Some of God’s deepest work in me happened hundreds of miles from the nearest church. Here I am driving an ice road across the Beaufort Sea toward Tuktoyaktuk, an Inuvialuit community in Canada’s Western Arctic.
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The Stolen Tailgate
What Psalms 31–33 are teaching me about owning what is mine—and releasing what isn’t
Years ago, I cheated an insurance company out of a tailgate.
I rationalized that they somehow didn’t mind, or that they owed it to me for all the premiums I’d paid them.
I had bought an old half-ton pickup without a tailgate. A new one cost around $300. During that season I was working for a rancher and only making $500 a month. I kept looking through wrecking yards for a used one.
Then one winter day another opportunity presented itself. I lost control of the truck on an icy bridge bridge twisting through the Crowsnest Pass. The truck spun, went over the edge, rolled over some big rocks to land down near the water.
When the government insurance company asked what had been damaged, I included the tailgate.
The one I didn’t have.
They repaired the truck, including the tailgate shown in the photo above.
Years passed.
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When God Starts Cleaning House
Later, while living and working thousands of kilometers away, in the far North near the Arctic Circle, something was changing in me.
Church was hundreds of miles away. I sometimes attended only once or twice a year. I would leave after work, drive through the night, and arrive in the city in time for church on Sunday morning.
I knew very little about church government, denominations, or many of the things Christians can spend considerable energy discussing.
I just loved being there.
Church felt like a feast.
And somewhere in those years, I began going through something like my own Psalm 32.
I started confessing everything I could remember.
Not everybody else’s sins. Mine. And wherever possible, I tried to make things right.
Eventually I found myself back in Cranbrook, where I had made that insurance claim.
I walked into the insurance office and told the man behind the counter what I had done.
“I’d like to make it right.”
He asked what I thought the tailgate had been worth.
“Probably about $350.”
He told me who to make the cheque out to.
That was it.
He didn’t thank me.
He didn’t laugh.
He didn’t look amazed at my newfound spiritual integrity. Instead, he looked past me at the lineup in the insurance office.
“Next”
Apparently, heaven’s orchestra was taking the afternoon off.
But I walked out feeling free. So worth it.
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The Cow I Never Paid For
There were other accounts.
Before the Yukon years, another cowboy and I accidentally killed a cow while working on a large ranch during calving season.
We were young, intimidated by an angry foreman, and instead of admitting that we had given her too much medicine and hadn’t watched her closely enough after she calved during a spring blizzard, we allowed her death to disappear into the records as another animal lost during calving.
Years later, from a payphone along the Alaska Highway, I phoned the ranch.
I told the manager what we had done.
To my surprise, he was grateful. I still remembered the cow’s brand, and that helped them correct their records and trace the bloodline.
I offered to pay for her—to make it right.
$1,200.
He wouldn’t let me.
He simply thanked me for telling the truth.
Another old account came to rest.
Then came an unexpected twist.
When I eventually left the Yukon for Bible school in Dallas, I met a Texan who was friends with a family who owned a ranch up in Canada.
The same family!
I discovered they were believers.
We’ll spend eternity together.
But… not everything can be repaired so neatly.
Some things we have done cannot be undone.
Sometimes all we can do is tell the truth, ask forgiveness, try to make things as right as possible—
and leave the rest with God.
Bring Everything to Zero
Years later, my uncle and mentor gave me words for something I had been learning.
During the last decade of his life, he told me God had been speaking to him about bringing all his relationships to zero.
His explanation was simple.
If I suspect someone feels I owe them something, I work with them to make things as right as possible.
If I feel someone owes me something, I don’t spend the rest of my life carrying their account.
Where conversation is possible, I talk to them. If restitution is possible and they are willing, we explore those options. If something is beyond repair, I place it in God’s hands.
But I try to keep my side of the relationship open.
For me, that means keeping an olive branch of goodwill extended whenever opportunities arise.
Maybe that means sending a Christmas card.
Sometimes it simply means talking nicely about them behind their back.
Paul says:
“Pay to all what is due them…” Romans 13:7
And then:
“Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another.” Romans 13:8
Some debts can be settled.
One cannot.
Tomorrow morning, I will still owe love.
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Three Psalms, Three Movements
For the past few weeks, I have been walking slowly through Psalms 31 and 32.
Read together with Psalm 33, I am beginning to see a remarkable movement.
I don’t know that these three psalms were deliberately arranged to teach three stages of spiritual formation. But in the form in which we have received them, they speak powerfully to one another.
Psalm 31: What do I do with what they did to me?
Psalm 31 takes us into betrayal. Friends disappear. People talk. Enemies conspire. Jesus reached for words from this psalm from the cross:
“Into Your hand I entrust my spirit.”
David doesn’t pretend evil is good. He doesn’t abandon justice. But he relinquishes his need to control the ending.
“My times are in Your hand.”
What belongs to another person, I don’t have to carry for them. What belongs to God, I don’t have to seize from Him.
