Restrictions

When God trims your wings.

In Matthew’s Gospel, we hear some rather surprising words from the lips of Jesus to his twelve disciples: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.” If that wasn’t enough, when he is petitioned by a Canaanite woman from the region of Tyre and Sidon, to heal her demon-possessed daughter who’s suffering terribly, he replies, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

Whoever would have thought that this Gospel which closes with the sending of his disciples into all the world to disciple the nations would have contained within it such restrictive statements?

Clearly, the heart of our Lord Jesus is far larger than these remarks appear to suggest, and that spills over into his ministry. This woman, after all, did not go away unanswered and her daughter unhealed. He regularly responded in mercy to all who sought him, whatever their background, and even chose to throw his net wider still.¹

His disciples’ hearts were another matter, though. They very much needed refining — think of James and John wanting to call down fire on those who refused to welcome Jesus and their attempt to prevent their Lord being served by those they had not personally approved.² Think, too, of Peter’s need for the encounter with Cornelius in Acts 10 before he grasped the scope of the gospel of grace.³

So this ‘only to the lost sheep of Israel’ is clearly a theologically- and historically-determined point⁴ but it also bears a wider significance that often meets us right where we are in the swamps of life in a fallen world.

In the ways of God with us and the world (for which we use the term ‘providence’) there can be seasons of confinement or restriction — for what can feel like times, time and half a time (to borrow a phrase without intending its biblical significance). Those seasons are not for the sake of limiting God’s purposes, either in us or through us, but for reasons known to him and only partly revealed to us, if they are unveiled at all. Perhaps hindsight will prove to be our clearest vision.

This was something Paul had to wrestle with and resolve in his heart when his commission to be apostle to the nations, an expansive role if ever there was one, had been curtailed and he languished in prison. Writing the letter to the Philippians from there, he says he has learned to be content and you get the feeling there has been a lot of heart-searching and God-seeking involved in that learning.

The same was true for the poet John Milton, which he records in the sonnet On His Blindness. Having wrestled with the immense changes and difficulties brought on by losing his sight, and not just practical but psychological and spiritual (a blindness which descended before he wrote his most celebrated — and lengthy! — work, Paradise Lost), he found himself at last able to affirm the superior value of bearing his Saviour’s mild yoke, concluding that “They also serve who only stand and wait”.

How are we to understand the constraints we ourselves may be facing, whatever their nature or apparent source? Partly we need to realise that such times in God’s hands may not be enduring, that they may well be temporary (as was the case with the ‘mission only within Israel’s borders’). Of course, they may also be permanent, as Milton’s blindness was, and so we need to go further than simply saying “Hang on in there, things might change soon.”

It may well be the restrictions we’re facing have come with a deal of pain and confusion (sometimes pain is the restriction) which chafe our spirits and induce an inner rawness. But God is wise, and we are his, so we aim our hearts at giving ourselves fully to what is before us in this moment, looking to counter the “if-only” or “but-Lord” with the contentment of knowing that his will truly is best.⁵ And we say that not as a cliché, nor as a trite attempt at consoling ourselves, but as a genuine expression of faith from a heart that longs only to know Jesus and find its rest in him.

Little did the apostle Paul realise when he penned his letters from prison how lastingly significant they would be and how God would bless them to countless numbers of Christians down the centuries. No doubt it felt like an awful restriction, a very unwelcome interruption to his life of service, yet in the hands of God it was anything but.

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The song, This Cup, written by Sara Groves and Ellie Holcomb, expresses so well the tensions inherent in the challenging reality of restrictions and “our chasm of need”. I hope you’ll find it a helpful listen.

This Cup

How many hours have I spent
Watching this shining tv
Living adventure in proxy
In another person’s dream
How many miles have I traveled
Looking at far away lights
Listening for trains in the distance
In some brilliant other life?

This cup, this cup
I wanna drink it up
To be right here in the middle of it
Right here, right here
This challenging reality
Is better than fear or fantasy

So take up what we’ve been given
Welcome the edge of our days
Hemmed in by sunrise and sunset
By our youth and by our age
Thank God for our dependence
Here’s to our chasm of need
And how it binds us together
In faith and vulnerability

This cup, this cup
I wanna drink it up
To be right here in the middle of it
Right here, right here
This challenging reality
Is better than fear or fantasy

What if my whole world falls apart?
What if my life could be different?
What if I sat right here and took you in
Without the fear and loved you whole
Without the flight and didn’t try to pass

This cup, this cup
I wanna drink it up
To be right here in the middle of it
Right here, right here
This beautiful reality
Is better than fear or fantasy.

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1. For example, in John 4 we see him deliberately engaging a Samritan woman, to the shock of his disciples.

2. See Luke 9:49-55;

3. See Acts 10:34f to see that particular penny dropping.

4. Which I am not going to address here — and perhaps not anywhere! Discretion/valour — I’m sure you get the idea.

5. See the lovely hymn God holds the key of all unknown.