Je Suis Elijah Under the Broom Bush

My pastor preached on 1 Kings 19 last Sunday -- the story of Elijah running away to Horeb after his big victory over the prophets of Baal (in chapter 18). This story has been a meaningful one in my life: God used it in the past to teach me about my depression.

You see, Elijah is depressed here. "He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die." That's depression. And one of the first things to note here is that it came after a mountaintop moment . . . which is not uncommon. We should brace ourselves for a possible crash after a spiritual high, especially if we know we are naturally susceptible to such crashes.

But what's the first thing God does for him? He let him sleep. He let him sleep a lot. He slept, then he woke up to eat, then he slept again. I've learned that for me, a lot of my depression is connected to sleep deprivation. I'm TIRED. I need rest. Just getting a good nap usually helps my outlook significantly.

And what's the other thing God does for him right away? "All at once, an angel touched him and said, 'Get up and eat.'" He gave him food. The man had been running for his life and presumably had not stopped to get any nourishment. In fact, the angel fed him twice: sleep, eat, sleep, eat. Taking care of my body -- so important for my emotional health. Depression is a physiological thing to a great degree; it is profoundly influenced by maladies in my physical self. A change in diet often improves my emotional state.

Now, note what Elijah says in verse 10 when God asks him what's up:

"I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too."

Poor Elijah. It's all about him, isn't it? Now, in a sense this response is understandable in his situation, but if you keep reading, you notice that he makes this exact same speech again in verse 14. The man seems to be rehearsing this lament; he's got it down, memorized to the word, ready to spout to anyone who asks. Meditating on your laments will not pull you out of the doldrums.

So God does one of those awesome things that He did with Old Testament prophets that we often wish He would do with us: He came to Elijah, directly.

"Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper."

My pastor said on Sunday that the phrase "gentle whisper" is sometimes translated "the sound of silence." Often, I realize that my depression is exacerbated because I am paying so much attention to the storm and noise. God speaks in the sound of silence. I need to ignore the noise and listen to God in the silence.

So, what does God do next for Elijah? He gives him a job -- three people to go anoint in His name to take over important roles. In other words, stop moping around and do something productive, something for someone else.

Then He filled Elijah in on something he actually probably knew but just conveniently ignored in his self-pitying rambling: "Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel -- all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him."

Elijah wasn't "the only one left" like he claimed. There were seven thousand more Israelites staying faithful to God . . . Elijah just wasn't paying attention to them. He went off into the wilderness, even leaving his servant behind, and pouted alone. Isolation increases depression. We were made to need each other.

One of the things about the Bible is that it doesn't idealize its heroes. Peter denies Christ, Moses kills a man, David commits adultery . . . we see the spiritual giants in their worst moments as well as their best. God needed us to see, first of all, that these were real people with real problems and failures, just like us. And He also needed us to see models for how to deal with these problems. When I'm under my broom bush, praying to die (which, praise Jesus, happens far less these days), I need to stop obsessing over my misery . . . get a good night's sleep . . . cut the sugar from my diet for a while . . . make a plan to get something productive done . . . and get out of the house and with some friends.

Don't tell me the stories of the Bible are not practical for our times.

Christmas and the Six C's of History

Mrs. A is the history teacher extraordinaire at our school, and last Friday, she had lunch with my daughter and her homeschool cohorts to discuss the six C's of history: change over time, causality, context, complexity, contingency, and connection. To think like a historian, you need to look for these things in the stories you study.

This conversation came back again in church yesterday as we talked about Joseph.

See, as much hullabaloo as Christmas gets, we need to remember that it is the lesser of the two primary Christian holidays. The Christmas story is only the prelude to the real story -- the one we celebrate on Easter.  But, of course, Easter wouldn't have happened without Christmas. Contingency.

And our view of the Christmas story is pretty sentimentalized. As Aaron, our Sunday School teacher pointed out, while Luke's presentation of the story could be almost lullaby-ish (and that's the one you hear the most), Matthew's brings out the brutality of the age. Herod the king was a genuine lunatic; that slaughter of hundreds of babies was bloody and unspeakable. Picture this happening in a middle eastern country today and the international outcry it would cause. But back then, the king was the king, and he did what he wanted. Change over time.

Joseph must have been a pretty resourceful man to pick up his wife and newborn at the drop of a hat, in response to a warning in a dream, and move them to Egypt (the closest place out of Herod's jurisdiction) and just live there for a couple years. Finding a way to make a living and a place to live among a people of a different language, culture, and religion. We have romantic images in our mind of them camping out or something down there for a couple weeks . . . no, it was years. Herod died and his son took over. They had started a new life. And then they picked up and came home again at another angel's instructions in a dream. Causality . . . complexity . . . and prophetic fulfillment thrown in there, to boot.

But a certain detail of the story stuck out to me yesterday. When Mary was found to be pregnant, this was scandalous. Actually, scandal is hardly the word for it. Extramarital sex is so commonplace anymore, a single woman getting pregnant is hardly news these days, unfortunately. But the Jewish law said that Mary could be stoned to death. Joseph had every right to call her out and have her executed. Context.

But he didn't. Even before the angel came to fill him in on what was going on with this baby, he had already made the decision to "put her away quietly." Just end the relationship. No public condemnation. Leaving her alone with a baby may sound cold-hearted to the modern ear, but folks, this was a tremendous act of mercy on his part. More context.

