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“… despise not thy mother when she is old.” -Proverbs 23:22b
Your Mother When She Is Old
We need as many “old mothers” as we can get in the church and in our lives. We need to honor the older mothers among us and change our thinking about the word, “old.”
For some reason, we have attached a stigma to old age such that people do not like to be called, “old.” Yet, in the scriptures, it is a badge of honor and a sign of God’s blessing.
Perhaps some thought ought to be given to reviving the old custom of honoring the eldest mother in the church on Mother’s Day. In the New testament, older women were all considered mothers of the church. That had something to give and the church was tuned to receive it.
One can think of three reasons why we might learn from and honor the eldest among us and they spell O-L-D.
O – Older mothers have gotten OVER some things.
There is no substitute for experience. The most important and valuable advantage of experience is that it teaches us that wherever we are in our journey, we are stuck. We might be going through some difficulties, but we can and will get through them. We might be laboring under some burdens, but we can and will get over them. We can know this because our elders could and did get over theirs.
L - Older mothers have LEARNED some things.
Life has taught them some lessons and most are willing to share those lessons. We all know more today than we did yesterday. The longer we go, the more we potentially learn. We can honor our mothers by listening to their perspectives. They know some things we do not know because they have had time to learn them.
D – Older mothers have DONE some things.
They have had time to accomplish some goals, to have a few failures, and to enjoy some victories. When we look at their lives, we take courage in knowing that we can also accomplish some things. In fact, they sometimes did what seemed impossible, but with God’s help, they did them anyway. We need them as role models.
These are three reasons to honor our older mothers and to strive to someday be old mothers and old fathers.
The movement itself is far more important that the words we use or the sentiments we experience. It is the movement that expresses the true intentions of our hearts.
The movement is the most honest and reliable indicator of our spiritual progress ... whether we know it or feel it or not.
When I say I pray for you, I do. I come beside you, stand with you, and bring you before the God I serve. It is my way of loving you.
A three letter word for prayer: AWE!
"I stand amazed in the presence ..."
Another word for prayer: WONDER!
"Pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17) - not quitting and maintaining the attitude and constant awareness of One who is Other.
I do pray for America today and invite others to pray in whatever way they pray. For those who don't, do what you and wish America well.
I am not just praying for our nation today. I am praying for our larger community on the planet - No permission or sanction needed - but encouragement welcome and concerted effort celebrated.
Do we NEED a national day of prayer? I think so - DAILY!
I am amused by the fuss we make over symbols and language when prayer and gathering to pray is always legal. If it is ever not, we still will.
This is a day of prayer. It matters little whether it is declared or not (It has been). It is always legal in any jurisdiction, to pray.
Close-up of paleo-Hebrew Leviticus scroll, now at the Israel Antiquities Authority in Jerusalem
Today, I seek from God what I must give to God. It is a presumptuous request and an audacious expectation that I could be what I seek to be, holy.
Holiness is fully integrated wholeness before God and within ourselves. It is sincere, focused attention and utter consecration.
It is being that flows through doing.
It is knowing who we are and Whose we are.
It is belonging.
It is availability.
It is the capacity to stand in awe and chuckle at the twists and turns of life as God intervenes in life.
It is what I lack and what I have at the same time.
"Be holy, for I am holy ," (Leviticus 11:44) is quite an assignment. Yet, every assignment is a sign of hope and possibility.
By God's grace and incarnate sacrifice, we are holy because we have been bought with a price. We are holy in spiritual reality, but we may lag in actualization. I do.
Dear Fanny Crosby, whose only light was the light of God within her, blind to the world, but ever so perceptive to the Spirit, penned her hearts desire this way. I make it a prayer today as well:
I Am Thine, O Lord
I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice, And it told Thy love to me; But I long to rise in the arms of faith And be closer drawn to Thee.
Draw me nearer, nearer blessed Lord, To the cross where Thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessed Lord, To Thy precious, bleeding side.
Consecrate me now to Thy service, Lord, By the power of grace divine; Let my soul look up with a steadfast hope, And my will be lost in Thine.
O the pure delight of a single hour That before Thy throne I spend, When I kneel in prayer, and with Thee, my God I commune as friend with friend!
There are depths of love that I cannot know Till I cross the narrow sea; There are heights of joy that I may not reach Till I rest in peace with Thee.
Draw me nearer, nearer blessed Lord, To the cross where Thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessed Lord, To Thy precious, bleeding side.
This is my personal devotion for the day, the focus of my attention as I set out on my various tasks of living. It is my meditation as I seek to integrate the loose strands of life's demands and make myself available to God and the world as a follower of Jesus.
It is my prayer. It is my intention. It is my heart.
The church that aspires to being coddled by the world, that whines for preferred status, that complains in the wilderness that it only has manna, and that expects great privilege has, perhaps, not read Peter's first epistle enough or Jesus' admonitions on the mountain in Matthew 5 and following.
What is now, is momentary.
What will be, eventually will be.
We are to live graciously, truthfully, and faithfully and to expect hostility, receiving even that, as manna and honor and returning only love in the name of Jesus.
"For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps." -1 Peter 2:20-21
His steps are the steps of suffering, not coddling.
World Context
"Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene," - Luke 3:1
It sounds like "too much information to some ears.
Yet, it is vital information. It sets the story in time and place so that understanding time and place, the message can be timeless. The truth can transcend its historical setting.
In the arena of God’s activity, there are always multiple events transpiring at the same time.
Everything happens in context.
Christian awareness has a true north focus on the activity of God in the world, but it cannot ignore the world around it. To do so would be to deny that God uses world events to establish a context for His message.
God is aware of our world. He knows its culture, politics and trends. When His Word comes to us, it is in context. The Christian who shuts his or her eyes to the world is going to miss part of what God is addressing in time and space.
Not to acknowledge context is to make God’s Word simply an esoteric nicety with no punch.
At any given time in history, our context might be privilege or persecution or anything in between. It might be hardship or ease. It might be high favor or no favor, but there will always be flavor and ...
God will always be at work in the dead center of things.
"The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good." -Psalm 53:1 (ESV)
There is jesting that makes us jolly and jovial and there is truth that makes us joyful. It cannot be assumed that they are the same. Joy is grounded in something beyond the tangible and tangential. Joy is rooted in eternal truth. That demarks and differentiates the territory between felicity and foolishness.
This verse is not really or primarily about atheism, because it is not about an intellectual conviction or doubt. It is an assessment of a heart inclination that knows one thing and behaves in an oppositional manner toward truth.
There are many theists who have said in their hearts that there is no God. To know one thing and act as if what we know is not true or irrelevant to our lives is foolish.
Neither is it about intellectual deficiency. The biblical context for use of the word, "fool" is almost always the absence of wisdom and moral discretion. In fact, it self-defines in this verse as, "they are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity."
In other words, "You act as if there were no governing truth or Governor of truth in the universe. You live your life in contempt of God."
I used to call this "practical atheism."
Some of my friends would argue that morality and theology have no correlation and I would remind them that I am preaching to the choir who feels that because their theology is sort of OK, that they are OK.
But then, it gets more inclusive than that. Do you like inclusiveness? Try this: "There is none who does good."
None.
Is it "psalmistic" hyperbole, the exasperation of a godly soul who is fed up with all the ungodliness or is it the reality of human depravity and universal susceptibility?
Maybe both.
Does he include himself?
I do not know, but I count me among those who have worn the jester's hat and played the fool.
Every time I forget my Center, I am among the company of spiritual, oral, and ethical idiots who are saying in their hearts (mission control of the decision-making process) that there is no God.
"Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When God restores the fortunes of his people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad." -Psalm 53:6 (ESV)
So, after the initial exasperation of verse one, where the fool says in his heart that there is no God, the psalmist processes things and processes them some more and lands on hope and redemption.
God is in the restoration business.
The opposite of unbelief is, among other things, real rejoicing.
Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them. Then he looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. "Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. "Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. "But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. "Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. "Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. "Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.
The psalmist either had a short sighted view of God, an over-inflated sense of his and his people's own righteousness, a limited perspective, all of the above, some of the above mixed together, or an insight into how things are in the real world -- that both the righteous and the unrighteous suffer.
Some suffering comes inevitably as a natural consequence of making poor choices.
Some suffering comes because we make right choices. MLK called that redemptive.
Some suffering comes because we all breath common air or because other people make poor choices in a world where we breath common air, or because we wore purple on Friday or for some other random or intentional purpose.
Some suffering comes to shape, better, or enrich us.
In any event, we all suffer and no one theological, philosophical, biblical, moral, or scientific explanation can account for all of it.
" All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten you, and we have not been false to your covenant. Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps departed from your way; yet you have broken us in the place of jackals and covered us with the shadow of death. If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god, would not God discover this? For he knows the secrets of the heart. Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."
I took a moment to think about moments and decided to write:
I only had a moment ...
Take the Moment
Fritter, fright, flight, or flow. Those are the choices when time expected becomes time allotted and we are disappointed with the time we get.
“I need more time,” is a common cry among the hurried, harried, and harassed of the earth. But there is no more time. The time we have is the time we get.
Most of us fritter the time that we think is not enough for meaningful work.
Or we fritter it further by futilely fighting for fleeting moments that cannot be given by the givers of the earth.
Or we flee from the uncomfortable reality that our plans and expectations will not come to fruition.
With each of those choices, we waste more time and fail to accomplish anything in the moments we have.
All we can do, and remain productive, is flow with and in the moment.
Time how long it takes to savor the flavor of a sip of sweet tea. It is a moment. Track the seconds it takes to entertain a powerful thought. A moment.
