Setting Your Face Like Flint

Dear Trekker,

I remember much too well sitting in the stands some years ago at one of my son’s graduations from high school in northern Virginia and hearing the speaker say words to this effect: “Don’t accept what your parents or your teachers have told you. Find truth for yourself. Explore! What is true, is what is true for you!” I cringed! What heretical words! To this day, I don’t know why I didn’t stand up in the crowd and shout from the top of my lungs, “It’s a lie! Don’t listen to him. He speaks heresy.” I guess I didn’t have the guts! I surely would have embarrassed my son! Or, would I?

This month, trekker, I feel led to do a sequel to last month’s MEN, “God has a Wonderful Life for your Plan.” I am thinking about all the graduations this month. My own grandchildren are saying goodbye to high school and college. Are there better words to send them out into the world than those cited above? Indeed there are! Let’s step up to the plate and speak truth into young lives. The future of life as we know it, depends upon it! So reread last month’s MEN (www.menpassingthebaton.com) as it is the foundation for “the power of God going forth to the next generation.” (Ps 71:18) This is why we write.

The title of this newsletter, “Set Your Face Like Flint” is taken from the prophet Isaiah who was seeking to encourage the Israelites to live out their faith when he exclaimed, “Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore, I have set my face like flint and I know I will not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near. (Isaiah 50:7, 8a)

“Setting one’s face like flint” is a beautiful, descriptive metaphor for taking life head-on! Surely high school graduates do this as they leave the comfort and security of home and safe harbors. What should be one’s attitude if one truly accepts the Lifegiver? “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

I appeal to this generation to acknowledge the truth of these words of Christ. We don’t achieve the solution to life; we receive the gift given, the secret

of grace, the benevolent sovereignty of a loving God, the security of a relationship based upon, “I will never leave or forsake you.” King Solomon’s proverb reminds us: “In ALL your ways, acknowledge Him, and he will straighten out your paths.” (Read: direct and keep one out of trouble.)

Trust is the natural follow-on to the acknowledgement that Truth is a Person! Trust is faith in that Person without reservation. The presence of trust confirms acknowledgement of truth; acknowledgement without trust is meaningless as a guide for life. “Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding.” (Prov 3:5) God rarely tells us what he is doing in our lives before the fact; hindsight is the great revelation of God’s specific purposes and plans. So, trust is essential.

If we trust, truly trust, we commit our way, our future to Him! Because He loves us, He gives us good gifts. Because He loves us, he picks us up when we fall. Commitment is really lived out only as we play the game of life according to the rules and relationships given. We obey: “Whoever knows my commandments and keeps them, he is the one who loves me”, says the apostle John. “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way, to be happy in Jesus” is forever true and in a simple straightforward way, quite profound. I like the similar admonition to the Philippians by the apostle Paul, “Get going with your own salvation, for God is at work within you, helping you to want to obey Him, and then helping you do what He wants.” (J. B. Phillips translation of Phil 2:13)

Acknowledge… trust… commit… obey… and delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. (Ps 37:4) Often our desires are so deeply embedded in our heart we cannot extract them, or even know them. Yet, God sees our hearts, knows them, and gives us our deepest desires. My, my how my desires have been met, over and over again, beyond my wildest dreams or ability to produce! Gently, effectively, permanently, He has a wonderful life for my plan!

Because all of this is God life, a life up, up and away from the dirt, grime, and muck of the world, let us all “be still before the Lord and wait patiently upon Him!” (Ps

37:7) I love the little phrase, “God is the slowest person in the world who is never late.” How true! So essential is this to young people striking out in life on their own. God does not respond to the snap of our finger! His thoughts are not ours! His ways are not our ways! But He is the God who is there; who will not allow our feet to slip, nor will He lose His grip upon us.

Setting our face as a flint… let’s examine the metaphor. Remember your scouting days…starting a fire with flint? What ignites the fire of Spirit sweeping into and through our lives? When struck against the steel of reality (life as it is, not as I want it to be), flint will produce sparks. And when the tinder of acknowledgement, trust, commitment, obedience, delight, and wait is present, those sparks produce fire. Setting one’s face as flint in life will propel our youth forward as the spark first ignited the powder to fire a bullet from a flintlock firearm.

“Didn’t our hearts burn within us while He talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” These words of exclamation by the disciples that first resurrection Sunday can yet yield burning hearts that will set the world aflame. It is no secret what God can do when our youth “set their face as flint”, when they “have the mind (attitude) of Christ.” And when they pass through the waters (as they surely will), He will be with them! When they pass through the rivers (as they surely will), they will not sweep over them. When they walk through the fire (as they surely will), they will not be burned. Why? Because “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” (Isaiah 43)

A relationship it is… all about Him, and a wonderful Life He gives us all for our plan. Can we do anything less than set our face as a flint? Trekker, believe it, but more importantly, live it. And we will send off our graduates empowered as if shot out of a cannon, if they see Christ in us! May we labor together “until Christ is formed in our youth.” (Galatians 4:19), particularly those graduates sallying forth into life this month.

Godspeed, your trekker friend,

Jim Meredith