Fascinating to think: the whole story could have ended right there. She's my betrothed -- she's pregnant -- it's not mine -- hand her over to the authorities for punishment, which was death. Had that happened, of course, God would have found another way to save the world, but He chose these people for this task because he knew that wouldn't happen. He knew Joseph. He knew he was merciful. He knew he would hear God's voice and obey. And the Christmas story -- and therefore the Easter story -- depended on Joseph's mercy and obedience.

Contingency.

So much depends on mercy and obedience. So much that we are not even the least bit aware of. This small act of mercy . . . this seemingly insignificant act of obedience . . . could have monumental effects on your life, other lives, society, even history. I must never forget to be merciful and to obey.

And there, my friends, is connection.

On Coughing and Praising

Although I feel like I've been blessed with generally pretty good health, I have two chronic problems that have plagued me for years. One is the sleep stuff that I'm sure you're all tired of hearing about. The second is that when I get a cold, the cough settles in my lungs and makes my life hell for weeks. Doctors have tried inhalers, all sorts of drugs . . . nothing helps. It's awful.

And after a week of a normal-person-common-cold, I have my cough again. I'm miserable. But a comment from someone in my BSF group is giving me a different perspective on it.

We studied the fourth chapter of Revelation last week. This is the first part of the vision John has, and it is all about the throne of God. The majesty of it. His awesomeness and splendor. There are living creatures and twenty-four elders (the details of all them I don't get, but it doesn't matter) surrounding His throne and worshiping Him day and night.

[Sidenote: Some people have said that heaven sounds boring, doing nothing but worshiping all day. But you know, I'm not convinced that we have nothing to do there but to stare at God and be awed by Him. I think we'll have plenty to do – scripture talks about us ruling with him (what that means exactly, I'm not sure, but it sounds pretty active). I suspect that this vision of John's is a piece of figurative imagery for us: "rejoicing in the Lord always", "praying continually" . . . that constant attitude of worship that we are called to be in even here on earth. In heaven, we won't be hindered anymore by our sinful, fleshly natures and that worship will come naturally. And won't that be wonderful?]

But back to my friend's comments. She told us how it hit her that, when the attacks happened in Paris, nobody in heaven suddenly stopped and looked and said, "Whoa, God . . . what's going on here?" No, they continued to worship – day and night, just like always. Because what happened in Paris was not a shock to anyone up there like it was to us. They know what we don't know. They see the big picture. They see what's happening on a macro-level and on a micro-level with all this chaos and tragedy and they know that it is all under God's control . . . it is all working toward His grand and glorious conclusion . . .  and they know that even in the midst of this, He is still worthy of all praise.

Now, it's not like I didn't know that in my head. But somehow, it penetrated my heart this week. And I needed that.

If God is working through even the tragedy and sin of terrorism to accomplish His will, what up with my whining about a cough? Like God isn't bigger than that? Like my irritated lung tissue is suddenly evidence of His negligence and impotence and lack of compassion? Like He clearly doesn't know what He's doing if He isn't going to stop this cough?

So, I'm coughing and praising. As best I can. Lord, I believe . . . help my unbelief.

Getting Rooted at the Right Now Conference

Last week, I had the privilege of attending the Right Now Conference in Dallas and hearing some amazing speakers (Francis Chan, Eric Metaxas, and others). I've been digesting what I heard for a couple days and want to summarize the most pertinent points here -- for your and my benefit.

- The parable of the mustard seed. Note that, when we plant a mustard seed, our end goal is . . . well, mustard. But in the parable, what God accomplishes is a huge plant in which birds build their nests. We have one goal -- God uses our work to accomplish another goal, often something that never even occurred to us. God's purposes are far beyond what we have in mind. Cool. (From Mark Batterson)

- If the Spirit lives in us -- if we really and truly believe that -- why don't we allow Him to live through us more often? Why do we insist on doing things on our own strength? (Pete Briscoe)

- We pray best when we're most aware of our sin . . . when we involve our bodies (knees, anyone?) . . . when we pray our gut-honest desires (which is risky and takes courage) . . . and when we remember God's grace. (Jen Pollack Michel)

- Plagiarism is taking credit for another person's work and words. How many of us commit spiritual plagiarism every day? Taking credit for work that was actually God's. ALL THE TIME . . . (Bryan Carter)

- Larry Osborne spoke about Daniel being a model for the Christian in this post-modern age. He teaches us how to live successfully in Babylon. So much to glean from that. Daniel had humility with the pagans around him. He never copped an attitude about how wrong they were; he spoke with respect and graciousness to them. He made Nebuchadnezzar a better king and a better person, just being with him. He had the wisdom to pick his battles rather than fighting everything wicked around him.

Something interesting he pointed out. Daniel and his friends were brought to be trained "in the language and literature of the Babylonians." That means, they were being taught Babylonian religion -- paganism and the occult. And not only did they not refuse to participate in that education, but God gave them "knowledge and understanding" of what they were learning and more, to the point that when their training was evaluated by the king, he found none equal to them. And this was the only reason that they were allowed to be in the service to the king, that they were put in places of such tremendous influence, that they had ANY credibility with the most powerful rulers of the world at that time, and that we even know their names today. A great argument against the "cocooning" so many Christians do today -- as if knowing the theory of evolution or the basic tenets of Islam will transfer heretical germs to the believer.