When I put something in the microwave, I do not stand and wait for the beep. I go and do something. And I get it done – in a moment.
Don’t just seize the day; seize the moment!
Movement in the moment can make all the difference in what you produce. If it is only a moment, take it; live it; use it; make a difference!
You have this moment. What will you do with it?
There are times when there is little time. There are moments that are only one moment. To redeem the time, one must step fully into the time. One moment at a time. One moment in time.
When we act out of gut reactions, we often say and do things we either regret or should regret. Acting on instinct does not say much about setting us apart from other mammalian creatures. Instincts are useful, but are not dominant for us as human beings. The psalmist gives us three ideas that can help us and protect us from stupid, rash behaviors.
1. Know who you are - You are a person set apart for a higher purpose and a Higher Person. "But know that the LORD has set apart the godly for himself;" This is one you can consult about the matter as well: "the LORD hears when I call to him."
2. Know what you feel. Go ahead and be angry, but divorce that anger from your next decision. By acknowledging your anger, you dis-empower it from control. "Be angry, and do not sin ..."
3. Know what you know - To use a biblical term: Ponder on your bed. That means, from a place of rest and removal from the world, consider your options, commitments, and the implications of your actions. When you that the time to "ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent," you gain perspective.
4. For ultimate perspective, give the matter to God completely and wholly. "Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the LORD."
Take these steps and you will be far less likely to fly off the handle and act or speak rashly or make truly stupid, angry choices.
" But know that the LORD has set apart the godly for himself;
the LORD hears when I call to him."
"Be angry, and do not sin;
ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Selah
Offer right sacrifices,
and put your trust in the LORD." -Psalm 4:3-5 (ESV)
Words matter because, in some mysterious way, they are alive.
"Logos," is defined most often as "word," but it is also "principle," "idea," "truth," or "the things spoken of." It is also the act of speaking.
It is both in-transient and dynamic.
You speak a word, with or without intent, and the DNA of that word plants itself in the soul of the hearer. There, it is influenced by biases and that soul's own hunger. It takes root and bears fruit.
We ought to choose our words so that they are clear, compelling, compassionate, and consistent with what we truly want them to convey and accomplish.
We ought to choose them before we speak them. Choose them with intent and purpose. Choose them, knowing that after we release them, we will no longer have control over how they are received or what they will do in the lives of others.
We need to remember that words matter and that they can build up or tear down.
Let us speak to edify.
"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." - Proverbs 25:11
We are designed for community. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead brings us life in so many ways. It restores our fellowship with the Father and it creates a deep and enduring fellowship among us as brothers and sisters with a common peace and a common purpose. Today's scriptures highlight that truth.
The psalms teach us to pray deeply and honestly without pretense or presumption. They just let it out and then let God sort it all out.
What if we did not judge or measure our prayers before we prayed them? What if we just let all of our negative junk out and laid it on the table before One who is wise, good, patient, loving, holy, and true and then .... well, then, we let that One deal with it.
"This stays; this goes; deal with this; I can handle this; don't worry about this; you might want to rethink this; I hear you. I understand I love you."
What if?
That is how the psalms sound to me. All the vengeful, angry feelings are brought before God before anyone else. All of the despondency we experience is brought to the front so that it can be addressed. All of our hopelessness and fear is exposed and God meets us where we are.
We see all of those heavy bricks of guilt and bitterness hanging on a cross and being demolished.
He knows we harbor hate in our hearts that is weighing us down. He knows that we struggle with temptation. He knows that we feel persecuted and alone. He knows and wants us to bring it to Him.
When we do, we are transformed as we are released from the power of those feelings. They only rule us when we cherish them in our hearts and guard them with all our might.
We may be afraid for people to know we are human, but it is useless to try and hide that reality from God. He knows.
"Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away." -Psalm 31:9-10 (ESV)
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Now Is the Time! Recession Is No Excuse for Recess!
Have you had a personal recession during this season of pandemic?
Contrary to the human tendency toward flight in times of danger, these are days for entrepreneurs to venture forth into the unknown and strut their creative stuff. The time is right for new ideas, for niche thinking, and for bold initiatives by men and women who will not be ruled by fear or passing circumstance.
The very limitations, restrictions, and scarcity of our times that cause some to retreat will prompt others to think more creatively and move aggressively into the arena of invention and innovation.
In the midst of recession when the tides of prosperity appear to be receding, there sounds no recess bell. Class is still in session. The need for vision and visionaries is profound. Life goes on. There is a sea change of thinking, a correction in our collective greed for consumption, and a reevaluation of our definitions of success. But people still require basic services and great ideas still have landing places among receptive minds.
We cannot retreat from entrepreneurship, Rather, we must embrace it at a new level. Our communities need out-of-the-box thinkers and risk takers. Our nation and world need people who are willing to move forward to build great business, social, and spiritual initiatives on a shoestring.
Recession is no excuse for recess.
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Margins Too Wide and Too Narrow
I'm working on margins.
I come to this challenge from time to time and I find it to be a balancing act between making them too wide and too narrow.
If they are so wide that you could drive a truck through them, there is the danger of wasting time between events and responsibilities. That is, unless you carry around a sack of contingency tasks.
Even if you do, you have to take a moment to decide which one fits best with the geography and time allotted - as well as the time of day.
If they are too narrow, you may find that there is not enough time for the most important tasks you'd like to "fit in."
Either way, you have to use your head and that can be painful.
A more important lesson to learn is that no matter how detailed and well considered our plans, there are people and circumstances beyond our control that can alter our plans. If we become to rigid about them, we will crack.
The mighty redwoods are tall, strong, and deeply rooted ... but they are also quite flexible.
Maybe I will use a margin to go stare at one and get back with you.
How about this? A little formula for saying what you want to say: S.A.Y.- I.T.
SAY
S
Search your own heart and mind for what you really want to convey.
A
Assess your audience so that you can access their attention.
Y
Yell softly. Choose high impact words. Notice how the room gets quiet to hear a whisper.
IT
I
Involve multiple senses and receptors.
T
Terminate before you lose attention. It is better to stop short and leave the door open for future interaction.
----------------
Here is more:
Saying More With Fewer Words
"When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise." - Proverbs 10:19 (NIV)
I am working on using fewer words to say more.
At the very least, there is a hopeful suspicion that more might be read, understood, retained, and activated in choices.
Add the decreased possibilities of slipping into one of many snares of life that are labeled with my name (or so it seems).
There is much more that I could say, but there is wisdom in not saying too much.
That is our working assumption after all.
-------------------------------------------------
Now, let's take one more step:
Being Still and Knowing
"Be still and know that I am God..."
This is a verse I memorized decades ago. It has been with me since I was a child, inscribed upon my heart and mulled over again and again with ever deepening understanding. However, I suspect that I have not begun to truly internalize the depth of its implications in my life either in the mandate toward stillness or the call to knowing.
On this truth I will meditate this week after Holy Week.
Holy Saturday is a tough challenge for a homiletician. It is a dark day on the Christian calendar. In some church traditions, there is no music and there are no flowers or colors to ameliorate the experience of death and despair as the Body of Christ meditates upon the experience of the church on that day 2000 plus years ago --- and the experience of Jesus in Sheol.
Can We Live Again?
Is that the question we ask this day on the church's calendar when we consider the time of Jesus in the tomb?
Is that the question we ask in our own darkest moments?
“If a man die, shall he live again?” (from Job 14:14)
The age-old cry of humankind is for eternal meaning. Is there anything beyond this world of pain and tears that brings meaning to these moments while transcending them? Is there a life beyond the grave or is all futile?
Perhaps Job did not really know the answer, but he did have a glimpse. We do know that, unlike most men and women, Job was willing to serve God for nothing. He was willing to worship the Lord with or without reward or promise of life.
Job's God was not running for office. His status did not depend upon human referendum. He was God and that was that. Because He was God, He deserved praise. Job would come into a deeper understanding of God's Sovereignty, but the seeds were present even before his testing.
As is true of Job's pressing questions, the answers come fully in Jesus Christ. The resurrection is the final statement of death's final defeat. For the one who follows Jesus, there is hope beyond death. John said that he was writing his gospel so that we might know we had eternal life.
There are countless men and women in our communities yearning for answers to the ultimate questions of life. God sets Job up as the ultimate example of an earnest seeker. He records Job's search so that we might identify and be led toward a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Job's story is our story. His yearning is our yearning. His needs are our needs - not to be free of pain and discomfort, but to see God face to face and find our answers in Him.
" For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven …” - II Corinthians 5:1-2
Job 14:1-14
(NRSV)
"A mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble, comes up like a flower and withers, flees like a shadow and does not last. Do you fix your eyes on such a one? Do you bring me into judgment with you? Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one can. Since their days are determined, and the number of their months is known to you, and you have appointed the bounds that they cannot pass, look away from them, and desist, that they may enjoy, like laborers, their days. "For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease. Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stump dies in the ground, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth branches like a young plant. But mortals die, and are laid low; humans expire, and where are they? As waters fail from a lake, and a river wastes away and dries up, so mortals lie down and do not rise again; until the heavens are no more, they will not awake or be roused out of their sleep. Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If mortals die, will they live again? All the days of my service I would wait until my release should come."
There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple … - Luke 16:19
Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man! – John 19:5
When I see purple I think of Lydia who, in the book of Acts, was known as the dealer of purple.
Purple was a precious commodity, the garment of royalty, the symbol of wealth.
Purple is a featured color in the Lenten season as we meditate on the road to the cross that Jesus trod.
