Reflective Bible Study

As we continue moving through Matthew’s gospel, and specifically through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, Jesus comes to a challenging message, but unlike some of the previously challenging messages, this challenge is about something that isn’t specifically a sin, but a challenge related to trust.

Let’s read what Jesus told the crowd, before unpacking how this is relevant in our lives over 2,000 years later. Our passage is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 6, and we will read it from the New Century Version. Starting in verse 25, Jesus continued preaching, saying:

²⁵ “So I tell you, don’t worry about the food or drink you need to live, or about the clothes you need for your body. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothes. ²⁶ Look at the birds in the air. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, but your heavenly Father feeds them. And you know that you are worth much more than the birds. ²⁷ You cannot add any time to your life by worrying about it.

²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? Look at how the lilies in the field grow. They don’t work or make clothes for themselves. ²⁹ But I tell you that even Solomon with his riches was not dressed as beautifully as one of these flowers. ³⁰ God clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today but tomorrow is thrown into the fire. So you can be even more sure that God will clothe you. Don’t have so little faith! ³¹ Don’t worry and say, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ ³² The people who don’t know God keep trying to get these things, and your Father in heaven knows you need them. ³³ Seek first God’s kingdom and what God wants. Then all your other needs will be met as well. ³⁴ So don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will have its own worries. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

In this passage and message to everyone present, Jesus challenges us on the validity of worrying about things in our lives. Jesus basically says in these few verses that worry is worthless. Worry does not gain us anything positive.

So then why do we worry if it isn’t productive or positive?

I don’t have a good answer for this question, except to give the theory that worry comes from a lack of trust. For those who believe in God, worry comes from not trusting that God will have all the details worked out. For those who don’t believe in God, worry is simply not trusting that things will work out in the end.

Sometimes this fear is warranted. Sometimes, God, or life, doesn’t make things work out for us. Sometimes bad things do ultimately happen. While this could be a great place to talk about why bad things happen to good people and bad people alike, I will resist the urge to do so here.

Instead, our passage focuses us on the singular topic of worry. Jesus directly gives us the challenge in verse 27, “You cannot add any time to your life by worrying about it.”

Worry is not productive. Worry does not benefit our lives in any way. In contrast to worry, we might spend a few minutes planning some “what if” scenarios, but after we have decided on the various courses of action, then we move forward with life ready to take whatever action is planned out based on the outcome of what we are concerned about.

This strategy balances planning and trust. If we are concerned about something we cannot change or affect, then worrying about it doesn’t do any good. Instead, we should plan what we will do when an outcome to the situation happens. Having a plan lessens worry.

In contrast, the things that cause us to worry where we can change the outcome are not things worth worrying about. Instead, we must intentionally work to improve the situation and to bring about the change we would like to see happen. While most situations have more variables we cannot control than the variables we can, we must focus on doing only what we specifically can and then trusting God will work out the other details.

There is no getting around trust being the antidote for worry. However, when we are tempted to worry, there is something else we can do can help grow our trust if it is weak. This other thing will seem obvious and maybe a little cliché when I say it, but that doesn’t change its validity.

When we are tempted to worry, we should turn to God in prayer and ask Him for two things: We should ask Him to help the situation we are worried about in the best way possible from His perspective, and we should ask Him for help trusting that He knows best.

While we might have an idea of what outcome we would like to see in any given situation, our perspective isn’t God’s, and it is better to defer some of the big decisions and big challenges to God because some of these things are better left in His hands.

Remember that above everything else, God wants each of us to ultimately end up with Him in heaven. This means two things. First, this means that we have faith in Jesus and that we have a saving relationship with Him. Secondly, this means that we must actually want to go to heaven. While the first is obvious for most people, the second is where things get challenging.

If God were to take every single piece of bad out of this world, there would be very little desire to go somewhere better. In a way that I don’t understand all that well, when bad things happen in this world, one outcome that is positive is that we are reminded that God has a better place in mind for our future, and that we can trust He will take us there when He returns.

Remember that when bad things happen or when we are tempted to worry about a potentially bad thing happening, trusting in God is the antidote for our worry. We can mix this trust with a few minutes planning some “what if” scenarios, but after we have these plans in place, we trust God will work things out as He knows best. We can even pray for His best outcome to happen and that He will help us trust that whatever happens is for the best from an eternal perspective.