- When you accepted Jesus, you accepted the call to missions. Period. No further call is needed.

- Eric Metaxas talked about William Wilberforce. When Wilberforce was saved, he assumed he would need to give up politics (which at the time was an even dirtier profession that it is today). But his pastor, John Newton, told him to stay, to be a light in the place where God had put him and with the gifts God had given him. Again, no cocooning ourselves from the world's dirt and grime: go engage, and learn, and salt, and shine your light.

- God's desire is for us. (Francis Chan) Why do we need to be reminded of that? But we do. Often. God's greatest desire is not for a just society or sinless followers or miserable people or even happy people. God's desire is for a relationship with us. Everything else is either a means to that end or a result of that blessing.

Yep. A good week. Thanks, Paul and Jackie.

Good Samaritan, Take Two

So, I've known the story of The Good Samaritan probably all my life. It's one of those Bible stories that even the non-believers know and like because it's about being good to people, regardless of who they are. At least, that's what we all thought it was about.

Yesterday morning, we had a guest preacher, and he gave us a new twist on the story (a phrase which, I will say, I am always a bit cautious of when we're referring to the Bible . . . I generally have a hard time believing that a couple millenia of Spirit-filled, serious Bible scholars and teachers might have TOTALLY missed the point of a passage . . . but fresh eyes are always good, so carry on).

Our speaker emphasized that correct interpretation of scripture always requires reading in context (very true). And he made note of the context in which this story is told: 1) Jesus has just set his course toward Jerusalem for the final week of his life, so the whole dying-for-the-world business was on his mind, and 2) he has just been asked, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" So, this story, he proposed, is about how to inherit eternal life -- a remark that initially sent some alarms off in my brain because, as mentioned earlier, we read this as a story about being good . . . and being good is not how you get eternal life.

However, that was not his take on it, much to my relief. He started with identifying who each of these characters must represent, because this is a parable and symbolism is inherent in the genre.

So, if we're talking about how to inherit eternal life, who must the beaten up person on the road be? The needy person? The desperate person who requires assistance? Well, obviously, he is one who is in need of eternal life. Beaten and bruised by the ravages of sin. Ah . . . and then everything else clearly falls into place.

The priest and the Levite -- obvious representatives of the Jewish law -- pass the man by because they either can't help him or won't.

The one who stops, and picks him up, and takes him to shelter, and cares for his needs, and pays the price it takes for him to be healed -- that's the Samaritan. The Unlikely Savior. The person one would least expect. The one scorned by the establishment religious folks . . . the one who "came to his own, but his own would not receive him."

Because THIS is how one inherits eternal life: our Unlikely Savior pays the price for our healing.

Well. How have I lived in Christian circles, attended church all my life, studied scripture and Bible teaching for years and years, and never heard that take on the story?

I'm still going to need to think about it, because as he said, context is important, and the immediate context of that story is Jesus' interrogator asking him, "And who is my neighbor?" which is where we get our traditional interpretation of what Jesus is trying to teach us here. Then again, scripture is a multi-layered thing, and there's no reason the story can't have both meanings. Both meanings are consistent with the rest of the Word.

But I have to say, I like this new interpretation . . . if for no other reason, because it pulls us away from the "Do Good Things" interpretation. Not that we shouldn't do good things. Not that we shouldn't show love to our neighbor. Not that there's anything wrong with that take on the story. But as I said, even the non-believers love that one -- there's nothing distinctly Christian in the call to Do Good Things. It can be a slippery slope from there to a very worldly gospel of works that deceives many into thinking they are earning their way into heaven.

So, I'll meditate on this one for a while. After all, we can never meditate on the gospel story too much.

ESP: Extra Spiritual Perception

When I was a kid, my best friend and I decided to learn braille, just in case we ever went blind. We also learned to spell in sign language, in case we went deaf. (I don't think we were really as pessimistic as that sounds -- we just liked to learn cool stuff.)

I was pretty fascinated with the idea of living without one of the senses back then. Even more fascinating to me is the idea of being born without one of the senses. Can you imagine never having been able to see? Not having any concept of what color is? And you wouldn't even miss it, because you've never experienced it. I don't know how you'd begin to explain color to someone born blind.

I was also fascinated with the idea of our possibly having senses that we aren't even aware of or using. I mean, we apparently only use a small percentage of our brain's capacity as it is -- who knows what we would be capable of if we were operating at our full potential? Maybe there's another way of "knowing" that we have inborn senses for, but don't know about. ESP and stuff. Yeah.

I kind of outgrew those fantasies a while ago . . . until I read A.W. Tozer, an old theologian who awoke those wonderings in me again.

Tozer notes that, for most people, even Christians, God is an inference more than He is a reality. We infer His existence based on the things we know. All evidence points to the fact that He is there, and that certain things are true about Him, so we assume it is so because we are a people of reason. (Romans says the natural world screams the existence of God, so that we are "without excuse.")

But the Bible doesn't treat God as an inference. When you read closely, the Bible clearly indicates that human beings should have the capacity to know God as a reality, the same way we know our fellow human beings.

How can this be, if God is spirit and we are material? ""We have in our hearts organs by means of which we can know God as certainly as we know material things through our familiar five senses," Tozer explains. "We apprehend the physical world by exercising the faculties given us for that purpose [vision, hearing, touch, etc.], and we possess spiritual faculties by means of which we can know God and the spiritual world if we will obey the Spirit's urge and begin to use them."

