “…the wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God—His plan that was previously hidden, even though He made it for our ultimate glory before the world began. But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord.”

This wisdom doesn’t make sense to most people, so they reject the invitation. But Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:18-21, “We who are being saved know [this wisdom] is the very power of God… (20) God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know Him through human wisdom, He has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe….”

In our own Bible, God has inspired writings about this kind of wisdom. In fact, these books are often categorized as “the wisdom books” or “books of poetry.” They were labeled as poetry because these godly attitudes and teachings were put to music and recited in a chant and were easy nuggets of wisdom to help in everyday situations.

The book of Job focuses on what God desires for us even when we face unfathomable difficulties. The God we serve hasn’t changed; He still wants us to trust Him. People who trust Him are the ones He wants in “His club,” and all of us are given the opportunity to join.