Author: skatka

Bungee Jumping and at Rest

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This Sunday brought a weird confluence of thoughts and truths. 

Context: For those that don’t know, I’m adopting a daughter from India. And just now, I am waiting for a match. India releases children to be eligible for adoption every Monday. That means every Monday is the start of a weeklong emotional rollercoaster. Will it be today? My adoption coordinator said it might take a few days to coordinate up-to-date information with the orphanage. It’s Friday – now or never. Not this week. The weekend. It starts again. This process could take from 0-8 months.

Cue Sunday Morning

Sunday started with a text from my mother: ”Sunday School this morning: ‘Be a bungee jumper.’ The lesson was trusting the providence and direction of God.”

Then a visiting pastor preached on Matthew 11:28-30

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

These two ideas seem a little paradoxical. Be a bungee jumper at rest. And I’ve been meditating on the paradox all week. 

I love Matthew 11:28. Who doesn’t love Christ’s call to come to Him and find rest? Rest sounds great! But, because I am a dirty, rotten, sinner, I have some objections that occasionally surface: 

  1. Many days I’m not sure that I want to come. I know the end of the passage: “Take my yoke upon you,” and I don’t really enjoy being told what to do. 
  2. Taking God’s yoke means that the wiser ox (God) works in tandem with the young, stupid ox (me) to teach the younger ox the right way to go. My brain wants to believe that it can figure it out on its own; no help required. And (see number one) I don’t really enjoy being told what to do. 

Clearly, these are untenable positions. I absolutely need someone to lead me in paths of righteousness; I need someone who will tell me “this is the way, walk in it.” I think, I hope, I pray that I am quicker now to abandon these totally foolish ways of thinking and take up God’s yoke and learn of Him, but it’s a daily struggle. And there is another objection. Taking up God’s yoke and plowing straight furrows again, and again, and again doesn’t sound like any fun. It sounds hard. It sounds boring. 

Anyone who has walked with God for any length of time will tell you with conviction that life with God is never boring. I need you to watch sheep for forty years: now go and tell off Pharoah and watch God part the Red Sea. Watch sheep for your dad; now go and fight a giant. Wander in the wilderness for forty years; watch Jericho fall. God’s perfect plan for his children is a heady mixture of plodding and adventure. Biblically speaking, God calls us to faithfulness in daily obedience and to leaps of knowledge-based faith. 

We have to learn to plod. It’s the work of humility and meekness to take up the cross daily and love my rotten neighbors, to be thankful in circumstances I don’t like, to do everything (even the things I am convinced I can do alone) with prayer and supplication, to pray that God’s will be done instead of my own, to hold loosely my own plans knowing that God is the one who will direct my steps (whether I want Him to or not). This is “take my yoke upon you and learn of me” faith. It is hard. It demands consistent sober vigilance, taking every thought into captivity, daily taking up the cross. This plodding does not produce the instant “out” of brain-numbing entertainment or a quick thrill, but it produces with time a long-lasting, well-nurtured, knowledge-based rest born out of a growing understanding of and relationship with God.

We have to learn to jump. To trust God when he says take five stones and fight that giant, march around that wall, take torches, pitchers, and trumpets to battle, sacrifice your son, go back to Jerusalem even though they hate you. This is bungee jumping faith. Bungee jumping faith is awesome; you come through and stand looking back on the Red Sea just crossed, the walls of Jericho toppled, the giant facedown in the dust and praise God for his mighty deeds. You remember these moments to your children so that you can teach them the greatness of God. 

You can bungee jump and plod at the same time, spiritually speaking. Deciding to move forward with adoption has been bungee jumping – the really scary kind where you have no control, the ground is coming up so quickly, and you find yourself screaming (metaphorically, mostly) “God, I hope you’ve got this.” And it’s been plodding. This process started two years ago! There has been reams of paperwork, waiting for the two bedroom apartment to be ready for move-in, lag time as documents were approved, fundraising, praying, planning, hoping . . . 