Whoa.

Now, these spiritual senses became deadened within us from The Fall, Tozer continues; we have to be spiritually regenerated -- "born again" -- for them to be turned back on so to speak. And even then, we don't know how to use them or even recognize the information they are giving us. (Like color to someone born blind -- how can we even conceive of what this would be like, this completely different way of "seeing" or knowing? How could someone who uses these senses explain it to the rest of us?)

I'll admit: the Realist in me thinks this sounds a bit out there. But the Believer in me recognizes that, as Tozer says, this is a reasonable assumption based on what the Bible teaches, if you believe what the Bible teaches We are made to know God. Not inferentially, but really. And there seems to have been people who have known God that way. I've met a few myself.

So, I've been praying lately for my spiritual senses to be turned on. Knowing God -- really knowing Him -- is what I'm created for, after all.

Self-Love Is the Default, Folks

The Bible tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves. That's a pretty good sound bite. Jesus himself said that if you do that and love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind, that sums up the entire law in a nutshell. 

But there is nothing simple about loving our neighbor as ourselves. There is not even anything simple in understanding what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves.

I've heard this biblical command used over and over to teach that we need to learn to love ourselves more. How can we love our neighbor as ourselves if we don't love ourselves? Because, you know, we are SO filled with self-hate. We don't like who we are; we just don't accept ourselves for how we are made.

Good heavens. Satan must be particularly proud of himself for that one: turning the second greatest command of God into an invitation to indulge the most basic and greatest of all sins -- pride. Yep, that was pretty brilliant. And what suckers we are to fall for it.

I can't think of a single place in the Word where we are instructed to grow in love for ourselves, to try to love ourselves, or to love ourselves at all. Rather, we are constantly being told to die to ourselves, to put God and others above ourselves. In Jesus' command here, he assumes that we love ourselves from the start – which seems like a reasonable assumption to me, having observed myself and a good number of human beings for several years now. Our problem is never that we think of ourselves more lowly than we ought. Quite the contrary.

I've been reading and re-reading C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity during my nighttime devotions these days. (There's another brilliant one, C.S. Lewis. Not to compare him to Satan -- but yeah, brilliant.)  He talks about this self-love idea:

Do I think well of myself, think myself a nice chap? Well, I am afraid I sometimes do (and those are, no doubt, my worst moments) but that is not why I love myself. In fact it is the other way round: my self-love makes me think myself nice, but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself. . . . In my most clear-sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can look at some of the things I have done with horror and loathing.

So, the Self-Love contingency would say, "See? He can't like himself when he thinks he does horrible loathsome things. How could he?" But Lewis continues:

I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man's actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner. For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life--namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things.

Part of this has to do with our definition of love. If you think love has to do with fondness or affection, you might have trouble loving loathsome people. But love is not a feeling; it is an action. Love is acting in another's best interests. (Which, Lewis notes, is easier to do when we are fond of the person, so it still behooves us to try to develop some fondness for folks . . . but it's not a requirement to obey the command.) Even when I hate the things I do, I still act in my own best interests.

And even when I hate the actions and behaviors of my neighbor, I can still act in their best interests. I can love them. I can even have some affection for most of them, if I give it some effort. 

This love command of Jesus' -- it really requires more attention than we give it.

The Cornelius Decision

So, who else is watching "A.D.", the TV series? I rarely read any comments about it on FB, even from my rabid Christian friends, so I wonder.

It hasn't grabbed me and addicted me (like other shows I'm having to wait until the fall to see again . . . grrr), but it's interesting. Some folks are probably upset about the "extra-biblical" material, angles on the story that were not in the original text. The traveling Ethopian eunuch was involved in a plot against the Romans? James arranged with Caiaphas for the Jesus-followers to be accepted into the temple again? And John the disciple as a black man . . . I understand the desire for ethnic diversity here, but that's really stretching things.

I'm not necessarily bothered by these angles, though. It concerns me a little that the biblically illiterate will watch this and think this is all in the Bible, but because none of it that I've seen yet is contradictory to the important message and spirit of the text, I'm okay with it so far. In fact, as a Bible student and script writer, I'm pretty fascinated by the background stories they are supposing here, based on the sketchy details we are given in the book.

We just caught up yesterday on the episode we missed on vacation. And this was an episode I've been waiting for. From the beginning, when Pilate sent his top centurion out to do some violence and called him Cornelius, I've been waiting for the soldier's conversion -- because I knew this HAD to be that Cornelius. And it was. Great idea to have such a crucial character to the gospel story involved in everything from the start, even though in the Bible he pops up pretty randomly and isn't heard from again.

So, yesterday, Cornelius met Jesus. And he is then immediately called in by Pilate to lead his squadron of soldiers to bring the golden statue of Caligula into the Jewish temple . . . and to kill every Jew that tries to stop them. He's a soldier; he's been given orders, orders he must obey or he will be killed himself. Peter asks him what he will do. Cornelius responds that he will pray that the Holy Spirit shows him what to do. Good answer.

So, Cornelius marches his troops with the offensive statue to the gates of the temple, where he politely asks (there's a change right there) the high priest to step aside so he can fulfill his orders. In answer, Caiaphas offers his throat -- kill me if you must, I won't allow you to desecrate God's temple. Cornelius must decide which master he will obey: his earthly master or his heavenly master. And he must decide in a very public way, with EVERYONE watching. He hesitates.