Worry by itself is worthless. However, if worry prompts us to plan, act, and trust in God even more, then it accomplished what it was designed to do. Worry is only present to remind us we are not trusting God, and when we trust God, worry get’s pushed away.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, continue to seek God first in your life, and when worry wants to challenge your trust in God, take your worry to God in prayer, asking for more trust, and asking for guidance moving forward. While we can make plans for what could possibly happen, regardless of what happens, we want to follow the path God knows is best when He brings resolution to what we are concerned about. Prayer is the best way to ask God for help with trust when worry wants to invade our lives.

With our prayer, we should also be sure to regularly study the Bible for ourselves to learn how God has worked in the past and how He has promised us He will do the same in our lives. While our lives and our world are very different from the world and lives of those who lived back then, trusting God when challenges come is always relevant.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or be scared away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Immediately following Jesus’ encounter with the Sadducees, we learn that another religious teacher brings a question to Jesus. However, unlike other challenges, this one ends in a unique way that is worth us paying attention to. Instead of ending the discussion with the religious leader looking foolish or scratching his head, this discussion ends on a positive note, which is very unusual.

Let’s read about what happened from Mark’s gospel. Our passage is found in chapter 12, and we will read from the New International Reader’s Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 28, Mark tells us that:

²⁸ One of the teachers of the law came and heard the Sadducees arguing. He noticed that Jesus had given the Sadducees a good answer. So he asked him, “Which is the most important of all the commandments?”

²⁹ Jesus answered, “Here is the most important one. Moses said, ‘Israel, listen to me. The Lord is our God. The Lord is one. ³⁰ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Love him with all your mind and with all your strength.’ ³¹ And here is the second one. ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ There is no commandment more important than these.”

³² “You have spoken well, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one. There is no other God but him. ³³ To love God with all your heart and mind and strength is very important. So is loving your neighbor as you love yourself. These things are more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

³⁴ Jesus saw that the man had answered wisely. He said to him, “You are not far from God’s kingdom.” From then on, no one dared to ask Jesus any more questions.

We’ll stop reading this passage here, because Mark includes the transition statement about Jesus not receiving any more questions after this. However, it’s possible that the questions stopped after what we will read about in our next episode, which covers one last question we find in a different gospel record that may have taken place immediately after the event we just read about.

In many ways, this passage appears to set the stage for what Jesus is about to say next. However, if we too quickly jump there, we might miss something profound Jesus says in this portion of this discussion.

From the question this religious teacher asks, from Jesus’ response, and from the way the religious teacher restates Jesus’ words, part of me wonders if this wasn’t the first time Jesus received this question, and I wonder if this religious teacher was already expecting this answer. When Luke’s gospel records a similar event, the person asking a question is described as a lawyer and he wanted further clarification regarding who we should consider as our neighbor.

That event likely happened before this one, so it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that this religious teacher already had a good idea of what Jesus’ response would be.

However, this teacher says something profound as he restates Jesus’ answer. When wrapping up Jesus’ words, the teacher concludes by saying, “These things are more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” (v. 33b)

What we discover from this teacher’s words is an amazing, big truth: Love for God and love for our neighbor are more important than our offering, our sacrifices, and anything we give to God. This response teaches us that before we even think about bringing something to God, we should first have love for Him and we should have love for others. If these two foundations are not met, then our offerings and sacrifices will be tainted and we risk God not accepting them.

While the context of this discussion deals with the requirements of the sacrificial system, the language that we have with us today can also be used for all other types of giving and giving up.

When we bring something to God, whether it is money, time, an object or possession, or even our hearts, we call this an offering. These offerings are not burned on an alter like the burnt offerings in the Old Testament era, but we still call them the same word. I don’t think this is an accident. Instead, I believe these categories of modern offerings are equivalent, especially in the context of our discussion.

In a similar way, when we sacrifice something, we are removing it from our lives. While sacrifice is closely related to giving offerings, offering focuses on the giving act and specifically where our gift goes, while sacrifice focuses on the giving act and what we are giving up or removing from our lives.

Both aspects of giving are key to our discussion and to this teacher’s concluding statement. We must have love in our hearts before we give up anything from our life, which is called sacrifice, and before we give anything as an offering to God. Having love for God and love for our neighbor “are more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” (v. 33b)

This passage wraps up with one more statement from Jesus. Verse 34 begins by telling us that “Jesus saw that the man had answered wisely. He said to him, ‘You are not far from God’s kingdom.’”

This is interesting because it implies that while this teacher knows the right answer, he was missing something that was needed for entrance into God’s kingdom.

Assuming that this teacher had love for God, love for his neighbor, and a solid track record of sacrifices, what could Jesus have been referring to in His final response? If all these other things are in place, the only thing missing is a belief in Jesus.