It is also an element of two of Jesus’ teachings, one that he spoke and another that he lived. One was a parable and the other was a reality.
Jesus spoke of a rich man, clothed in purple, who died and discovered that all he had valued and cherished in life was worthless in light of a Godless eternity. This man begged for a drop of water and someone to warn his brothers. He was simply called, “a certain rich man.”
Later, Jesus would also ask for a sip of water, from the cross. Just prior to that pivotal event in salvation history, Jesus was paraded before Pilate clothed in purple. The soldiers were mocking His message of a spiritual kingdom that transcended all human kingdoms.
Jesus wore the purple unwillingly on His willing path to bear the shame of the world for our salvation. The rich man wore it with a prideful heart proclaiming his superiority and gaining nothing. One exalted himself and was humbled. Jesus humbled Himself and was exalted.
Meme theology calls this "National Atheists Day," but it misses the point.
"The fool denies God IN HIS HEART and acts corruptly." - Psalm 14:1
The psalmist was not talking about doubters, debaters, or seekers, but about those who know and ignore.
"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." - I Corinthians 1:18
Spiritual foolishness is about the heart, not the intellect.
Jeremiah describes the fool that says in his heart there is no God, not as a person who has trouble believing, but as one who knows there is a God, but ignores that fact. That is also what the psalmist described - one who makes no room in his or her heart for God, for righteousness, for justice, or for truth.
In other words, stubborn and self-centered.
Spiritual foolishness is about the heart, not the intellect.
And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you ...
"Why has the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us?"
"What is our iniquity?"
"What is the sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?"
... then you shall say to them:
It is because your ancestors have forsaken me, says the LORD, and have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law; and because you have behaved worse than your ancestors, for here you are, every one of you, following your stubborn evil will, refusing to listen to me.
Therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your ancestors have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.
Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the LORD, when it shall no longer be said, "As the LORD lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of Egypt," but "As the LORD lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of the north and out of all the lands where he had driven them."
For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their ancestors.
I am now sending for many fishermen, says the LORD, and they shall catch them; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.
For my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from my presence, nor is their iniquity concealed from my sight.
And I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.
O LORD, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: Our ancestors have inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit.
Can mortals make for themselves gods?
Such are no gods!
"Therefore I am surely going to teach them, this time I am going to teach them my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the LORD."
The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary … – Isaiah 50:4
As we celebrate the beginning of spring, we do so with hearts ready for a change. We have grown weary of winter and anxious for a change of seasons. Spring is the season of hope and new life. It is a season of encouragement.
God’s Word reminds us often of the power of the tongue to build up or to destroy.
What a gift to be able to use the tongue of the learned, as a gift from God, to encourage and strengthen a weary brother!
He goes on to exclaim that God awakens him every morning with new instructions and wisdom.
You can have the tongue of the learned as well if you will listen to God, read His Word, keep an open heart and mind, and be willing to share a word of blessing with those who have grown tired of living.
The greatest privilege in the world is found in lifting someone else up and moving them forward on their road to spiritual success. There is no greater honor or joy than to be a part of someone else’s life story of God’s blessings through grace.
Often, all it takes is a word to bring springtime to someone’s winter of discontent. To give it, we must be willing and ready to receive it from God, to listen intently, and share generously.
“Now is the Son of man glorified and God is glorified in Him.” – from John 13:31
You must take it all as a package or there is no glory. Jesus understood that these final days were one great redemptive event – from mingling with the crowds and teaching them, to provoking the Sanhedrin with His very presence, to the upper room, the washing of feet, the prayers in the garden, and on to the cross.
It was the process of God glorifying Himself in His Son. It was all part of the package: His life, death, and resurrection were one magnificent demonstration of the power of God.
Jesus had spoken similar words when some gentiles had come looking for Him. He responded that the coming of these men was an indication that He was soon to be lifted up from the earth and to draw all men unto Him. Lifting up could mean exaltation or crucifixion. In this case, it meant both. He moves from tragedy to triumph in a split-second intersection of time and eternity.
This time he speaks of being glorified as He confronts the one who will betray Him. This is strange to our warped thinking. But this is Jesus who donned the apron and wiped His disciple’s feet. This is the one who taught that the path to greatness is servanthood. This is the Master of great reversals.
Our Lord never lost sight of the big picture.
He did not stop with cross in His panoramic view of His mission.
He did not even end the story with rising from the dead.
He taught His friends that He was going to the Father through this path of glory and that He would come to them in a new way to indwell them, that they might do even greater works. He promised further that He would come again visibly to introduce a grand new eternal day. It was about glory.
It is still about glory.
Take a walk in the garden this morning where there is an empty hole in a rock, a barren place where death once dwelt. What do you notice but emptiness? He is not there. He is risen!
The work of redemption is done. It was worth it all. The pain and the suffering have accomplished their ends. He is alive and we can live also.
What name do you give to your pain of the moment, your struggle of this hour? Call it suffering or call it glory. It all depends upon whether you view it from the present or from the resurrection.
Do you remember when the San Francisco 49ers were known for their ability to come from behind after half-time and win a football game in the second half?
"It seems, in fact, that, the second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half." - Fyodor Dostoevsky
As much as I love Dostoevsky, I am not buying that ... at least not for my personal collection of life artifacts.
I can see where one might make the observation and where it might be the norm. However, I want to defy it.
One must grant that the resistance to reinventing oneself is heavy and the force of habit is strong. The road to establishing new patterns of thought and practice is uphill and treacherous. But there exists such a path and one can choose to take it.
We preach resurrection hope this Sunday. That means that we do not have to be defined by inertia whether we are objects at rest or in motion.
Centrifugal force is only as strong as our commitment to break free while relying on a Power that is far greater than ourselves.
“ … Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.” – John 12:13
It was not the first time that the children of Israel had employed palms in their worship of God. During the Feast of Tabernacles, the palm was to be one of other implements for rejoicing and celebrating the goodness of God.
”And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days.” - Leviticus 23:40
One day, the King came to Jerusalem to prepare for His crowning with a crown of thorns. One sort of tree would welcome Him. Another would suspend Him between earth and Heaven and time and eternity as the sacrifice for our sins.
But as He entered the city, the people welcomed Him as a hero and so He was and is.
Before the week could end, He would die.
After the Sabbath, He would rise again.
And then, ascended into Heaven, His people would remember the Sunday of Palms throughout the generations and even till today. We remember why He so resolutely set His face toward Jerusalem and what He would face there. We remember that He knew far more about His fate than the masses, yet He entered without hesitation or reservation.
We see palms again in the scriptures as history begins the process of coming to fruition. It is in Heaven that the palms are waved in rejoicing and praise. This time, no crucifixion or contradiction of sinners awaits Him. This time, He is the genuine object of the praise of those who understand fully who He is and why He came.
“After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;”- Revelation 7:9
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Worship with The Fellowship of Joy
Palm Sunday, March 28, 2021
Jesus Did Three Things:
He Portrayed a Vision of Servanthood
He Predicted Victory as the Sovereign Savior
He Presented Himself as the Vicarious Suffering Servant
Is it focused action built upon predetermined objectives, rooted in enduring principles? Or is it reactive and mindless flailing after perceived winds of crisis?
Is it urgent? If so, what is the source of the urge? Is it essential? Then of what is it the essence?
Things are not always as locked in as they seem. This is the soil in which I will prayerfully dig at the crest of a new day. Perhaps I will hit bedrock and build my day on that. Perhaps I will still be digging at midnight. If so, there will be hope for a fruitful tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm going for today.
God is with us as we think and that awareness lays the foundation of prayer. It is bringing God into our thoughts, though He is never far off, and thinking in concert and conversation with God. Prayer focuses us and directs us as God grounds us.
With enough prayer, we can know our urges, sort them, trust them, and be guided by them without allowing them to rule us.
With enough prayer, essentials will be discerned more clearly based upon the essence of what and who we are in relationship with Him who is eternal in nature and purpose.
With enough prayer, something enduring and purposeful will emerge from each emergency in profound contrast to the knee jerk reactive thinking of our precarious times.
With enough prayer, we will waste less time and accomplish more than we thought we could.
So, while there are no guarantees of immediate results, I am going to dig a bit in prayer, assured that the emergency is just part of the process of something being born through me and may not be what it seems on the surface.
DIG:
D = Dig for DEFINITION
If we can't name it, we can't claim it. If we can't wrap our minds around it, we need to keep seeking. Definitions must be held loosely in our hands and minds, but even a tentative definition of our issues can focus our attention on positive outcomes. It can also help us sort through the fluff that tends to dominate and waste less time, energy, and resources on lesser goals.
I = Dig for INSIGHT
Just as there may be far more dark matter in the universe than known and observable matter, there is far more that we are yet to know than we now know and far more that we will never know in this life than is possible to grasp. However, a glimmer of insight into ourselves, our times, other people, and the meaning of our circumstances through the knowledge of the Holy Other can catapult us to far better decisions today than the ones we made yesterday.
G = Dig for GRATITUDE
When prompted by crisis to act and act now, focus often diverts to self-interest and survival. We might be very successful at survival while utterly failing at the purpose of our survival. We have lived another day without really living at all. We have added nothing to our world. Real accomplishment is rooted in gratitude for what has been given. Gratitude is the human response to divine grace. It receives, gives, and gives thanks. It loosens our belts without letting our slacks fall to our socks. It relaxes us while it energizes us. The attitude of gratitude seasons our legitimate and holy discontent with enough flavor to make our work palatable and productive. If I am having difficulty being grateful at the beginning of this day, I just need to dig a little deeper.