And in that moment, the mob behind him attacks his squadron, and he is left alone kneeling and praying with his new Christian brothers, while the battle rages without his participation. And his soldiers don't seem to notice.

The episode ended before we found out if there will be consequences for Cornelius not obeying Pilate's orders. I suspect there will be. But isn't it interesting that this episode aired now? An episode that deals with the question of what do I do when doing my job, when obeying governmental authority, goes directly against what I know is God's will?

I'm anxious to see how this will play out in "A.D." I'm even more anxious to see how it will play out in my country.

Death Is Where We Are Now

Someone posted this awesome article on Facebook this week, which I encourage you to click on and read here. But I want to summarize for you the points he made that really hit home with me.

See, we tend to think of death (and conversely, life) in a time perspective. We are living now; someday, death will happen to us; and then, if we're saved, we get "eternal life."

Only that's not quite right. I love the way this writer, J.D. Walt, puts it:

You see, death is not something that happens to us when we die. It’s something we carry around in our bodies that finally takes us down. Death is the disease we are born with and the one that will eventually kill us. 

Did you get that? We carry around death all the time. We are "in death" right now. It's not that we are going to die someday -- it's that we are in the process of dying from the moment we were born.

And it's that this is not how God made humanity in the first place. Do you remember what God told Adam and Eve about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? "When you eat from it, you will certainly die." Now, I've heard people make a big deal out of the fact that they didn't fall down dead the minute they chomped the fruit. That's not the point. Eating from that tree brought on the disease of death -- a disease that we all inherited from them. We will die. Before that, we apparently wouldn't have.

More than that, it's not even that we will physically die at some future point in time -- again, it's not a time thing. It's that we are not really "living" now.

Again, I love what Walt says about eternal life:

Eternal Life is not that portion of life that begins after we die. No, Eternal Life is the Person of Jesus Christ. Eternal Life means the restoration of human beings to God’s original intentions—i.e. like Jesus Christ. Eternal Life is a qualitative change, one dimension of which is the end of thinking about time as a quantitative reality. Eternal Life is the infusion of the very life of God into a human person. It has a durable nature of an unending quality. 

Eternal life is not about quantity of years; it's something qualitatively different from what we have now. It's something akin to what Adam and Eve had before the fall. It's what Jesus had after his resurrection. And it's not something we have to wait for until after we die. It's something Christ will start creating in us right now.

This is deep stuff. This is stuff that will roll around in my brain for months as it meshes with the other info in my brain and scripture I read and teaching I hear and life I live. When stuff like this jumps out at me, I get really excited to see what difference it's going to make in my life this time next year -- when I really understand it.

Forsaken

Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

There's a reason we read scriptures over and over. I've read these words of Christ on the cross probably hundreds of times in my life. I heard them. I've spoken them myself, butchering the Hebrew pronunciation, I'm sure. I've pondered the emotion behind them. I've considered the theological significance of them. I know these words.

But last night at church, they spoke to me again in a new way.

My God . . . my God . . . why . . . why have you forsaken me? Why did you call me here, to this place of horror, and then leave me alone? Why won't you come to me? Why?

The Bible has many troubling descriptions of hell -- fire and brimstone and such. But the one thing that is the heart of the nature of that Other Eternal Place is that it involves complete separation from God. And considering that God is the one and only source of all things good (love, beauty, compassion, peace, joy -- ALL THINGS GOOD . . . let the enormity of that sink in), there is nothing worse. Forget fire and brimstone; there is no hell greater than complete separation from all Goodness that exists.

We all have just a taste of that separation now, in life here on earth. Humanity chose, corporately, to live independent of God, and he obliged us to a certain extent. Because he loved us, though, he (like a good parent) left a door open and a light on for us to come back when we choose to do so.

Jesus on the cross, though. This was a different separation. This was more than the normal human ache of loneliness from the divine. He was bearing the burden of humanity's sin as he died, and the Father actually turned away. A complete separation. Jesus went through hell -- the separation from God, the true essence of hell -- while he hung on that cross. And he did it to open that door so that I would never have to experience that.

Were the whole realm of nature mine, 
That were a present far too small.
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul . . . my life . . . MY ALL.

On Our Words and Who They Glorify

Dear, dear friend,

It is extremely rare that I feel God gives me words to speak to a specific person in my life, and even when He does, I am hesitant to speak them. It feels arrogant -- it feels presumptuous -- it requires courage I don't always have. But you have spoken truth to me before that you felt I needed to hear, so I hope you (and any other readers who may also need this message) take these words in the same spirit.

As I sat listening to the sermon yesterday, one word from the pastor brought up other words from this week . . . which brought up other words from my past . . . and ultimately the Lord brought your face, vividly, to my mind. It started with . . .

. . . The story in Mark 1 of the demon-possessed man. "What do you want with us?" the evil spirits in him screamed at Jesus. "Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are -- the Holy One of God!" To which Jesus responded with a stern rebuke: "Be quiet!" Or as the pastor paraphrased, "Put a lid on it!"

Sometimes, the evil spirits around us (or within us) need to be told immediately and emphatically to put a lid on it. And this reminded me of . . .

. . . A comment a friend had about my post a couple weeks ago about MLK and adultery. She told me when she started reading what I wrote, she wanted to tell me to stop focusing on the sin and forgetting the restoration that God can bring from it -- "because evil would love for that to happen." Evil would love for that to happen. The enemy loves for us to speak of his work. It brings him glory.