Psalm 32: What do I do with what I did?
Then Psalm 32 turns the mirror around. Now the problem isn’t what they did. It is what I did. David stops hiding:
“I acknowledged my sin to You, And I did not hide my guilt.”
And something beautiful happens. The God from whom David had been hiding becomes the God in whom he hides:
“You are my hiding place.”
The psalm begins with concealed guilt. It ends with joy:
“Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous ones, And shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart.”
The person who was hiding can sing again.
My times are in Your hand. My sin I acknowledge to You. Our soul waits for the LORD.
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What If a Whole Community Lived This Way?
Psalm 33 begins almost exactly where Psalm 32 ends.
Psalm 32:
“Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous ones…”
Psalm 33:
“Sing for joy in the LORD, you righteous ones; Praise is becoming to the upright.”
Psalm 33 has no superscription in the Hebrew text.
Whatever the history behind these two psalms, in the Psalter we have received, the connection is difficult to miss.
And it raises a question I cannot shake:
What happens when a whole community begins learning the lessons of Psalms 31 and 32?
What happens when I stop obsessing over your account while hiding mine?
When I can acknowledge what belongs to me without demanding that you acknowledge what belongs to you first?
When we stop trying to control one another?
Perhaps then we become capable of something surprisingly difficult.
Waiting for God together.
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Learning Where Not to Trust
Psalm 33 widens the horizon.
Kings make plans.
Armies gather.
Warriors display their strength.
Horses look impressive.
But:
“The king is not saved by a mighty army; A warrior is not rescued by great strength. A horse is a false hope for victory.”
That horse is interesting.
Psalm 32 had just warned:
Don’t become like a horse or mule that must be controlled by bit and bridle.
Then Psalm 33 says:
Don’t put your confidence in the horse either.
Perhaps mature faith involves both.
We stop requiring God to drag us toward life.
And we stop trying to drag history toward the outcome we demand.
We learn where not to place our trust.
A Different Kind of Nation
Then comes a familiar verse:
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, The people He has chosen for His own inheritance.”
In its original setting, this is Israel—YHWH’s covenant people.
Our modern word nation, however, can make us hear something narrower: Canada, Brazil, the United States—borders, governments, passports, flags.
I sometimes find the expression Cherokee Nation more helpful.
A nation can also describe a people bound together by identity, history, belonging, and allegiance.
Later, Peter reaches back into Israel’s language to describe the diverse people being gathered around Jesus:
“A chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation…” —1 Peter 2:9
Not another political empire.
A people gathered around another King.
Their unity is not sameness.
Their unity is direction.
They are learning to face the same way.
Toward God.
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Our Soul Waits
Near the end of Psalm 33, God is watching:
“Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him, On those who wait for His faithfulness.”
And then the community answers:
“Our soul waits for the LORD; He is our help and our shield. For our heart rejoices in Him, Because we trust in His holy name.”
Notice the language.
Our soul. Our heart. We trust. We wait.
Many people.
One orientation.
Not because they agree about everything. Not because nobody wounds anybody. Not because every conflict reaches a tidy conclusion.
God has become their shared center.
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Christian unity does not require us to become alike. It gives different people a shared center. Our Porto de Moz conference met in an elementary school, so at mealtime the adults squeezed around tables built for children. It was fun.
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Three Truths to Carry Into the Week
1. Own what belongs to you.
Confession does not begin with what somebody else needs to admit. Psalm 32 begins when I stop hiding my guilt.
2. Release what does not belong to you.
Forgiveness doesn’t call evil good. It means I don’t spend my life carrying a debt that ultimately belongs in God’s hands.
3. Learn to wait with others.
Healthy Christian community doesn’t require everyone to become alike. We become a people as our deepest trust increasingly turns toward the same Lord.
“Our soul waits for the LORD.”
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This week, we are learning again to wait.
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A Personal Update
This week, those words feel less theoretical.
We are now back in Canada.
Soon after returning, Deanna ended up in Emergency and is now on bed rest while we continue to follow up with her doctors and give her time to recover.
So once again, we find ourselves doing what Psalm 33 describes:
waiting.
We are deeply grateful for the friends around the world who continue to pray for us.
Thank you. Your prayers mean more to us than you know.
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A Prayer
Lord Jesus,
Teach us what belongs to us, And give us courage to own it.
Where we have sinned, Help us stop hiding.
Where we can make things right, Give us humility to do it.
Teach us what belongs to others, And give us grace to release it.
When we are wounded, Keep disappointment From becoming contempt.
Keep us from carrying Accounts You never asked us to collect.
Teach us what belongs to You, And keep us from grasping for it.
Our times are in Your hands. My sins I confess to You.
Our soul waits for You.
Form us into a people Whose unity is not sameness, But shared allegiance.
Teach us to face the same direction.
Toward You.
Bring our accounts As close to zero As grace and truth allow.
And leave us with the debt We gladly carry into tomorrow: To love one another.