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Perhaps. the most positive response to an emergency is to dig deeper than the actual emergency and urgency of the moment and discover our longer and livelier challenge for the next lap of our race, the next phase of our journey.
Let your emergencies prompt you toward greater significance.
What is the meaning of my moments and movement beyond the movement of the moment?
In Genesis, the story of Joseph crescendos with this dance he choreographs to reconnect with the brothers who dealt so treacherously with him years before.
Perhaps they have tried daily to forget, but they cannot. Nor can they know fully the pain and possibilities that were pregnant in their choices.
When Joseph "sets them up," they are confronted with a question that is deeper than the moment:
... Joseph said to them, "What deed is this that you have done?" - Genesis 44:15
In fact, the deed they had most immediately done was none - none that would indict them. They are different men at that day than the men who sold their brother as a slave, but their transformation is not complete until the reconciliation is transacted and Joseph was confront them as much as they must be confronted ....
And they must confront the question that has ultimately brought them to this moment, "What have you done?"
It is, in the long run, a redemptive question and it is ours. It is mine? What is the meaning of my moments and movement beyond the movement of the moment?
What is the meaning of my life in an honest and full assessment of my life?
What would it mean apart from redemption?
What does it mean in the light of redemption?
This is our moment for reflection.
------------------------------------------
May this be your day!
You may not realize it, but all your life, you've been waiting for this day.
It may be after 4 PM where you are, or after 7 if you are elsewhere, but whatever the time of day, this is still, the day for which you have been waiting and preparing your whole life and ....
"It is in dying that we are born to eternal life." - Prayer of St. Francis
So, let me die today and die daily.
There is nothing in my instincts to pray such a prayer.
But then, there is nothing in my instinctual drive to cling ...
... to extinct-ual or
... extinguishable
"living" that
lives beyond the moment.
I pray to resist that drive, that urge, that urgency to
survive that
extinguishes life.
Some day, that will mean laying down my body, but,
today it means ...
laying down this body of sin,
of self,
of sensual necessity that says,
"I am thee," but
is not me.
Nor is it Thee in me, Oh God who knows
and gives
and lives
in and through
all who die this way.
I prayed, "Kill me," and
Thou didst not...
and would not.
You said, "Just die and live," and
I tried it and I did and there You were!
You handed me a cross and said,
"Go carry it."
And I asked, "What is it?"
And You said,
"It is the pain and suffering and pain and disgust,
and ugliness, and bad choices, and bitter gall,
and nasty words, thoughts, and accusations,
and hateful hurts of those You will meet today."
And I said, "Why should I?"
And You said, "Because I did and do and you said that
You wanted to follow me and this is what we carry."
And I said, "The burden is too heavy."
And You said, "I know."
And I asked, "So?"
And You said, "Go ... I am with you."
And so ...
I did ... at least that day and then I asked,
"What do I do with them?"
And You said, "Bring them to me,"
and I replied, "But You already have all of these,"
and You said, "Mind Your own business, I've got it handled."
I said. "OK, You are the Master,"
and You smiled and said, "I know."
Master, this really feels and lot like living and You said,
"I know. I told you so. What you though was living,
was not.
It distorts your view because the lens is sprinkled with mirrors
always pointing back at you and
seeing life and events and people from
ego and self-interest and it is not in your
self-interest to be
that interested in yourself.
Deadsville!
Die to Deadsville and live!"
In so many words.
And so, Lord, I die today,
I nail Deadsville and my citizenship there with all my credentials and investments to
Your cross.
Thanks for my cross. It fits me.
I sort of like it.
I know I love this new life You have given me and
I really love these people You keep bringing into my life.
Help me to bear their burdens until I can get them to You and
Thank You for bearing them and mine.
I am starting to get it ...
It is in dying that we are born
To eternal life.
I look forward to seeing You face to face some day,
When I have laid down this body of flesh and this cross.
Thanks for the invitation and for paying the admission price.
Thank You, my Jesus,
My Lord, my Savior, my Friend, and My Brother,
Amen.
March 19, 2021
Prayer is a deep spiritual mystery.
Mutual communication with God is going on far beneath the surface of our lives. Not only do we often not know what to pray, we often know not what we are praying.
This is not said that we might disengage our minds, but that, with engagement, we might also release our spirits to commune with the Holy Spirit who knows, overcomes, and even uses our weaknesses in prayer even as He does in our outward lives.
" Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." -Romans 8:26-27 (ESV)
The key to not throwing in the towel and quitting on your dream may be as simple as one simple action following a decisive choice.
Decide to do something and then, do something.
In so doing, you will have taken a step. You will have closed the gap between inaction and action and you will have stayed in the ball game for one more inning.
You are staying alive. Sometimes staying alive to fight another day is enough. It's called, "hanging on."
"When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. " Franklin D. Roosevelt
KEEP ON.
The opposite of keeping on is not so much turning off as it is neglect. “Keep” suggests vigilance and attention. "On" is certainly across the chart from "off", but the pathway to off is inattention. It is not taking the next step of vigilance.
KEEP ON KEEPING ON!
Pace yourself, relax, give yourself a break, but do something for your business or ministry today. Do it consciously and give yourself credit for it. You may fail. When you do, keep this in mind:
"When the world says, "Give up," Hope whispers, "Try it one more time."" - Author Unknown
"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail. " - Ralph Waldo Emerson
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” – Romans 15:13 (New International Version)
The pathway of perseverance may not always be dramatic action or massive results, but it will always involve a choice and a response. On that pathway, there is hope. Where there is hope there is joy. Where there is joy, there is energy. God is the source, but if we are not open to trusting, we will dam the source of our power. The keep on we must move forward.
KEEP ______
K – Kinesthetic
The Free Dictionary defines this as “The sense that detects bodily position, weight, or movement of the muscles, tendons, and joints.” Applied to learning of behaviors it is about doing a behavior until it becomes a part of our lives. Some people call this habit formation. Keeping on involves developing behavioral patterns that become a natural part of our lives. Trusting is often manifested in touching. Touch your dream; touch the project; touch the challenge. Keep your hands on what you are keeping on.
TOUCH YOUR DREAM!
Touch it with your TIME- Spend time thinking of the desired outcomes. When you are tired from the task, take time to think about why you are doing what you are doing.
Touch it with your OPTIMISM- Peak to yourself and others with wholesome, uplifting, and optimistic words and ideas. Ephesians 4:29 (New International Version) reminds us:
"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."
Touch it with your UNDERSTANDING - Be a student of your mission, dream, and vision. Study it with a passion to learn and grasp the reality in your mind. Get details and concepts. Mull them over and over. Become an expert on your own life mission.
Touch in in COMMUNITY- Stand alone and fall. Stand with others and you keep standing. One of the easiest ways to fall into discouragement and loss of vision is to disassociate ourselves from positive people who build us up. Hang around some people who are on the road to making it and some who have almost . Associate with people who can serve as role models so you can see the fruit on the tree. Talk and listen to people who consistently say, "I can" and keep those who "can't" in the periphery of your circle of influence or outside it altogether. This is one of the inherent geniuses of network marketing and of the church.
Touch it with HOPE - Never lose hope. Always keep hope alive. This is the Spirit's function in your life.
E – Enthusiasm
Literally, from the Latin, enthusiasm mean having God within us. You must remain enthusiastic and nurture the spark of life and passion within you even when you are emotionally and physically drained. That requires connecting to God’s power at the very depth of your being, His Spirit within you. It takes faith and lots of it.
Paul's prayer for the Romans was based upon the reality of their relationship with God and he trusts that God is in them through the Holy Spirit and that God has the capacity to fill them with these qualities.
The person who experience real enthusiasm would be advised to make the dreams and goals of his or her life matters of intense and satisfying prayer - not only when thinking about the outcomes, but when strength is needed for the daily grind.
God is present and God will help and renew your enthusiasm
E - Elevate
There is much to elevate. Elevate your feet a bit for one thing; take a load off and relax. You must also elevate your mission in your own thinking. Elevate the importance of what you are doing in your own thinking.
Dale Carnegie said,
“Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves. "
And never feel ashamed of who YOU are. You are a person of significance. Never let anyone make you feel small because of your dreams or life mission :
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss)
P – Persevere
Press on with consistency and commitment. It is all in the PRESS.
Press on with the POWER of God. Apart from that power, we do not have the strength to press anything. Press without stress.
Press on with RESOLVE - Sing with the old spiritual, "A'int nobody gonna turn me 'round." Press or regress.
Press on with ENERGY- Energy is a strange thing. If you don't use it, you don't conserve it. You lose it. If you're not pressed, you'll get depressed.
Press on with SINCERITY - Have a sincere and purposeful focus at all times. We will scatter without sincere and pure goals. Press or digress.\
Press with SUCCESS- The real success is in the journey. Press toward success.
President Calvin Coolidge said,
“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."
ON ___
O – Orientation
The scriptures point us to a righteous life. Righteousness is about right relationships, especially about being rightly related to God and about moving in the right direction. Check your compass spiritually and in every other dimension of life and makes sure that your movement is oriented toward your goal. You are on a path. You are not at your desitination. Don't judge yourself by where you are, but by progress and vision. Orient yourself in the direction of God's best for your life and keep on keeping on - even if today's step is a baby step.
Ella Fitzgerald said,
"It isn't where you came from, its where you're going that counts."