What a sobering thought. I, through the words I speak, can either bring glory to God or glory to the enemy. God forbid that I glorify the wrong entity. And it reminded me of . . .

. . . Many years ago, when a friend was comforting me in a moment of sudden overwhelming crisis. After crying with me for a few minutes, she pulled herself together and began to pull me together by saying, "Okay, we need to start focusing on what's true. This is true -- let's think about that. This is true -- let's meditate on that. This thing here: that's speculation. We don't know that it's true, so we're not even going to go there. God is truth, He lives in truth, and we need God's presence here, so truth is all we're going to speak."

Amazing and powerful words my friend spoke to me that day. They have come back to me in many a trying time. "Whatever is true . . . think on these things," Paul tells us in Philippians, and in 2 Corinthians he reminds us to "cast down imaginations." Focus your thoughts on what is true, and only let those words escape your lips. Which brought to mind a song . . .

. . . A song that I know you hear on K-LOVE all the time, too. Toby Mac reminds us to "Speak life - speak life, to the deadest darkest night . . . when the sun won't shine and you don't know why." Mac has been singing this to me all morning this morning. I've heard much teaching (Christian and secular) on the power of our spoken words, and I know you have, too, because you've shared it with me.

My friend, I know life is hard, and it's particularly hard these days. But I want to remind you of the power of the words we speak. "The Lord inhabits the praise of His people," we are told in Psalm 22. Our words can glorify God and bring us into His presence, or that can bring glory to the enemy and give him more power over us than he has a right to. There are thoughts and words that Satan brings to our mind that we need to, emphatically, tell him to put a lid on.

Watch your words, my dear friend. Speak words of hope . . . speak love . . . speak truth . . . speak life.  Even if just to yourself.

God's Record-Keeping

"If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, 
Lord, who could stand?" 
But with you there is forgiveness . . . (Psalm 130)

God doesn't keep a record of our sins. Psalm 130 tells us that. 1 Corinthians 13 tells us that love keeps no record of wrongs, and 1 John tells us that God is love, so -- again -- God keeps no record of wrongs. Psalm 103 tells us that when God removes our sin, He takes it as far as the east is from the west. God doesn't keep a record of our sins.

But this fact seems counterintuitive to us. The prevailing view in our culture (even among many Christians) is that God is like Santa Claus: keeping track of everything we do, weighing it all on a scale at the end of our lives to see if we are more good than bad, and determining our eternal fate by that measure. And such a measure requires record-keeping of our sins.

Scripture does not teach this. Not at all. Most other religions do teach this -- or some variation on the concept. When the concept is attached to the Christian gospel, it is a warping of the gospel truth.

God doesn't keep a record of our sins. The fact is, He doesn't need to. His primary concern is our being in a relationship with Him, and one transgression is all it takes to cut off that relationship -- a list of later transgressions is superfluous. And once the relationship is restored through Christ's sacrifice, our transgressions are a moot point.

Let me clarify: the transgressions are a moot point. The damage they cause is not.

This is something I feel like God has been showing me lately. When God looks at me, He doesn't see all the wrong I've done, or continue to do, or will inevitably do in the future. Those sins were covered by The Blood of the Lamb -- Hallelujah, Thine the Glory -- Jesus Saves, Jesus Saves.

What God sees when He looks at me are my wounds.

He sees the dead places that my sinful ways have created, the dried-upness and waste that needs to be hacked out of my soul and burned in the trash heap . . . leaving empty gaps that will ache until enough time has passed for new healthy growth to fill them.

He sees the calloused places that have grown thick and hard, like brick walls I've built to protect things needing to be protected -- and things needing to be destroyed -- walls that now block communication, block connection, block healing.

He sees the tender places, red and raw, that roar with pain when they are touched and hinder progress in my soul.

He sees the broken places, especially those that, like a poorly set broken bone, have "healed themselves" in a distorted fashion.

When God looks at me, a sinner saved by grace, He's not seeing the sins anymore: He's seeing the devastation left in my soul from my sins. And His goal is to restore. To heal.

The thing is, the restoration and healing can hurt and usually does. Even the antibiotic ointment a mama puts on her child's skinned knee can sting. But the greater the healing required, the greater the pain involved -- witness the cancer victim suffering under the effects of the radiation treatment that will save her life. Witness the man who leg bone has to be re-broken so it can be re-set and allowed to heal correctly.

I often misinterpret the pain that comes with the healing as punishment. God's upset about the sin He sees in me still. He's disciplining me, giving me what I deserve for my naughty, selfish, prideful ways. And yes, the Bible tells us not to scorn the discipline the Father gives His children. But discipline is not about punishment -- it's about training. Shaping. Molding. Yes, even healing, I think.

I'm finding that it does matter how I view God's discipline. If I think of it as punishment for my never-ending sins, I am disheartened . . . discouraged . . . even angry at a God who promised forgiveness and seems to be reneging on that promise. But if I think of it as shaping . . . cleansing . . . healing the damage left when my sins were removed, then I am grateful and ready to get on board with His program of discipline.

Cuz Lord knows, I need HEALING. And praise God, I know the Great Healer.

"So, Where's This Abundant Life You Promised?"