This man was not far from God’s kingdom because he knew all the right things, and he likely lived them out. But when challenged on whether Jesus was the Messiah God sent, this man sided with the traditional religious culture who believed Jesus to be an imposter. This man wasn’t far from God’s kingdom, but he was missing the key needed for entrance. Faith and belief in Jesus is that key.

In our own lives, while we might say and do all the right things, if we aren’t placing our faith in Jesus, we forfeit the life we are promised that comes through Jesus. In the end, being not far from God’s kingdom might then mean that we are close, but being close to the kingdom is still being outside of it. Accepting Jesus into our hearts and lives is the key we use to enter God’s kingdom.

While life inside God’s kingdom includes doing and saying the right things, the motivation for what we do and say is different. Those outside of God’s kingdom seek entrance through their actions. Those inside God’s kingdom live righteously as a thank you to God for everything He has already blessed us with – and these blessings and gifts rest on the foundation of the most important gift ever: Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross to pay for our sins. Nothing is more important than this. It is the key for entrance into God’s kingdom.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

If you are worried that you aren’t good enough for God or that you cannot reach His standard, accept the fact that this is true. However, also accept the fact that Jesus came to live the life you couldn’t live, and to offer His life as a replacement for yours. Accept Jesus’ gift and change your focus from living righteously trying to please God to living righteously as a Thank You to God.

When we are living life from a Thank You perspective, we might stumble, but when we stumble, this doesn’t change our attitude of thanks. Instead, when we stumble or fall, our thankfulness towards God is increased, and we get back up and press forward. Living with a “Thank You” perspective is a completely different perspective than what many people are use to.

Also, as I always challenge you to do, always pray and study the Bible for yourself to grow personally towards God and towards Jesus. Personal prayer and Bible study grow a personal relationship with God, and a personal relationship with God leads to eternal life.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or wander away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Picking back up where we left off in our last episode, Jesus continues sharing during His famous Sermon on the Mount about the importance of doing things privately for God rather than publicly for the praise of others.

But before Jesus picks back up with this focus, He has a short, challenging message for all of His followers. Of all the challenging messages and difficult ideas Jesus shares, this one is one of the most challenging and difficult, if for no other reason than because of its subject matter.

Let’s pick up reading where we ended off last week in Jesus’ sermon. Continuing in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 6, using the New International Reader’s Version, immediately following Jesus finishing the model prayer, He tells us starting in verse 14 that we should:

¹⁴ Forgive other people when they sin against you. If you do, your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you. ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive the sins of other people, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Pausing briefly, I want to emphasize this huge, challenging idea. If we do not forgive other people, God will not forgive us. This makes forgiveness one of the most significant characteristics of God’s people, and some might say that this is the most significant.

If you struggle with forgiving others, then perhaps this challenge from Jesus is a wakeup call for you to ask God for His help to forgive others, to forgive a specific situation, or to simply let go of a past issue that keeps coming to mind. If we hold on to the past, this unforgiving spirit hurts us more than we realize and it ultimately damages our relationships with others and our relationship with God.

After challenging those present with this message of forgiveness, Jesus continues preaching. Picking back up in verse 16, Jesus told the crowd:

¹⁶ “When you go without eating, do not look gloomy like those who only pretend to be holy. They make their faces look very sad. They want to show people they are fasting. What I’m about to tell you is true. They have received their complete reward. ¹⁷ But when you go without eating, put olive oil on your head. Wash your face. ¹⁸ Then others will not know that you are fasting. Only your Father, who can’t be seen, will know it. Your Father will reward you, because he sees what you do secretly.

¹⁹ “Do not gather for yourselves riches on earth. Moths and rats can destroy them. Thieves can break in and steal them. ²⁰ Instead, gather for yourselves riches in heaven. There, moths and rats do not destroy them. There, thieves do not break in and steal them. ²¹ Your heart will be where your riches are.

²² “The eye is like a lamp for the body. Suppose your eyes are healthy. Then your whole body will be full of light. ²³ But suppose your eyes can’t see well. Then your whole body will be full of darkness. If the light inside you is darkness, then it is very dark!

²⁴ “No one can serve two masters at the same time. You will hate one of them and love the other. Or you will be faithful to one and dislike the other. You can’t serve God and money at the same time.

We’ll stop reading here. In this section of Jesus’ sermon, He reemphasizes the importance of doing things for God in secret, and in a way that only God will see what you are doing. He extends the living, giving, helping, and praying in private to also fasting in private. When we do things secretly for God, we trust that He will reward us.

Jesus compares our doing good for others and doing things secretly for God like making deposits in a heavenly bank account, or like gathering riches in heaven. While we understand the importance of saving and earning money in an earthly sense, Jesus tells us that all the money in the earth is not as safe as a single penny in heaven.