N – NEVER
Never quit. Create momentum in your life by simply not quitting. Make that a decision and even if you can ‘t do much, do something. Perfectionism is not your friend. It will whisper in your ear that because you are not the best yet, there is no point. Don’t listen. Listen instead to Sir Winston Churchill:
“Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense”
There will be some setbacks and step backs. There will be some mistakes and failures. Never mind them.
You were made for a purpose. Keep on keeping on.
___________________________________________
Bonus Quotes on Perseverance
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. – John Quincy Adams
Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties
It is the curse of talent that, although it labors with greater steadiness and perseverance than genius, it does not reach its goal, while genius already on the summit of the ideal, gazes laughingly about. – Robert A. Schumann
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little. - Plutarch
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. (Ephesians 6:18)
Genius is divine perseverance. Genius I cannot claim nor even extra brightness but perseverance all can have. – Woodrow Wilson
"And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last …" Revelation 1:17
"For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." – Romans 8:15
It is not enough to learn to fear. Once we have learned the hard lesson of reverence, grace relieves our fears and comforts our troubled, weary souls.
First, we fall as dead before His magnificence; then He touches us in compassion and commands us to fear not.
First, we go down into Egypt and experience bondage. There we learn to know Him, and, in the wilderness, we learn His Name. We are slaves to sin and then to the law, but we are redeemed and released. And we are adopted. And in that adoption, we learn to cry, “Abba.”
Bondage brings fear and God uses the bondage of the law as a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Bondage informs us of what we are missing because our longings become the pangs of want. Somewhere in the process of learning fear, we come to grips with the deepest desire of our hearts. If we are honest and open, we realize that our desire is for God who alone can meet our needs and grant us redemption and freedom.
Grace taught my heart to fear, and my fears relieved many years ago. Yet, I must return to that turning point again and again, sometimes in the singing of the song of Amazing Grace. There I remember. In that moment, I give thanks. In those chords I am realigned with his purposes communicated through His loving kindness which is better than life.
Grace, my fears relieved. I cannot begin to describe the relief, the pure, sure calm that has come over my soul. That can be yours as well.
Daddy
"... ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."-Romans 8:15
Little Sarah was only three years old. All day long, she had been home doing what little girls do. But as the sun began to go down and the smell of hot rolls filled the house, her tiny heart began to sing with anticipation. She knew that evening meant one thing. He daddy would soon walk through the door. The love of her life would come home from a hard day at work, and she would run to meet him, jump in his arms, and be embraced with joy and love.
"Daddy, I missed you," she would exclaim. "You’re finally home! I'm so glad you are here."
At that, her father's heart would melt.
The Spirit of God invites us to pray as Jesus prayed, Abba, or Daddy. We are drawn into a relationship of warmth, acceptance, and love with our Heavenly Father. Those of us who have enjoyed such relationships with our earthly fathers have a glimpse of what our relationship with God can be. Those of us who have not had such relationships can take comfort in the knowledge of His absolute love and unbridled joy when we call out to Him and jump into His arms.
My tribe has a checkered history with forced conversions, violent power-grabbing, and militaristic exercise of religious dominance.
To deny that is to deny history. To not care is to ignore scripture.
We are flawed in our common humanity and sin with a lust for power that we are willing to exercise with violence and coercion.
Our religions, no matter how legitimate or illegitimate can be illegitimately co-opted as an excuse for that power-lust and every evil methodology we can muster to acquire what we want and think we deserve.
At the moment, the world is experiencing an extreme and frightening expression and demonstration of this. It is not the first in history and probably will not be the last. Everyone has a different name for it and the names are debated, but it is all one thing throughout history.
There are political and military battles that shall be waged, but the most important battle is unseen; it is timeless; it is the most real. It is waged in the secret place of prayer, the public place of speaking truth in love, and the relational place of living the life of faith to which we have been called - to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
PS - Win a High Five by Finding the Spelling Error
Peace in the Valley - Photo by Blogger from the Galilee Region of Israel
To be for peace is a choice and not always an easy choice. Surrounded by war cries and hostilities, the voices calling for calm are often muffled and maligned.
Dissonant is the music of the drumbeats. Thunderous is the rhythm of the boots upon the ground marching forth to battle for land, for prestige, for power, for dominance, for supremacy, and for wealth.
It may bring all forms of harsh criticism and your motives may be questioned if you advocate for peace.
At best, you may be considered unrealistic. At worse, you may be accused of disloyalty.
" Woe to me, that I sojourn in Meshech,
that I dwell among the tents of Kedar!
Too long have I had my dwelling
among those who hate peace.
I am for peace,
but when I speak, they are for war!"
Psalm 120:5-7 (ESV)
A sure way to invoke the wrath of those who are for war is to be for peace.
It will take all of your prayer and strength not to break with your resolve, not to lash out, and not to wish ill upon your tormentors for their anger can be strong and their condemnation can be chilling. But you have your marching orders from a higher commander and you are declared to be blessed by the Prince of Peace.
"Peace! Be still!" - Mark 4:39
Lots of trouble in the world ... Lots of turmoil ... Soil of fear ... Toil of tears ... But my soul can be still, ...Sided with by the One who walks beside.
When I cried, He heard. When I sighed, He spoke the Word. Nothing has changed. I am not shaken. These are days of grace. - Tom Sims
Be Still, My Soul (The melody is Finlandia by Sibelius, and the words are translated from the German work of Catharina von Schlegel, a Lutheran who wrote during the Pietist period of the 18th century.)
Be still, my soul; the Lord is on thy side; Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain; Leave to thy God to order and provide; In every change He faithful will remain. Be still, my soul; thy best, thy heavenly, Friend Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
Be still, my soul; thy God doth undertake To guide the future as He has the past. Thy hope, thy confidence, let nothing shake; All now mysterious shall be bright at last. Be still, my soul; the waves and winds still know His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.
When people tell me that they have an issue with God, sometimes a complaint, sometimes real anger, I often ask, "Have you discussed it with God? Have you told God how you feel?"
"I could not do that," they might respond.
"Why not?" I ask.
"I am afraid to do that. God might get angry back at me."
Not so, not for that. God's anger is what we experience when we resist the fierceness of unrelenting love. We are in a storm and we can ride the storm or wage war against the storm, but we cannot ignore the storm.
Jeremiah, like the psalmist, invites us into the arena of honest prayer where we wrestle with ourselves and speak honestly with God. He prays throughout the book his scribe recorded. It is not always pretty, but often comes to this:
" I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps. Correct me, O LORD, but in justice; not in your anger, lest you bring me to nothing." - Jeremiah 10:23-24 (ESV)
He puts it out there and is willing to be corrected. He trusts God that God can correct Him in justice and not in anger.
I want to be corrected. Don't you? Why would I ever want to continue in a course of unproductive, destructive thinking or behavior? I want to be set upon the right track. My days, like yours, are numbered and I want them to count.
Looking back a few verses, he prays the prayer of as disillusioned man:
" Woe is me because of my hurt! My wound is grievous. But I said, “Truly this is an affliction, and I must bear it.” My tent is destroyed, and all my cords are broken; my children have gone from me, and they are not; there is no one to spread my tent again and to set up my curtains. For the shepherds are stupid and do not inquire of the LORD; therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered." - Jeremiah 10:19-21 (ESV)
Prayer is a process. Indeed we pray with the news around us in one hand and the Bible in the other and we are shaped by our dialogue with One who hears and cares. Whatever you feel, pray.
----------- I hope you're getting a little something you can use today, friends, a little something to gladden your souls for God today. Scroll for that goal - for your soul. Pass by the negative and land on those words that build and lift and then, share them! -----------
Our deepest desires lead us and draw us into His presence to discover that His presence has already surrounded us.
It becomes unclear sometimes in the cycle of the central verse who is speaking because the WORD is embedded in each word and even the longing complaint of the heart is met with the reassuring comfort of the Presence.
It is especially evident when we pray,
"Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God."
This is our song when we are preparing our hearts to come before God and discover that God is already with us.
Our panting turmoil does not go unheard. Hear and pray with the Sons of Korah:
"Why Are You Cast Down, O My Soul?"
"To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah."
"As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?” These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival." "Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God." "My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar." -Psalm 42:1-6 (ESV)
What the gospel writers did not and, sometimes, could not record, but first century readers knew, was the smile on Jesus' face, the chuckle in his voice, and the irony in his words as he provoked the faith response of an unlikely faith-heroine, and opened the ears of the deaf man with spit. Jesus was dramatic because drama drives home more than didactic teaching can communicate.
Grace is a very, very big deal.
Speaking of grace, there is grace that is specifically designed for our hours of deepest trial.
Few things happen TO us. Many things that happen do involve us. Most of those things provide and opportunity for us to step out of our subjective skin, look on, and learn from that character that looks like us and wears our skin.
If i am going to be ready to receive grace, I must prepare myself.
Three things I must do in the morning if nothing else (Psalm 5:3):
Make my voice heard before God.
Lay my requests before God.
Wait expectantly before God.
Which of these three is the greatest challenge for you? Which brings you the greatest joy?
When we are open to grace, I believe that brings a smile to Jesus' face.
Did you ever wonder where the term, "good grief" came from?
Some might ask, "What so good about grief?"
Those of us who have studied thanatology (the study of death and related issues) and have served the dying and those they leave behind might be able to talk around this subject.
Those who have experienced grief and healing through grief and morning can speak with even deeper insight.
One day, actually his last day on earth, I visited a friend and asked him, "Are you in pain?"
He replied, "Yes. But good pain."
Go ahead and scratch your heads, but since he was communicating with me verbally and nonverbally, I got it. It made perfect sense.