And in all of this, in plodding and bungee jumping, I am to find rest. To paraphrase Paul, I am to learn “in whatever state I am in – plodding, bungee jumping, walking through the valley of the shadow of death – to be content.“ I am to know my Saviour so well that whether I am in a season that feels interminable because it is heavy, hard, or boring or whether I am in a season that makes me hold onto my hat and pray for a safety restraint, I can rest. He is my Good Shepherd who will supply my needs. He is my closer-than a brother friend, my Creator who remembers my frame that I am just dust, my strong tower where I can run and hide. He is the God who holds me in His hand and nothing can pluck me out. He is the God who delights to rescue me. And as I learn to rest in this knowledge the plodding becomes more like a walk with a friend and the bungee jumping – well, that’s still bungee jumping, there’s just a lot more joy in the jump!

As always, thanks for listening! 

Ev’ry day the Lord Himself is near me

With a special mercy for each hour;

All my cares He fain would bear, and cheer me,

He whose name is Counselor and Pow’r.

The protection of His child and treasure

Is a charge that on Himself He laid;

“As thy days, thy strength shall be in measure,”

This the pledge to me He made.

Help me then in eve’ry tribulation

So to trust Thy promises, O Lord,

That I lose not faith’s sweet consolation

Offered me within Thy holy Word.

Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting,

E’er to take, as from a father’s hand,

One by one, the days, the moments fleeting,

Till I reach the promised land.

Clobbered by Goodness

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I wish I were a suave, sophisticated Christian — someone who had it sort of spiritually together. I worship with a few and am totally overwhelmed by them. But if I’m honest, most days I’m more like a spiritual five year old than I care to admit. Let me explain.

I know truth. I know that God is great, good, merciful, slow to anger, unchangeable. I know that God is by nature and by desire my shepherd, fortress, rock, shelter, shield, father. I know, but in my stress and anxiety (which have been rather constant companions of late) I struggle to believe any of it. Not content to merely disbelieve and fully convinced that God can take it (but why should He??), I yell (usually metaphorically) my frustration and disbelief out to God accusing Him of neglect and usually threaten to walk out — I haven’t quite figured out where I would go exactly.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

I could make plenty of excuses. I could explain, truthfully, that I know enough about my treatment of almighty God to understand that to expect God to treat me with anything more than exasperation and despair is the height of arrogance. This has the advantage of sounding spiritual while being completely theologically bankrupt. The grim reality is I want God to do what I want Him to do, when I want Him to do it, how I want Him to do it. God, thankfully, is too wise and loving to work that way.

Let me tell you about my week. My car needed nearly $700 in repairs. Tuesday night meltdown — not about the car, but about everything. About many frustrations, changes, stressors God has allowed in my life right now, including the car! Thursday God provided enough money to cover the car expenses. His provision was sufficient, but the budget would have been tight — no worries — been there, done that. Friday my car spent the day at the shop. Friday I went to pay the bill for repairs and an anonymous someone had already paid. (What an unexpected blessing!!)

Let me be clear. God was under no obligation to help me with my repair bill. To be fair, I wouldn’t have helped me. The goodness of God isn’t in the temporal blessing of a car with working brakes — although that is certainly good. His goodness is still talking, still communicating to me in ways that are attention getting, irrefutable, immediate, powerful, and convincing even when (or perhaps especially when) my own ability to hear and understand are overwhelmed by sin, stress, and exhaustion. Providing above and beyond in this tangible manner, I think, is the divine equivalent of hugging a tantruming child until they finally calm down.

It isn’t elegant. It’s not dignified. At least, not for me. But doesn’t it just show up all the dazzling goodness of our good God! I’m so thankful to have a heavenly father who holds me while I flail. Who is teaching me to rest in His love through the sheer overwhelming persistence and presence of His goodness and mercy. Who listens to my ugly, self-centered tatrum and holds me close while he whispers in my ear, “Daughter, this is not the way of child of God behaves. Why are you fearful, ye of little faith? I’m here. Nothing can separate you from the love of God — not even you.”

The sad thing is that my life, compared to so many, is easy. I have dear friends traveling dark roads — unspeakably dark. I have no excuse for me. But God is good. He meets us where we are and leads us along. He is good. He leads in green pasture and still waters; He leads through the valley of the shadow of death. God is good. He leads us to where we must meet our enemy and then prepares us a table, a feast, even there. God is good — the simplest and most difficult truth to grasp.

Uncomfortable with Reality?

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None other Lamb, none other Name,
None other hope in Heav’n or earth or sea,
None other hiding place from guilt and shame,
None beside Thee!