Money on earth can erode, it can decompose, or in our highly digital society, a seemingly insignificant computer glitch can take our money from abundant to absent. While this isn’t a statement for or against a cashless society, Jesus does make the challenge that money acquired here on earth is temporary at best. Instead, we should focus on growing money in heaven.

While this sounds great on the surface, growing money in heaven works differently than growing money on earth. Giving all your money away here on earth can earn some riches in heaven, but heavenly wealth is measured in different terms than earthly wealth, and there is no guarantee that giving money on earth will earn treasure in heaven.

Some might wonder how we earn treasure in heaven, since Jesus appears to place great emphasis on this here in His message. The answer has been what we have been subtly focusing on over the past couple of episodes. We earn treasure in heaven when we do things privately for God, when we give in secret, when we help anonymously, and when we pray privately. When we live for God in a way that gives God the glory, and when we do things for God in ways that cannot be praised or rewarded by others, then we earn treasure in heaven, and treasure in heaven cannot decay, treasure in heaven cannot be stolen, and treasure in heaven does not disappear over time.

Treasure in heaven gains heavenly interest, and while treasure in heaven doesn’t earn us a place in heaven, we can only earn treasure in heaven when we are living for God and have accepted His sacrifice on our behalf.

Ultimately, Jesus tells us that the most valuable part of our treasure in heaven is our hearts, because when our hearts are focused on our heavenly treasure, we live for God in more significant ways than if our hearts are focused on the things of this world.

Jesus finishes by challenging us that we cannot serve two masters. We cannot be looking for and seeking after things in this life while also being 100% dedicated to God in heaven. The challenge Jesus ends with is deciding whether you will serve God, or whether you will chase money or wealth here on earth. We cannot do both, and while society tells us we should choose wealth, Jesus has already framed wealth as not lasting past this life.

God wants us to be rich in heavenly riches, and this comes through focusing on God, serving Him, and living our lives in ways that secretly and publicly honor Him!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, continue seeking God first and choose to place Him first in your life. Choose to grow riches in heaven by serving God in secret ways while also publicly acknowledging Him. Help others anonymously, give secretly, live subtly, pray privately, and when growing close to God through other spiritual disciplines, do so in a way that others won’t be able to tell. What we do for God in secret is what God will reward us for when we reach heaven!

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn, grow, and move closer to God. While learning from others is good, always take what you learn and filter it through your personal, private time in prayer and in the Bible. It is through this personal prayer and Bible study where God wants to grow a personal relationship with you and He will teach you what is worth focusing on when we bring what we learn to Him in prayer and study!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or stop moving towards where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

During the week leading up to the cross, it appeared as though every religious group decided that now would be the time to challenge Jesus. While we often look at challenges from the Pharisees, a group that was not as well represented, or perhaps a group that wasn’t called out by name as often, was the Sadducees. The Sadducees probably stood back and watched as Jesus kept succeeding against the Pharisees, and they probably enjoyed these challenges, but eventually, as Jesus began teaching more and more, they began to notice that He wasn’t like them either.

The Sadducees had two key distinctions or beliefs that set them apart from everyone else. First, the Sadducees only believed the books of Moses were of spiritual significance. While the other Old Testament books had good things to say about history, the Sadducees minimized the spiritual significance of the rest of the Old Testament writings. This contrasts the Sadducees with the Pharisees and other religious groups who took the Old Testament scriptures more holistically.

The other key distinction was that the Sadducees did not believe in a future resurrection. This teaching, while it sounded great on the surface, was not easily supported by Moses’ writings, and because of this, the Sadducees rejected it.

For our passage in this episode, we discover what happens when some of the Sadducees challenge Jesus with a question. Depending on the gospel we read from and the translation we use, the question they ask sounds either hypothetical, or like something that had happened at some point in the past. Either way, the question is fascinating, and it sheds light on why they rejected the idea of resurrection.

While we could read this passage from Matthew, Mark, or Luke, Luke’s version of this includes one additional phrase at the end of Jesus’ response that makes it a little more profound. Because of this reason, let’s use Luke’s version of this event for our time together. We can find this event in Luke, chapter 20, and let’s read it from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 27, Luke tells us that:

²⁷ Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. ²⁸ “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. ²⁹ Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. ³⁰ The second ³¹ and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. ³² Finally, the woman died too. ³³ Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”

Let’s pause reading here for a moment. This dilemma is the perfect setup for disproving the resurrection, because in the writings of Moses, the setup for marriage was one man to one woman, and while all seven were married to her, she technically wouldn’t be married to them all in heaven, because it violated the structure of marriage that God gave in Moses’ writings. If she had given a child through the seventh union, it changes the equation, but not significantly, because there still would be the issue of who was married to who because while the child would be the oldest brother’s child, the woman was still had been married to and united to all seven of the brothers.