Some varieties and depths of goodness do not come easily into our lives, but when they do come, they take deep and authentic root into our broken soils and produce fruit that is sometimes bittersweet, but oh, so nourishing.
We can think of endless excuses to procrastinate, obstinate, and prevaricate. We'll do anything but drop whatever we are doing and change directions.
It is a control issue - we want to be in control.
Mostly, we want to add - faith and devotion to whatever else we cling to in life.
But diving into our life purpose is not an "add-on" to our lives. It is a new center of existence and a new direction for everything. Everything passes through the filter or this new commitment.
It costs everything.
I was ruminating over all this some years ago as I heard the report on NPR that 38 people had died over the weekend in bombs designed to disrupt the elections in Iraq.
In spite of this, and, by some reports, because of it, record numbers of people came out to vote - defying the threats. Some died.
Sometimes we have a hard time trying to get people to show up in this country when it costs us nothing.
I wonder - If it is too cheap, do we lose any sense of the value of it?
“Stand in the gate of the LORD's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.” - Jeremiah 7:2
Hear the Word of the LORD!
All over the world, on a typical Sunday, when there are no quarantines, millions of souls will enter through the doors of houses of worship. Most of them will be greeted by some unsung hero who stands in the doorway and hands them a worship folder. They will receive a smile, a handshake, and a greeting.
Later, someone will rise to the platform and utter words like, “Welcome to worship!”
There will be a call to worship, a prayer of invocation seeking the presence of God, and a song of praise exalting the Lord. At some point, someone will rise to read from the scriptures and may declare these words of the psalmist, “Hear the Word of the LORD.”
Are you ready to hear?
Are you ready to act on what you hear?
When we enter the gates of God’s house whether at home, at church, or in nature, it is the readiness of our hearts that determines whether or not we truly hear what God has to say. It is as much a matter of choice as our willingness to receive a good meal.
The extent to which we hear, internalize, and are changed by scripture depends more on our receptivity than on anyone’s delivery.
As you sit and prepare for worship and for hearing the Word of the Lord this morning, willingly make yourself available to God for what He has to say to you.
For those who would hear that word through Jeremiah, it would be an indictment against the incongruence in their lives between what that professed with their mouths and what they possessed in their lifestyles. They came to the Temple to reinforce a false narrative of their own security.
Fort those who would hear the words of Paul, it would be a call to genuine faith. He admonished them to draw a distinction between outward forms and reminders of true worship and the inward experience of grace.
Jesus would speak at the Temple about hypocrisy, inconsistency, and Messianic hope.
The psalmist would lead a song of praise and prayer calling on God to restore His people.
To each of these voices would be afforded a listening ear and a response of one kind or another.
Say with Samuel of old, “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.”
Perhaps you'd like for me to tell you what it is, this challenge of today - the big one, the definitive one, the one that, if you conquer it, you conquer everything.
Perhaps you want it, but you are unlikely to get it ... not from me ... not from any who tell you they can deliver it ...
Because we don't really know.
I don't know what your big challenge is today. I could boil it down a bit to some vague, pontifical essence, but that would merely cloud the specifics in a haze of philosophical esoterica.
What you are facing is here and now, pressing, and guttural. It is your tailor made challenge. There are some enduring answers, but without framing your questions, you will not be able to apply them with any finesse.
I predict that you will know what to do with your challenges as you prayerfully and conscientiously consider them, address them, embrace them, and act to respond to them. I predict this because your whole life has been a preparation for this day and the challenges of this day. You possess a unique blend of human and divine resources that God has brought into your life.
You will know what to do with those resources at the right time.
When you do, I believe you will have the courage to exercise them and that is my prayer, hope, and belief for you.
Simple answer? You start where you are now and start over ... or resume where you left off.
Life can be tricky. Life is always a challenge if you fully embrace it and if you lean fully into it. Here are some meditations on challenging times.
You may be moving into some new, unknown, precarious, and frightening territory in your life. You are proceeding with caution and trepidation. It is a place where you must go, but you do not know the terrain or the hidden agendas of these new days ... All you know is Who is with you and leading you ...
... and that is enough.
" And God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, 'Jacob, Jacob.' And he said,'Here I am.' Then he said, 'I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph's hand shall close your eyes.'"
"Then Jacob set out from Beersheba. The sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons that Pharaoh had sent to carry him." - Genesis 46:2-5 (ESV)
It was all the assurance that Jacob needed to set out and follow.
It is all we need.
God bless you in your NEW journey ... for each day is a NEW JOURNEY!
A few years ago, I was preparing a message on judgment when I was struck with a surprise - It was a message of hope.
--- Even when there are no signs of life in the tree, the Gardener gives another year --- and lovingly tends the tree to eke out the life that no one else sees but He still believes may be there.
In a message of judgment and destruction, imagine this main message is: God still believes in you.
You might consider returning the favor!
We have rights and prerogatives that we do not exercise. We are free to do so, but we are also free to let them go because our loyalty, our values, our marching orders, indeed, our very purpose for existence is focused on something higher and better than our comforts.
We set aside our preferences for the good of others because that good is in the heart of the One to whom we have pledged our total loyalty --- to love whom He loves and to care about the desires of His heart until they become the desires of our hearts as well.
" If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more?"
"Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ." - 1 Corinthians 9:12 (ESV)
In times of decline, we seek the Divine Incline. Perceived or received, something declines for us, And lofty edifices of our pride sink low. Yet we ... The "we" that is truly "us ..." Shall not decline His inclination toward restoration. Poor and needy When greedy fires are consuming the underbrush of our lives, From hesitation to preservation, His salvation Rescues our souls. From sadness to gladness we are lifted, By grace, gifted ... For God is good! In this we have stood! God is forgiving! Thus, our living! God is abounding in covenant love! Chesed! Give ear, Oh Lord. Give Your full attention and intervention To our plea for grace! "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound!" It is the day of trouble ... For me ... For many ... We stand upon the precipice. We cry for mercy. Oh LORD, answer, please.
"Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. Preserve my life, for I am godly; save your servant, who trusts in you—you are my God. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for to you do I cry all the day. Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you. Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer; listen to my plea for grace. In the day of my trouble I call upon you, for you answer me." - Psalm 86:1-7 (ESV)
We flinch against a new norm that normalizes the tendency to exchange value for worthless pursuits. Thus is the description of idolatry. On one hand is a God who is a fount of fresh, cool water and, on the other, leaking cisterns.
And we gravitate toward the leaky novelties.
" Be appalled, O heavens, at this;
be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the LORD,
for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water." - Jeremiah 2:12-13 (ESV)
Consider reordering your priorities so that you measure your success more on the basis of how you help others with your success that on how you achieve your own goals.
We are all here as students, building mental, spiritual. emotional, and physical muscle.
We are also here as coaches and teachers.
As teachers and coaches, we will rejoice to see our proteges pass us by and leave us in the dust.
It strikes me as true that any great teacher would love for it to be the testimony of a student that ...
"I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation." - Psalm 119:99 (ESV).
May misplaced ego never get in the way of me sharing the wonders of Truth and letting Truth work in the hearts of my students to take them farther and deeper than I could ever go.
Speaking in a specific context, Paul lands on a very general and abiding principle:
"Now concerning .... [the subject at hand] ... we know that 'all of us possess knowledge.' This 'knowledge' puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God." - 1 Corinthians 8:1-3 (ESV)
Are we:
Puffed up or Built up?
As we commit ourselves to building up others, we will find ourselves built up in the ways that truly matter.
“…without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers; Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be But now I go unto Jerusalem to minister unto thee. For it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusalem.” - Romans 1:9-11; 15:24-26
To what extent would Paul travel to impart a spiritual gift and receive a material gift for others? The answer is that he would make great sacrifices and suffer untold hardships to be a vessel of giving. To impart a spiritual gift enriched the lives of those receiving the gift. But it also enriched the life of the church.
Receiving a monetary gift would enrich the church at large. But it would also bless the giver and the recipient of the gift. Paul himself would be encouraged by the opportunity to participate in this process.
When true Spirit-filled, God-directed giving takes place, no one loses, and everyone gains. In the tangible expressions of our submission to God there is no subtraction, only multiplication.
To view life this way requires that we step out of ourselves and understand our significance as part of something larger than our own interests.
We must deny ourselves to the extent that our hopes, dreams, and preferences are of lesser importance than the Kingdom of God.
From whence comes such a radical attitude?
It comes from the place of prayer where we learn to say, “the will of God” with deep reverence and joyous anticipation.
It comes from the exercise of His presence in devotion and contemplation of His Word.
It comes from earnest seeking in the closet of solitude where He changes our heartbeat to pulsate with His own rhythm.
In short, the attitude that embraces the twin Christian graces of giving and receiving comes from God Himself.
Wouldn't you love to hear that actual tune, "A Dove on Distant Oaks?"
Some things will just have to wait.
Make your own tune and make it a heart song.
"When I am afraid, I put my trust in you...
What can mere mortals do to me?"
Psalm 56
New International Version
For the director of music. To the tune of “A Dove on Distant Oaks.” Of David.
A miktam. When the Philistines had seized him in Gath.
Be merciful to me, my God,
for my enemies are in hot pursuit;
all day long they press their attack.
My adversaries pursue me all day long;
in their pride many are attacking me.
When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
In God, whose word I praise—
in God I trust and am not afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?
All day long they twist my words;
all their schemes are for my ruin.
They conspire, they lurk,
they watch my steps,
hoping to take my life.
Because of their wickedness do not let them escape;
in your anger, God, bring the nations down.
Record my misery;
list my tears on your scroll—
are they not in your record?