My faith burns low, my hope burns low;
Only my heart’s desire cries out in me
By the deep thunder of its want and woe,
Cries out to Thee.

Lord, Thou art Life, though I be dead;
Love’s fire Thou art, however cold I be:
Nor Heav’n have I, nor place to lay my head,
Nor home, but Thee. (Christina Rossetti)

There is a theme running throughout psalms and hymns, authors claiming that they have nothing besides Christ. I think that too often our reaction is to applaud these writers for releasing their hold on earthly things to cling solely to Christ. (Which is a good thing.) We treat the statement as a statement of faith rather than of fact.

It isn’t a statement of faith to claim only Christ; it is the reality in which we live, and move, and have our being. If you are perfect, or, at least, more perfect than I (which isn’t hard) this reality may hold no fears, no nagging uncertainty. Lucky you.

If I have nothing but Christ, then my relationship with and to Him is not just important it is of overmastering importance (to borrow a term from Dorothy Sayers). And I hear you, “No, duh, Sarah.” Hear me out. If all I have is Christ, than any rift in that relationship promises not only to undo my fellowship with Him it also threatens my relationship with reality (everything).

I’ve been pondering a verse brought up in a recent church Bible study. “Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things out of Thy law.” The premise of the verse is that alone I am unable to see what I ought to see in the Bible.

Studying the act of seeing in Scripture is illuminating. (Pun intended.) From almost the beginning man has had trouble seeing aright. Consider our first mother, Eve. She saw the fruit . . . it looked good and it looked like a thing that would unlock for her special knowledge reserved for God Himself. She saw. But she saw wrong. What she saw was not reality.

Or consider the servant of Elisha trapped with Elijah on top of hill surrounded by enemy soldiers. Two men against a host. But, again, what the servant saw was not reality. Elisha prayed and asked God to show his servant reality. And the servant’s eyes were opened to see the hosts of heaven protecting him. He was in no danger from the enemy.

So back to the original premise. “All I have is Christ” is statement of fact. It is not a comfortable fact. God declares His personality, His purpose, His power all over this world in every facet of nature, every event of history, and, of course, in the book He gave us. But in the end, as much as we know about God, we will never be able to know Him fully. Which means my understanding of reality will always be at least a little out of focus, and, to be honest, more often than not, much out of focus.

If you, like me, want a checklist-orderly, understandable world run by a comfortable, understandable God, you and I are out of luck. He is no tame lion. Our most rigorous attempts to bend His ways to our understanding will end in frustration and despair. Always. Why? Reality is Christ, and until I can see perfectly as Christ I have to accept that there is much I will have to take by faith and not by sight. It’s uncomfortable living with the knowledge that your knowledge and understanding will never be sufficient to rightly understand the world.

But be of good cheer. God remembers that we are pretty foolish blobs of dust — he knows us; He made us. And to help us along He gives us many words of wisdom and precious promises to guide our semi-blind wanderings.

I don’t know what pieces of reality, of Christ, are out of focus for you. Me? I’m struggling to trust that God will bring justice into situations in which people who should have known better behaved in decidedly unchristian ways. Or, perhaps, more specifically that God can afflict the righteous without malice — that all his ends will absolutely bring about God’s glory and good, great good, for His saints. I cannot understand why God is patient when I want Him to get busy hurling lightning bolts. (Though I admit to being very thankful He isn’t quick to hurl lightning bolts at me.) How can God stand by and watch his faithful servants be hurt?

I’m not the first to level this accusation at God. (See almost any book of the OT.) But I’ll admit I haven’t found a satisfying, here-and-now answer. All I find is —

The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. Nahum 1:3

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken. Affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned. The LORD redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. Psalm 34:19-22

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9

Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth! Psalms 46:10

I find in these and other verses a path for my semi-blind groping for reality. God is not now, nor has He ever been out of control. He is working everything after the counsel of His own will. He is palpably good. He does not change. He does not acquit the wicked. His love is everlasting. And that is enough. That is Christ — even when every fleshly bit of me thinks there ought to be more. Be still and know Christ. Be still and know reality.