Yesterday, we lit the "Joy" candle of the Advent wreath at my mother-in-law's church (which confused me a bit, because we lit that candle LAST week at church in San Antonio -- but whatever). There was a little reading about how Christ came to bring us joy, and then there was a prayer thanking God for His gift of joy, and then I think we sang a song about joy.

And I found myself wondering about all the thousands and thousands of people celebrating Advent in churches around the world, lighting the Joy candle this week (or last week) and thinking, "Joy? What's that?"

Because I've been there. No joy. No peace. No hope. None of this stuff we're promoting as the benefits of Christ's coming. I talked the talk. I went through the motions. But none of it was real to me, and I knew it.

Not that I doubted who Christ was and why He came and what He did for me. But if I was honest with myself, none of it really made a measurable difference in my life.

And I'm wondering if some of you, dear readers, are there, too.

Singing the songs, reciting the prayers, saying the expected lines, but not feeling any of it.

Not that our feelings define reality, because they don't. Just because I FEEL afraid doesn't mean there's anything in my life to fear. Just because I FEEL hopeless doesn't mean there is no hope. Just because I FEEL alone and unloved doesn't mean that I am either. We cannot be ruled by the tyranny of our emotions when our emotions are influenced by so many things.

Nevertheless, if you are a believer, if you have surrendered your life to the lordship of Christ, there should be a difference. You should be able to look at the you from fifteen years ago and the you today and see that you are more at peace. More joyful. More hopeful. More like Christ and less like the world. And if you are not, I think you should seriously consider the possibility that something is very wrong in your spiritual life -- something that is critical enough for you to stop everything else and deal with right now.

I remember a point in my spiritual walk many years ago when I did a "face-to-face" with God and said, Alright, what's up with this? You make some very clear promises in your word. Not promises for an easy life or a "happy" life . . . I'm not even asking for those. But you promised an abundant life. You said that was why you came. Where is my abundant life? Where is my love, joy, peace, all that? You and I both know I can't produce it myself -- it has to come from your Spirit, a gift from you. So where is it? Am I doing something wrong? Am I reading that scripture wrong? Did you lie to me? What's the deal?

Don't tell me that's irreverent, or disrespectful -- that was REAL. And I'm convinced that God isn't interested in our routine, ritualized platitudes we recite every week if they aren't real. He'd rather we came to Him in a wrestling stance, as long as we're coming to Him actually wanting Him and not just out of habit or duty.

We all have our ups and downs in our faithwalk. Not every day is a mountaintop experience. But I want to encourage you, dear reader, if you are in this place -- where you're just going through the motions and you know you have been for a very long time, maybe even for your entire walk with Christ -- that you decide that 2015 will be the year that you either poop or get off the pot. That you will dig deep and wide into scripture, every day. That you will pray with purpose and desperation, many times a day. That you will ask questions of everyone you know who might have answers. That you will go to the places where God is expected to be and expect to find Him there. That you will intentionally and purposefully do everything you know to do to meet God . . . to meet God . . . to actually MEET GOD . . .  and finally find out if this Christianity stuff is for real or not.

So that next year, you can light the Joy candle with genuine joy, like I did this year. (Twice.)

Meditations On an Obscure Verse

No more let sins and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground.
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.

You don't recognize that Christmas carol? That doesn't surprise me. This is the third verse of "Joy to the World." Unless you've sung the song from a hymnal every Christmas for three or more decades, you may not be familiar with this verse.

We sang this song last Sunday in church, and when we got to this verse, for some reason, I didn't gloss over it as I have in other years. I actually tried to figure out what the heck this is talking about.

No more let sins and sorrows grow . . .

First of all, I had to figure out who the songwriter was talking to here. Is he asking God to do this? Or telling us, the listener to do it? Seeing how two lines later, he speaks of God in the third person ("he"), I'm assuming he's not speaking to God in the second person here; I'm assuming he's speaking to us. YOU stop letting sin and sorrows grow.

Where do sins and sorrows grow? He could be talking about them growing in the world around us -- about dealing with the effects of the fall in our world. But as I wrote earlier, I think we are much too focused on sin in others; we need to focus more on the sin in ourselves. That's where sins and sorrows grow: in our own hearts.

And the songwriter is telling us that we can stop those sins and sorrows from growing. It is within our power. (At least it is now that Christ has come to liberate us from our bondage to those sins and sorrows.)

Nor thorns infest the ground? That seems to be a reference to the curse after the fall (the curse also mentioned in the last line of this verse). "Cursed is the ground because of you . . . it will produce thorns and thistles because of you . . ."  Because you've chosen to reject the authority of God, because you chose to become your own god, God's blessing no longer falls on the work of your hands. Your labors will increase and often be fruitless.

And again -- if I'm correct that the songwriter is speaking to us here -- he is saying that we can stop this now. Thorns don't have to infest our ground. Our strivings in life don't have to be meaningless and fruitless anymore.

Why? How?

He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.

Wherever the curse is found, wherever its effects are seen -- which is over the whole earth -- the blessings of God can now flow. That blessing that we removed from us after the fall is now back. And why is it back?

Because he -- JESUS -- came to make that happen.

He came to fix what we screwed up at the fall. From the minute he was conceived as a little zygote in Mary's womb, his entire purpose for being in human form was the fixing of that screw-up.