Then my enemies will turn back
when I call for help.
By this I will know that God is for me.
In God, whose word I praise,
in the Lord, whose word I praise—
in God I trust and am not afraid.
What can man do to me?
I am under vows to you, my God;
I will present my thank offerings to you.
For you have delivered me from death
and my feet from stumbling,
that I may walk before God
in the light of life.
Word of the Day Poem - Deference
For February 28-29 (Should It Ever Come)
I would defer to the word of tomorrow
But I must report, that much to my sorrow
Such deference to reference a day that won't be
Is lost in torrents of a bottomless sea.
This twenty-eighth day of month number two
Is the last of it's kind and that's bad news for you
If you had planned to get done some task incomplete
In this month of February, you'll go down in defeat.
It's over my friend, finished, exhausted
And your goose is cooked, completely defrosted.
Tomorrow is March and the year marches on
The best you can hope for is a new start next dawn.
But I will show deference to all who forgot
And congratulate all who somehow did not.
Lamenting over the magnitude of injustice, oppression, and wickedness was leading the troubadour to despair. He recounts the agonizing moments that were not left to dangle in meaningless resignation and then, he declares ...
" ...But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end."
(Psalm 73:15-17 ESV)
" When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you."
"Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."
(Psalm 73:21-26 ESV)
I am almost caught up now. A few more and I will be.
Psalm 22:1-8 in the St. Albans Psalter. The first words of the Psalm in the LatinVulgate are "Deus, Deus meus," abbreviated here as DS DS MS.
Psalm 22:1 - My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?
We have the retrospective luxury of knowing the messianic significance of this psalm in. It is messianic because the Messiah took these words to the cross as He identified with the sinfulness and despair that were already resident in humanity. He expressed the root of our hopelessness: abandonment - the awful sense that the God whom we ourselves have forsaken has forsaken us. To be separate from God is to be isolated and alone. It is the very terror of the night and it is the chief horror of the cross, which Jesus bore for us that this statement might never need to be ours again.
Psalm 22:2 - O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.
It is the hallmark of persistent prayer that it perseveres in silence. It is neither required nor assured that the believer will always “sense” the presence of God. What is called for is that we will remain faithful and not be silent when God is silent. In fact, God is not quieted. He is merely speaking on a frequency that we are not, at some given point in time, receiving. Keep praying – even amidst despair and doubt. Faith is found in the persistence and assurance and awareness emerge from the process. No matter how you feel about life, yourself, God, or others today, pray on!
Psalm 22:3 - Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel.
Immediately, our of dark despair, the worship leader of the psalms teaches us what drives persistent pray: It is the knowledge of the Holy One who is Other than us, enthroned, exalted, and worthy of praise. God does not need to earn our faithfulness in prayer and praise by making regular payments of blessings to our accounts. The starting point is that praise is due Him because He is the praise of Israel and the United States, the world, and the universe. If we can but come to some understanding that God is God no matter what we think or feel, we will begin to become messianic people.
Psalm 22:4 - In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them.
History is an anchor that stabilizes faith by reminding us that God can and does act to deliver His people. He, who never changes, takes a personal interest in those who trust in Him. He is a faithful God. We can count on Him to do again what He has done before. The heritage we receive from our believing fathers and mothers is a legacy we must pass on to our own children. It is an intergenerational gift that passes through our hands. Take courage from the experience of others, but never let that experience substitute for one of your own relationship with God. Build on their stories.
Psalm 22:5 - They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.
What was it that our fathers did that brought them into the experience of God’s deliverance? It was very little and very much. It was very little of human effort or initiative. However, it was a great expression of faith in two parts. First, their attitude was one of trust – that resolute act of resting on God’s grace. Second, the volitional action was crying out for mercy, help, and salvation in desperate resignation. We who scatter ourselves about in frantic frenzies of futile flailing exclaim, “Is that all? It can’t be!” It is. Unless it becomes that alone, nothing we DO matters. Only God saves.
Psalm 22:6 - But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people.
Maybe today is your worm day. You have adopted the vision of yourself that you perceive others to have of you. You have resigned to the world, the rather than to God. It has become vitally important to you what others think of you and you are devastated. If, at any time, you allow yourself to be defined by others or even yourself, you will be depressed. Jesus identified with our struggles to understand self but overcame the temptation through a strong sense of who He was in relationship with His Father. We have the same mirror to our souls available, filtered by grace and the love of God.
Psalm 22:7 - All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads:
Consider Jesus today as you evaluate the evaluations of others and deflect their insults. Rather than lash out in reactionary anger or retreat in despondent silence, look to Him who endured. He was never shaken within by the opinions of people. He never lost His sense of standing with the Father or His assurance of His mission. He did not come down off the cross, nor can we. Our lives are nailed there and our identity is securely fastened to His. Bathe in His love and acceptance when friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers mock your motives. You are cherished by Him.
Psalm 22:8 – "He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him."
You can expect to be attacked in that area where you are most vulnerable – your faith. The world will taunt you with that which troubles you most within – the nagging suspicion that God will not come through for you. This is the real test of faith whether the taunts come from within or without: Can you withstand them and find your trust deepened? Your lips may declare firm belief that God can deliver you from and through any trial, but do you believe it for this current trial? The answer is that faith is, also, a gift delivered amidst fire. Receive it today in your present circumstances.
Psalm 22:9 - Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you even at my mother's breast.
We started with a capacity to trust God because we had no other choice. As we experienced autonomy and choice, we chose to go our own ways as did our first father and mother. But the starting place was childlike trust. It is our first and greatest capacity and our one and only connector to God within our souls. It is the essence of the image of God within us - the plug through which He reconnects us in relationship within by His mercy, grace, and love. When we first chose to sin, we pulled the plug by trusting ourselves. Let God revive your trust today and choose to trust Him.
Psalm 22:10 - From birth I was cast upon you; from my mother's womb you have been my God.
This is the psalm of the cross, which our Master chose to identify with us as He bore our sins. There were three great acts of emptying in His earthly life. The first was His birth. He divested Himself of all His self-sufficiency as God and became dependent upon God –even in Mary’s womb. The second was His baptism-temptation where He conspicuously stood in the place of sinners to face every life temptation and overcome only by the power of the Spirit and the Word. Finally, the cross – and there, He remembered who He was and who He trusted. We must trust God also.
Psalm 22:11 - Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.
You will find yourself in circumstances, as did our Lord, where there are no solutions, alternatives, or assistance. There is no one and nothing to help. You are empty and alone. You cannot even depend upon yourself because your resources are depleted and your energy is sapped. You can presume nothing in that moment. No one hears your plea but God and your only non-negotiable request is that He remains near you. That is a powerful place in our lives. We cannot go on spiritually until we have been there. Embrace it and from that place, call upon God. You will find Him all-sufficient.
Psalm 22:12 - Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.
The imagery may not be familiar, but it takes little imagination to see the precarious nature of these circumstances. What are yours? The idea of bulls surrounding you does not bring to mind the thought of a passive environment with benign enemies. These are angry bulls, poised for attack. They are frightening and intimidating and they can do you great physical harm. But they cannot touch your soul. Only you and God know the depths of the battle you are in, but know this: Jesus was there on the cross and He is with you now.
Psalm 22:13 - Roaring lions tearing their prey open their mouths wide against me.
You can see the lions devouring their prey and their eyes are now on you. You envision yourself being eaten alive by the forces within you and outside you that attack without mercy. It is a helpless feeling. Jesus experienced it fully on the cross. He placed Himself in that position willingly. He emptied Himself and “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” We cannot choose our end, nor can we know if this crisis is our end, but we can know God in the midst of it and trust in Him. There is no lion, no problem, no weapon of Satan that can defeat God or destroy His child.
Psalm 22:14 – I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me.
What do you trust in a practical way to make it through the day? Do you count on your human resources, talents, ingenuity, or personality? You can be poured out like water. Do you trust your physical strength and fitness? Every bone can be dislocated from the others. Do you trust the strength of your character, perseverance, courage, and inner strength? Your heart can melt like wax and you will be left with nothing but God. This is the cross and Jesus has gone before us to show us that we can bear through His resurrection. Do not despair. You may be empty, but you are not alone.
Psalm 22:15 - My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death.
The cross is not a position of personal strength. It was not for Jesus and is not for us. We come to the cross and are emptied as Christ Jesus emptied Himself. Speechless and helpless, we lie in the dust of death and somehow realize that a God of love has allowed this experience in our lives and brought us to this place that, out of death, we might find life. If you will know resurrection, you must be laid out as dead before God. There is no other way. Any attempt to circumvent this process renders the cross as useless in your life. Trust God in the dry places and you will live.
Psalm 22:16 – Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet.
Onlookers, men and beasts, are waiting for your last breath. They are convinced that you are defeated. Around the cross, they all gathered, certain that they were about to hear the last of Jesus. Your enemies assume that personal failure and death will overcome you as well. Pain, it is felt, will conquer the spirit of any person. Not so with you. You are dead already and your life is hidden in Christ. In Him, you live. Whatever the enemy could throw at Christ was thrown, but He “arose a victor from the dark domain” and so will you in Him. Cast off despair and celebrate life!
Psalm 22:17 - I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me.
Have you ever counted your bones? How emaciated from the struggles of life, temptation, and sin have you been? Have you ever felt like such an oddity that people would stare? Have you ever been so humiliated that your enemies – especially those within, would gloat over your seeming defeat? When God made the choice to incarnate Himself into human flesh, He knew that He would be casting aside His glory for the lowest state of all. Hebrews 12 reminds us to consider Jesus who despised the shame, but pressed on for the glory set before Him. Let us press on as well.