I don’t know what you are struggling with. All you have is Christ — literally. For you and me the only answer is Christ.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down . . . (St. Patrick)

When Church Doesn’t Feel Like a Slice of Heaven

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What do you do when church isn’t the reflection of heaven’s society it ought to be? What do you do when entering the church building is more likely to raise your blood pressure than offer rest and nourishment for your soul? When the people you love in the Lord begin to look like the enemy? What do you do when you are ready to wash your hands of your spiritual family and be done?

  1. Don’t Run. Stay put. Like a good marriage a church family relies on your commitment, and my commitment, to stick with it. Unlike marriage that commitment may not be quite “until death do us part,” but it’s pretty close. If you believe Ephesians, than you are responsible to fill a vital, God-ordained role in Christ’s body, the church. When you abandon your local church you are quite literally, in a spiritual sense, ripping that body apart. Christ can repair that body, but “what God has joined let not man put asunder.” Respect the head of the body, the brain if you will, to know when it’s time for you to move on, and then wait patiently.
  2. Love actively. Do something for someone in your church. Do something for everyone in your church. Even if you don’t want to. Even if you are certain that no force on earth could convince you to fellowship with them/her/him again. Pray for them. Pray sincerely. Don’t pray one of those “Dear Lord, please remove this pain” prayers. But pray fervently, genuinely seeking the good of your brother/sister in Christ before the throne of God. And then engage. Make them a meal, bake them bread, crochet them a blanket, and/or mow their yard. Do something! Satan loves it when we sit around and ponder from afar. Love your family like God loves your family. When they hated Him, He died for them. What have you sacrificed/done for those pests lately?
  3. Grace, grace, grace. In an era when grace means a free pass or blindness to sin, I don’t mean either at all. I mean actual grace the kind that allows growth, encourages godly change, and cheers progress. It is so easy to assume that because we are brothers and sisters in Christ that our relationships should be natural and easy. Bologna! There is nothing more unnatural than putting a bunch of diverse sinners in a box and asking them to accomplish something productive for the Kingdom. The only reason we exist as a church at all is the manifold grace of God who saw us in our sin, sees us in our sin, and chooses to forgive and use us despite our sin (with the loving intention of ridding us of that sin through the slow and painful process of sanctification). As Christ wannabes our job is to reflect that grace to each other (forgiveness and restoration) and to receive that grace from others (yes, receiving grace takes grace, too). The church should be a great big hall of mirrors reflecting around to all the only true grace – the grace of God.
  4. Work on your expectations. Read Corinthians. Most of us can feel pretty smug about our churches when reading Corinthians. Just kidding . . . sort of. Read Corinthians, yes, and realize that the Corinthians were a church. A church for which Paul “[gave]thanks always,” despite their divisions, rank carnality, and spiritual immaturity. Paul had to remind the Corinthians that the “foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” Why? “So that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” So that if you feel like boasting your only option is to “boast in the Lord.” From the very, very beginning there has been trouble in the church. That isn’t likely to stop until glory. Get over it. If your focus is on the problems and on the human-being-sinners that create all the problems your expectations for the church will constantly be disappointed. You need something stable and sure to anchor your soul in the midst of your troubled (and it will always be troubled as long as it is composed of humans) church. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf. . .” (Hb. 6:19-20a) Manage your expectations by expecting only what God expects . . . not what you would like. When God assembled your church, He knew what he was getting. He hasn’t been surprised yet.
  5. Don’t burn bridges. Love your church family enough to consider well before you act or speak what exactly the consequence of your action/words might be. These are the people we are stuck with for eternity. Eternity is a really long time. (And yes, I do realize we won’t be holding grudges in heaven.) I’m a firm believer in taking a little time away. Not forever, just a bit to remember and reflect so that you come back to your family renewed. I’ve said it before, and maybe it bears repeating (I know I need to hear it again.), your church is your family. What besides family can bring out of you such love and frustration? Sometimes a break is healthy. But you don’t walk away; you don’t stop communicating, loving, and guarding. Be angry and sin not. Be annoyed and sin not. Be hurt and sin not. Sin makes messes. Sin divides. Sin burns bridges. The most perfect Love in the world is unable to look at sin because He sees its true consequence. Assess sin as God does. Assess the church as God does. And you will be less likely to be willing to burn bridges in your church.