However, Jesus takes an interesting and unexpected approach with His answer. Jesus doesn’t discount the trickiness of the situation, but He instead makes it irrelevant. While the Sadducees had placed marriage on a pedestal, and then filtered their beliefs against a resurrection through this lens, Jesus counters this argument. Picking back up reading in verse 34:

³⁴ Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. ³⁵ But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, ³⁶ and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.

Let’s pause briefly again, because Jesus has said something profound both to the Sadducees, and to us today. In Jesus’ response, “this age” includes marriage, but the age to come does not. The age to come follows the resurrection of the dead. When marriage is not an issue and the dead have been raised, the children of this resurrection are called God’s children, and at this point, they can no longer die.

These three short verses challenge one of the deepest held beliefs in the broad Christian church. Eternal life follows the resurrection, the resurrection of God’s children happens at the start of the age to come, and the age to come is marked by the absence of marriage. These three verses challenge the idea of an eternal soul because the emphasis is on resurrection, and eternal live only being given to God’s children after they have been resurrected from the dead.

Let’s reread the first part of Jesus’ reply to the Sadducees before moving forward:

³⁴ Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. ³⁵ But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, ³⁶ and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.

But Jesus isn’t finished responding and challenging the Sadducees. Jesus has just shifted the focus away from marriage and onto the resurrection. But what about the Sadducees who don’t believe in a resurrection because it isn’t in the books of Moses. Picking back up in verse 37, Jesus continues by saying:

³⁷ But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ ³⁸ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

³⁹ Some of the teachers of the law responded, “Well said, teacher!” ⁴⁰ And no one dared to ask him any more questions.

In this last portion of Jesus’ reply, Jesus takes the Sadducees foundation against the resurrection, and he challenges it. Not only that, Jesus challenges us in this response. Luke’s gospel includes the final phrase: “for to him all are alive”. This phrase is significant, because with it, Jesus appears to contradict His earlier challenge while also validating the tradition view of an immortal soul.  

Is Jesus contradicting Himself here? No. Instead, in the second half of Jesus response, He shifts perspective, and if we don’t shift perspective with Him, we are left looking at a pretty significant contradiction in Jesus’ teaching.

This perspective shift is easy to miss, but it is found in the first three words of Luke’s extra phrase: “For to Him”. This perspective shift makes the last idea focus us onto God’s perspective. While it might easy to jump to the conclusion that everyone is immortal because God sees everyone as alive, that conclusion is a bad one to take because it assumes that our perspective is God’s perspective. This is impossible for many reasons, but one significant reason for our discussion of this topic is that God is outside of time and we are trapped within it.

To help us understand God’s perspective, imagine watching an old movie. Every time you press play, the characters come alive on the screen. This movie has captured a secondary timeline from the one we are living in. In our timeline, called history, at least one of the actors in this movie has probably died, but when we watch what was captured on film, the actors come alive again.

If a character dies part way through the movie, all it takes is rewinding or jumping back in the movie’s timeline to see them as alive again.

This is the perspective Jesus shares about God in this last portion of His reply. God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they all are alive to God because He simply can look back to their time in history and see them as alive. When God holds the remote control on history, He can fast forward, rewind, pause, and focus on any part of this world that He wants.

God has the perspective that everyone is alive, but that is because He can see all points of history. This doesn’t mean that everyone is conscious at all points in history. Instead, our perspective mirrors the first part of Jesus’ reply: We look forward to the resurrection, when God the Creator and Re-Creator, pull everyone from their respective endpoints in history’s timeline into a brand new timeline called the New Heaven and New Earth.

In the new age without sin, Jesus tells us that there won’t be marriage, but I’m sure that is because it will have been replaced with something even better. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to the resurrection, and the start of the new age without sin.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Always seek God first and trust Him with your life and your future. If death scares you, don’t be worried. Jesus faced death and He conquered it! Death is no match for the life Jesus has promised us when He returns.

Also, be sure to always pray and study the Bible for yourself to discover God’s truth for your life. While a pastor or podcaster can give you things to think about, study out everything you hear from God’s Word to validate it yourself. While what we focused on in this episode is a hot topic in Christianity, it’s my goal to get you thinking and studying this for yourself, rather than simply prompt you to believe the same way I do. I want you to believe what God teaches you through the Bible as a whole – not just some single texts that have been assembled together.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another never stop short of, back away from, or give up on where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!