Psalm 22:18 - They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.
We like to think that we will have death with dignity. We must redefine dignity then, for what Jesus experienced can only be described in human terms, as humiliation. Nevertheless, human definitions do not rule the spiritual realm nor can they rule our lives. If we must face such a cross where even our clothes are bartered among our enemies, then so be it. Either we can scream and protest for our rights and “dignity” or we can enter into a deeper experience of trust and obedience. It is a crossroads that we face. If we are to die to self that we might live, we cannot set the terms.
Psalm 22:19 – But you, O LORD, be not far off; O my Strength, come quickly to help me.
We are moving from first to second to third person intentionally in these thoughts – keeping the focus on God. That is where Jesus kept His focus in His lifetime identification with humanity. He asked only that His Father be near and trusted only in His strength. When we are empty and helpless, that is all we have and that is a very fine position for our lives. All other strength is an illusion and the sooner we understand that, the better. We have only God – He is all we ever have had and we did not realize it. Perhaps now, we are coming to understand. Perhaps, we are coming into real life.
Psalm 22:20 - Deliver my life from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs.
Did you know that your life was precious to God? Grace yourself with the thought that God cares more for you than you care for yourself. Why then, do you exercise the exhausting effort of worry? God knows all about the sword. He sees and hears the dogs. He is not removed from your suffering and He intimately acquainted with your struggles. He has never abandoned you and He has a plan for your deliverance that He has already set into motion. Call upon Him. He is ready to take your hand and walk with you through this present fire.
Psalm 22:21 - Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen.
Once we have come to terms with the reality of our circumstances and ceased our fruitless debates over the fairness of our surroundings, we can get down to the relevant business of petition. God does not keep us out of the lion’s den or the path of wild oxen; but He delivers us. Deliverance is far better than avoidance because God gets the glory and we get the victory. Beside that, the world gets to see a demonstration of the power of God that exceeds the expectations of limited minds. Daniel’s victory did not rest in avoiding the conflict, but in God’s salvation in the midst. Resurrection!
Psalm 22:22 – I will declare your name to my brothers; in the congregation I will praise you.
We glory in the cross. We glory far more in the resurrection. Jesus came forth from the trial of the cross and the resurrection with a message of victory, redemption, and praise. We also emerge from our spiritual battles and, more importantly, the process of dying to self and rising to new life, with a message of hope. The faith-act of identifying with Jesus is what makes us evangelists. Good news permeates our beings so that our very lives are transformed into the gospel message. Like St. Francis, we preach everywhere and, when necessary, use words.
Psalm 22:23 – You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!
Praise, honor, and reverence are the responses of all who know God as God. This fear of God is recognition of His utter divinity and absolute sovereignty. It is an awareness that is burned into our life through struggles and seared onto our hearts in crisis. It does not come easily. Do not associate praise with giddiness or shallow emotionalism. When it is refined, it flows from the very deepest places in our lives and transcend the moment, rises above circumstances, and soars to the heights of Heaven. It is a gem of great joy forged in the furnace of trial.
Psalm 22:24 - For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.
The God we praise is a God of loving compassion. He knows. He cares. He heals. He listens intently to His people and He is near the broken. Jesus identified with our pain intensely and passionately. His participation in our suffering and affliction goes far beyond empathy. He entered in and continues to enter in. You can trust Him because He already understands and have your very best interest in His heart. When we back off from God., we do so in irrational ignorance. To really know Him is to trust Him profoundly.
Psalm 22:25 - From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows.
It all originates with God. If we think that we might like to organize our praise of God around ideas that intrigue us, we have missed the point. The very theme of praise comes directly from Him. It is about Him, from Him, and to Him that we praise. And, as we gather among those who know Him, this is understood. There are always personal and corporate dimensions to faith. There are individual vows that you make and fulfill to the Lord, but you do so in community among those who share a common vision of the God who is worthy of our praise.
Psalm 22:26 - The poor will eat and be satisfied; they who seek the LORD will praise him-- may your hearts live forever!
This is the grand turn-around. God feeds the poor. He fills the hearts of those who seek Him with praise. He brings life out of death and joy out of pain. He infuses our lives with such abundance that we cannot fully receive it. He lifts our spirits to heights we have never known. He fills our lips with praise and grants us eternal life. The present darkness is never absolutely dark because the light has already come to fill every crevice. We live now and always in the present reality of the resurrection and the future hope of Christ’s second coming. Seek Him and know this reality for yourself!
Spiritual Disciplines for Highly Distracted Souls - That is my next book ... well, one of the next ones --- if I can concentrate enough to finish it .
Seriously now, some of you know exactly what I mean.
And you are the folks who are my kin in this particular skin.
We struggle to focus, but we must focus to struggle.
We know the deep value of grace in our lives be because we guzzle it like cool water on a scorching day in the sun. It is cooling balm to our blistered flesh.
It is food for our souls when we are starving.
God, if my concentration is what is required to seek and find you, I am in trouble. Actually, I am in trouble ... have been ... will be, but I am not hopeless.
My concentration comes through distraction, through poly-focus, and through serendipitous discovery.
I see you in the commonalities of multiplicities.
I hear your voice arising from the cacophony of sounds in a dissonant chorus of groaning cries.
I see your face in the contorted faces of broken people.
I grasp your Word in the recurring themes of unlikely sources that echo your truth and highlight the verses that I read just yesterday or this morning as I struggled to keep my mind from wandering.
I sit as long as I can and listen. I walk as far as I can without veering off the path. I keep coming back to you and you are always there.
It is neither my mood nor my mind that guide me, Oh Lord of clarity, but your ever present hand and upon you, I lean.
I will follow you today. I commit my day to you.
I am easily distracted and often torn. I am likely to bounce from thought to thought and project to project, but I know that you are present in the midst to order my days and my moments ....
And in the precious, fleeting stillness of this moment, I commit all my moments and days ... and this day, in particular, to You.
Trois myopic rodents Trois myopic rodents Observe how they traverse Observe how they traverse They all pursued the agronomist's spouse Who severed their appendages with a culinary implement Have you ever observed such a startling phenomenon As trois myopic rodents
Lest you stop there, note that many of the nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and fable are encrypted and politically charged messages understood best in context.
For instance, the "three blind mice" were said to be Protestant loyalists who, in 1555 were accused of a plot against Queen Mary I. They were who were burned at the stake for their "blindness," namely their Protestant beliefs. The farmer's wife in this scenario, is Mary.
The words have changed and become more innocent over the years
In 1609 when the first written version of the song was published by Thomas Ravenscroft in “Deuteromelia” or “The Seconde part of Musicks melodie”.
Today, it is just. "Three Blind Mice."
Three blind mice. Three blind mice. See how they run. See how they run. They all ran after the farmer’s wife, Who cut off their tails with a carving knife, Did you ever see such a sight in your life, As three blind mice?
What remains is the reality that language can reveal or obscure and sometimes, it does both at the same time.
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I am indebted to Bill Holohan for background in his excellent article on this subject: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/origin-story-three-blind-mice-bill-holohan/
I know many unhappy people, soured of soul through their taste of failure and disappointment, derailed by disasters in their lives, detained by their fears, and distracted by anything and everything but the one thing they must do to succeed.
God grant you success by planting the vision of real success in you and empowering you to become the person you were made to be. Then, you can do what you were fashioned to do.
Ultimate success would be finding your purpose and pursuing it. It is more about being and becoming than achieving and accumulating.
When I pray for and encourage your success, it is for something bigger than even I can imagine for you.
First you must define what success will be and it better be worth the effort because some successes are rather fleeting and not fulfilling.
Success(etymology)="come after." L- "succedere " It is an outcome of effort and choice. What's your desired success? All choices have outcomes
I have been praying for success in the lives of new friends this morning. What is success to you?
The Bible weighs in with pointers to spark our thinking.
Psalm 20:4, NIV May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.
Genesis 24:12a, NIV Then he prayed, “LORD, God of my master Abraham, make me successful today, and show kindness to my master Abraham.
Psalm 90:17, NIV May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us – yes, establish the work of our hands.
Psalm 118:25, ESV Save us, we pray, O LORD! O LORD, we pray, give us success!
1 Chronicles 4:10, ESV Jabez called upon the God of Israel, saying, “Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain!” And God granted what he asked.
Romans 15:13, NIV May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Philippians 4:19, ESV And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. (Amen)
SOUR or SOARING
We are in a progression and procession toward succession. Successful people are not in it for themselves alone but for a greater cause and future generations - succession!
That way, we do not grow sour, but we soar!
Successful people Overcome Unyielding Resistance
Succession Orients our Attitudes and Realities
That kind of thinking changes the way we perceive, act, evaluate and live. It predisposes of sour discouragement and sets us on a path for ultimate value and eternal significance.
Invest your time and life today in the progression and as you proceed, think beyond your own personal achievements and security - even beyond your lifetime. Adopt the Native American philosophy of thinking 7-8 generations forward.
All days end and new days begin. Some are more personally significant for us than others.
There is always a next day.
Here was a very productive day when some common words rang so true as to resound in our hearts through time and into eternity.
One says, "We have found him" and is met with honest doubt and objection.
"Nothing good comes from THAT town!"
Jesus compliments him for "being real," and calls him anyway.
In the transaction we enshrine these words of calling, "Follow me," and "Come and see," and "I saw you," and "You shall see amazing things."
"The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”" - (John 1:43-51 ESV)
It was not just another day for Nathaniel. Everything changed.
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