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:1-8

You Are Defended

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From Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour
(The Atraxi is hovering overhead.)
AMY: So this was a good idea, was it? They were leaving.
DOCTOR: Leaving is good. Never coming back is better. Come on, then! The Doctor will see you now.
(The eyeball drops onto the roof and scans the Doctor.)
ATRAXI: You are not of this world.
DOCTOR: No, but I’ve put a lot of work into it.
(He looks at his selection of ties.)
DOCTOR: Oh, hmm, I don’t know. What do you think?
ATRAXI: Is this world important?
DOCTOR: Important? What’s that mean, important? Six billion people live here. Is that important? Here’s a better question. Is this world a threat to the Atraxi? Well, come on. You’re monitoring the whole planet. Is this world a threat?
(There is a projection of the world between them.)
ATRAXI: No.
DOCTOR: Are the peoples of this world guilty of any crime by the laws of the Atraxi?
ATRAXI: No.
DOCTOR: Okay. One more. Just one. Is this world protected? Because you’re not the first lot to come here. Oh, there have been so many.
(The projection shows the Daleks et al.)
DOCTOR: And what you’ve got to ask is, what happened to them?
(A run through of all the previous Doctors, then this Doctor steps through the projection with a jacket and bow tie.)
DOCTOR: Hello. I’m the Doctor. Basically, run.
**********
One of my favorite themes in Doctor Who is the “This Planet is Defended” theme. With panache and charisma The Doctor devises ingenious ways to protect the inhabitants of earth from overwhelming forces of evil and destruction. And when any of these forces interfere with his protected people they face his immediate wrath. I love this theme, because it reinforces some of the lessons I am learning about my Heavenly Father (who seems to need to rescue me rather too frequently).

The last few years have been spiritually challenging. Wonderful, yes. But difficult. It is unnerving to be faced with the fact that not only are the voices around you unreliable, your own is as well. Your mind and your emotions will deceive you.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick [wicked, incurable]; who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9

It is one thing to understand that “How firm a foundation ye saint of The Lord/ Is laid for your faith in his excellent Word.” It is another to experience the shifting sand and become one of those that “to Jesus for refuge has fled.” (Fleeing to Christ doesn’t stop at Salvation!)

Spiritually, the world is a scary place. It’s full of dangers without and within. But you, if God is your father, have, blazoned across your soul for every principality, power, and ruler of this world “This soul is defended.” The demands on you are comparatively low — stay close (don’t wander off) and when He says “run,” run!

I run to Christ when vexed by hell
And find a mighty arm.
“The Devil flees,” the Scriptures tell;
He roars, but cannot harm.

I run to Christ when stalked by sin
And find a sure escape.
“Deliver me,” I cry to Him;
Temptation yields to grace.

I run to Christ when plagued by shame
And find my one defense.
“I bore God’s wrath,” He pleads my case—
My Advocate and Friend. (C. Anderson)

And be assured that when we wander off (and we will) that our Savior is just that — a savior! (Salvation doesn’t stop at Salvation!) There is nothing that we can “throw at him” that is unexpected or beyond his power to deal with. There is no trick our mind or heart can play that he cannot counter, no attack of Satan against which he cannot defend, and no lie of the world that he cannot expose.

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39

So be at peace. Be confident — not in yourself, but in the power of your great Savior to defend and protect your heart and mind.

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.

A Jumble about Waiting and Plodding On

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No one wants to be —

Moses watching sheep for forty years in the wilderness

Jacob working 14+ years for his uncle

Abraham in all the years not recorded in Scripture (and there were quite a few!)

Paul in the desert

BUT —

Moses at the burning bush, parting the Red Sea, on the mountain with God — Absolutely.

Jacob dreaming angels — Okay.

Abraham seeing God’s promises fulfilled time and time again — We would rejoice.

Paul preaching with the power of the Holy Spirit and seeing multitudes saved — Yes!

——————

There is something soul-searing about Moses, an intelligent and cultured man, “wasting” forty years of his life watching stupid, smelly sheep in the forsaken wilderness. Forty years! It’s a long time. And it staggers the imagination to conceive the number of days and years Abraham spent wandering (at God’s command, but still wandering).

These are the decidedly un-cool, without glamour, not-worth-writing-about moments (weeks, months, years . . .).  It’s easy to assume that because the Bible tucks these moments away into a few incidental verses that they are unimportant, but to do so is to ignore the that fact that these times often represent a substantial chunk of lifetime.  (For Moses, his time in the wilderness was a third of his entire time on earth.)