I think the reason this verse jumped out at me this year was because I am quite conscious of the fact that I am allowing certain sins and sorrows to grow in my heart. I know they're wrong. I've weeded them out in the past. But right now, for whatever inexcusable reason, I'm permitting them to be there. And the image of them as a plant is important. Because it reminds me that the weeds of sin and sorrow in my life that I don't pull up are not innocuous. They "take root". They multiply and spread. Like the weeds in my garden and yard, if you don't pull them when they are tiny, those roots grow deep and wide, and their removal now requires major disruption of the lovely ground around them.

But they can be pulled. They are not sovereign in the garden of my heart. All because Jesus came. And His blessings now flow.

And heaven and nature sing!!!!

Not-Yet-Answered Prayer

I've been convicted in the last year or two about intercessory prayer. For those of you not fluent in Churchese, that's a fancy word for praying for other people -- as opposed to praying for your own needs, praying to confess sin, praying to simply worship, etc.

There are eight or ten people that God has specifically laid on my heart that I've been praying for mightily for the last couple years. All different needs . . . all needs that require the hand of God. And I'm finding that this intercessory prayer thing is not easy. I remember a particular prayer warrior friend many years ago; whenever I asked her to pray for me about something (which happened often at that difficult time of my life), she would just smile radiantly and say, "Just another reason to spend time with my Father!" Her joy in this process was obvious.

This is not me, sorry to say. When I feel burdened to pray for someone, it is truly a burden and I don't enjoy the feeling. Worse, I'm impatient in the process. As I said, I've been seriously praying for the people on my list for a couple years, and I'm already discouraged at the "results." Only one request crossed off the list as answered: a friend found a job recently, but even that was after many months of unemployment. For most of my requests, I've seen little or no action of any kind. A couple situations have even seemed to get worse.

I've found myself asking God lately for just a little, quick answer. Just one little thing. Just a small sign to let me know that he's listening and working so I have the encouragement to persevere.

Remember the golden calf story from Exodus that I pontificated about all week last week? Interesting thing about that. This incident happened right after God brought the Israelites out of Egypt. Right after the ten miraculous plagues, including the angel of death. Right after the parting of the Red Sea. Right after God started showering the people with manna to feed them every morning (in fact, they were still eating manna during this time). Right after God met with Moses to establish a covenant with the people, a covenant they enthusiastically agreed to. Right after Moses and seventy elders literally met with God, experienced his physical presence, at the top of the mountain.

After all these miracles and wonders, all it took was forty days of Moses being away from the camp and the people not knowing when he was coming back . . . a mere month and a half, and they forgot it all. "Come, make us gods who will go before us," they said to Aaron. And Aaron -- who was one of those seventy elders who had just stood in God's physical presence -- obliged them.

How pathetic. Not the Israelites. Humanity, I mean.

This story was a good reminder to me right now. Miracles and wonders do not lead to belief. Scores of people saw Jesus' miracles and still shouted for his crucifixion. As much as I think just one little quick answer would increase my faith, it probably wouldn't. I would soon forget it; I would quickly be back to, "What have you done for me lately?"

God knows better than I do when a little quick answer will truly help me. I can wait. These prayers are not about me anyway.

Does God Change His Mind?

That Exodus passage in BSF last week, with the killing of the three thousand Hebrew rebels – there was something else in that passage that troubled me.

Before Moses actually descends the mountain and sees the golden calf and the revelry going on, God tells him what's happening. And God makes him an offer: I'll annihilate this stiff-necked people and start over with you. I'll make YOU a great nation. Whaddya say?

Now, Moses turns Him down and instead pleads for the people (later, he even offers himself to be destroyed in their place). And our lesson presented this as a test of Moses' spiritual leadership. Again, I'll have to study on that. Again, I assume that interpretation comes from principles found elsewhere in scripture because that take on the event is not explicit there in Exodus.

Two troubling things here: I was disturbed by the idea that God was saying he was willing to break his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – the promise that Israel would be great and would live in the Promised Land and be His people. God doesn't break promises. Right?

Maybe that's part of why we were being taught that this was simply a test of Moses. Maybe the assumption is that any reader of the book should KNOW that God would not – cannot – do such a thing and so you aren't to read it that way. Hmmm.

Then the scripture says that after Moses spoke on the people's behalf, “the Lord relented.” He gave in. He changed his mind.

THAT's the part that I struggle with most.

If God had in mind one action and then shifted to a different action, one of those actions wasn't “his perfect will”, yes? But there is ample evidence in the Bible that the prayers of His people have an effect on God – that he may do something different based on those prayers. I'm never exactly sure how that can be.

Every once in a while, I get a glimpse of understanding of this idea. I once read (or heard – don't remember which) an analogy about a ship crossing the Atlantic. The captain of that ship is in full control of where the ship is going. The end destination is determined. But the passengers have a lot of leeway about where they go and what they do while on that ship headed toward their destination.

That hints at the truth, but doesn't quite sum it up. I don't think we can ever completely sum it up in our human understanding. This is one of those great mysteries that we may never quite understand about God.

But if, again, we go back to the fact that God's primary purpose is re-establishing relationship with us, I can, again, get a glimpse of some understanding. Somehow, some way, God in His infinite power and wisdom has worked it out that my prayers – my reaching out to Him to acknowledge Him as who He is and ask for Him to act on His justice and mercy and wisdom in my world – MY PRAYERS can make things happen. He worked it out so the action He wants me to take to build that relationship also works to accomplish His will in the world.

Amazing.