We read our Bibles looking for glamour (not on purpose, it’s just more interesting narrative material):  Peter at Pentecost, Paul on Mar’s Hill (or almost anywhere else), Elijah at Mount Carmel, Samson (a jerk, but . . .) pulling down the temple, David slaying Goliath, etc.  We miss the myriad “little people” and “quiet moments.” The many, many women without whom the work of the apostles would have been impossible.  The Aquilas and Priscillas.  The apostles who “disappear” from view, but who were doubtless working as hard as any Peter, Paul, or John. David’s time (and there was lots) spent in caves or in wildernesses waiting for the next attack.  Elijah’s time at the brook and with the widow waiting for God to determine it was time for the drought to end. So many people who never had “spotlight” ministries or “showcase” moments of super-power. So much time spent away from the “limelight.” And these “little people” in these “quiet moments” had nothing to do but plod along in obedience and faith waiting for God to act. And let’s face it: Obedience is HARD.  Faith is HARD.  Neither is glamorous. Add a little conflict (which the Bible promises will be our constant companion) and life can look downright dismal.

The issue seems to be that in narrative waiting is generally compressed into a very few words. In the Psalms we have some narratives of waiting (and probably in the prophets, especially the Minor Prophets, but who reads those?  Just kidding.  Sort of . . .).  But sometimes we miss the waiting in the Psalms. We spend too much time trying to force the Psalms to be happy-happy praise and comfort and often overlook the fact that many Psalms are anything but comfortable.  They are full of anguish and longing — of waiting for God.

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living! Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD! Psa. 27:13-14

Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices! Psa. 37:5-7

I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. Psa. 69:3

(This from a simple word search for “wait” ignoring other terms like longing, hope, and know.)  So many commands and encouragements for the soul to “wait” make it seem like maybe waiting is both challenging and important. The simple fact is that much of our Christian lives will be spent in faith

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Heb. 11:1

and obedience (the active, cheerful kind — at least on good days)

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 1John 5:2-3

waiting for God to work in our lives and in the lives of those around us.

Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth! Psa. 46:10

It isn’t glamorous.  It certainly isn’t fun.  But God teaches things in the wilderness that he cannot teach (or maybe, more accurately, we cannot learn) on the mountaintops. To all my waiting friends, and to my own soul, maybe we can encourage each other to be still in the waiting, to wait in hope, to be confident in God’s ability to work all things after the council of His own will in his own time.  And when the waiting is over maybe we will all be ready for our own burning bush (and another forty years of wandering with griping, faithless Israelites — on second thought, maybe the waiting isn’t so bad).

 

God Keeps Talking

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My very extra special singing group at church performed Dan Forrest’s arrangement of “How Firm a Foundation.” While the arrangement is incredible throughout, one of my favorite features is that it keeps circling back to the question, “What more can He say?” It’s a legitimate question.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said—
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
For I will be with thee thy trouble to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not harm thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My gracious, omnipotent hand.

The soul that on Jesus doth lean for repose,
I will not, I will not, desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.”

Seriously, what more is there for God to say? What more can He promise that has been promised in His Word? What more can He give? What further guidance can He offer? If God chose to be silent from this moment on He would have said enough.

But here’s the amazing thing. He knows us. We aren’t good at silence. We need constant contact. So God keeps talking.He gave us the Holy Spirit to keep chattering away at us (rebuking, encouraging, teaching), and he wrote himself into the very fabric of creation so that we see his personality everywhere.

“And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” (John 14: 16-17)

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In them he has set a tent for the sun. (Psalm 19:1-4)

This isn’t a particularly deep or original though, but right now with winter setting in on the grey plains of Ohio, I am finding it particularly comforting.

 

Why the Church Shouldn’t Work

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The church really, really shouldn’t work. It makes no sense. It is baffling. And if you don’t believe me, you haven’t been paying attention in church.

I think we take the ridiculous ineptitude of the church for granted. We go to church like we go through life. We assume that most people are a great deal like us, until we run smack up against someone who really isn’t–and there the explosion of personalities leaves one or both parties breathless and occasionally damaged. In order to avoid these situations we tend to flock together with people who are, well, a lot like us–people with similar tastes, interests, outlooks, lifestyles, etc. There is nothing particularly wrong with this until you come to church. The whole point of the church is to overcome differences in personality, background, and taste in our one common mind: Christ. A common mind that makes slave and free, male and female, Jew and Greek, old and young, rich and poor, tactful and brusque, with and without taste, scrapbookers and non-scrapbookers, all brothers and sisters under the loving father-ship of God.

Like any family (because the home is God’s picture of so many eternal truths), this family experiences loss, joy, malaise, exultation, surprise, etc. together. We are commanded to rejoice together and to sorrow together. When was the last time church did that? Just celebrated because God had done great things for someone in the congregation? Or broken out in spontaneous prayer for God to work or in thankfulness for God’s working on behalf of someone? As firmly as I believe in the traditions and rituals of church (I think we ignore them to our peril and slavish follow them to our destruction — more on that later), I am dismayed at how little spontaneity we generally embrace when it comes to prayer and praising.

Like all families there is friction. I mean, let’s face it, humanly speaking asking a church full of sinners to go about accomplishing good is the equivalent of herding cats. The friction is multiplied by the fact that we aren’t just commanded to go out and do good, we are also commanded to become good–to become more like our Father. We are commanded to encourage, exhort, rebuke, edify, teach, correct each other into more Christ-likeness; and we all know how much human beings love to be encouraged, exhorted, rebuked, edified, taught, and corrected into change of any kind!

Someone, and I wish I could remember who, said that drama is locking two people who disagree in a room and letting them fight. Multiply this by the number of members at your church and you have your church drama quotient. At least three times a week (and if we were more like the NT church that met together daily for prayer, even more) we put X number of people (who in the normal course of events would probably never connect) into a room and require them to be family.

The sad thing is that this rarely actually happen, especially if you are like me. I’m still like the person looking for birds of a feather. I find “my” people in church and generally stick with them. We make excuses for it in church–they sit on the piano/organ side (because clearly switching pews in church is impossible), they take off right after the service (because inviting people over to our homes is evidently just too much work), they are hard to talk to/don’t seem very open (no comment!). Biblically, I don’t think we have (cliché alert) a leg to stand on. We are being sinful. I am being sinful.

Until we repent and start treating the entire church (even the difficult people) like the family God intended it to be we will never begin to understand the most breath-taking truth about the church: It is, despite all of its deformity, “the manifold wisdom of God.” Ponder on that for a bit and if you are not re-convinced that God’s ways are not our ways and that God’s thoughts are not infinitely higher than our thoughts, go ponder it a little longer. Praise God that he uses the broken, weak, ridiculous things of the world to work out his own glorious purposes. Praise God and then go out and meet some of those broken, weak ridiculous things that sit on the piano/organ side. Get to know the family God has provided for you in the church.

“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” Eph 2:19-22

God is Good when I am Stupid

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This is going to be a testimony to my growing relationship with one verse in the Bible: Ps. 34:8. God first impressed this verse upon me for a mission trip after my sophomore year of college. My first reaction was “This is a stupid verse for a missions trip.” Proving that God’s thoughts are much higher than my thoughts! I have spent (cough-cough-sputter) years with these sixteen words: “Taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man [or woman] that trusteth in Him,” and I’m pretty sure that it will take as many more years (and maybe even longer) to really “get” them.

(I have to give a big “thank you” to Sam McAllister for the following, and apologies for heisting this from his sermon given on June 17, 2012.)

Psalm 34 bears the heading “A Psalm of David when he pretended madness before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed.” Here’s the story: David has just fled from Saul with the help of Jonathan. On his run he stops by Nob where the priests (whom Saul will later slay) are keeping the sword of Goliath. In a stunningly brainless move, David takes Goliath’s sword and runs to the king of Gath of Philistia, home of the Philistines. Remember them? Goliath–you know, of Gath–was one of their heroes. After Goliath’s death at the hands of a young David, the Israelites had quite a victory. In fact, the Israelites continued to rout the Philistines under the leadership of that same David until throughout the streets of Jerusalem was heard “Saul hath slain his thousands and David his ten thousands [Philistines].” So there is David standing in Gath before the king of the Philistines (who would really love to see him dead), holding the sword of the Goliath and asking for asylum. When David realizes his colossal stupidity, he pretends to be crazy and the king decides David isn’t worth his time and dismisses him.

Here’s the scene: David rose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish the king of Gath. And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is not this David? Did they not sing to one another of him in dances, ‘Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands’?” And David took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. So he changed his behavior before them and pretended to be insane in their hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard. (I Samuel 21: 10-13)

Maybe you can’t identify with this scenario . . . lucky you. For the rest of us, there is hope. David looks back on this moment in Psalm 34 and testifies to the goodness of God, the protection of God, and the possibility of growing in the fear of God. In short, David can look back on this moment of brainlessness and say “God is good even when I do something dumb. He protects me when I trust in him — even when occasionally my faith is momentarily hijacked by my stupidity. These mental-blips lead me to realize how much more I need to learn about God and his prescription for living a long and happy life.” What a much more positive outcome than wallowing in self-pity!

As always, thanks for listening.

This Is Not About Bugs!

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I am single. (And to clarify, I said I wouldn’t talk about marriage. I never said I wouldn’t talk about not being married.)

Let me start by saying that I am content. God has given me a wonderful life and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. However, occasionally being single rots.

There is a little sexist in my head that tells me that as a lady I shouldn’t have to take out the trash, worry about the car, fix maladjusted vacuums, kill malicious bugs, balance the budget, or haul heavy boxes from the car. This is not to say that I can’t do these things. I can. Mostly, I just don’t want to. These are the things that my Dad did while I was growing up.

It comes as no surprise these are also the things which make me feel out of control (except for the trash; that’s just nasty, not challenging). I can put gas, coolant, and oil in my car, but speaking to mechanics (those strange men who speak a foreign language and have the magic to make my car go) is a humbling process. I don’t understand a word they say and they treat me like an idiot. Money is math. I hate math. And bugs are just . . . awful. Bugs are my Waterloo.

When I was living in Brooklyn a great, big, nasty, slimy, disgusting slug (Not a bug, I know, but might as well be) crawled into my kitchen. Gross! So being the terribly clever, very rational girl I am, I spent the next — well — however many minutes sobbing and throwing salt at the slug from across the room. Yes, laugh. I laugh now, but it was traumatizing. And that’s how I feel about bugs.

When I was teaching Public Speaking at BJU, one lecture dealt with how our ideas are linked to each other. Ideas aren’t independent. Ideas are networked. For instance, I brush my teeth because when I was little my mother told me that brushing my teach was healthy. I obey my mom because the Bible tells me to. I believe the Bible because once upon a time the Spirit worked in my heart and I trusted Christ to save me. All these ideas are networked. When we got to this lesson I used it to talk about missions. We believe that we ought to be involved in missions because the Bible tells us to, and we think that’s enough; so we fail to explore all the little ideas that might be attached to missions that might work against us. For me, sad to say, it’s bugs (and coffee – imagine the travesty of no coffee?!?). God calling me to a mission field is no big deal. God calling me to a mission field with big bugs — very big, overwhelming, scary problem.

See, I’m single. I don’t have anyone to take care of the bugs. And I really hate bugs — especially big ugly bugs that defy logic (centipedes, spiders, scorpions). I think about missionary women — Mary Slessor, Amy Carmichael — and part of myself wants to be like them, but another, very real part, wants to live in a place with very good coffee and very few bugs. It’s cowardly, but there it is.

Of course, it isn’t really isn’t about bugs, cars, or money. It’s about trust. Do I trust God enough to take care of the bugs? to give me enough wisdom to deal with a mechanical beast that makes me feel inadequate? to help me be smart about money? It seems so much easier to trust him with my immortal soul. This is, of course, another curse of materialism. I’ll never see or feel my soul, so entrusting it is only occasionally troubling. But bugs, money, and cars I see and feel them and they are almost always troubling.

So I’m single.

When I’m not struggling with trust — which happens far too infrequently — I realize how blessed I am to be in a position in which I get to see firsthand how God cares for me. He does. It’s not that there will never be bugs, but God is trying to teach me (I’m a pretty sad student) that he will never send any bugs into my life without sending me enough grace and strength to deal with them. Bugs remind me that I need a protector. And I have the best protector in the whole universe.

Don’t know if this makes any sense at all, but thanks for listening.