Not until we have become humble and teachable, standing in awe of God’s holiness and sovereignty, acknowledging our own littleness, distrusting our own thoughts, and willing to have our minds turned upside down, can divine wisdom become ours.
– J.I. Packer
An awesome light fell on the mountains in the Crowsnest Pass yesterday. It was accompanied by an awesome wind that caught the new skiff of snow and made it look like it was falling up.
“Doth not all nature around me praise God?
If I were silent, I should be an exception to the universe.
Doth not the thunder praise Him as it rolls like drums in the march of the God of armies?
Do not the mountains praise Him when the woods upon their summits wave in adoration?
Doth not the lightning write His name in letters of fire?
Hath not the whole earth a voice?
And shall I, can I, silent be?”
– Charles Spurgeon
Can we talk?
There are times on this road when we run into ambushes and a hail of arrows comes out of nowhere. Accusations. Misunderstanding. Jealousy. Lies. Slander. Outright hatred.
The thing about an ambush is that it is meant to catch you off-guard with your shield down. That’s why the source of them is often a shock. David wrote in Psalm 55: “If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were rising against me, I could hide. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship at the house of God, as we walked about among the worshippers.”
I sometimes wonder if this close friend was Jonathan.
It’s happened again. I spent another restless night vacillating between what-did-I-say incredulity and forming I-should-have-said arguments with someone who was not even there. My actions were completely misunderstood and the fiery darts aimed at my head remind me of the time I accidentally leaned too close to the Bunsen burner in chem class. Ka-ploof!
I’ve said a lot of stupid things in my time. I’ve been guilty of monopolizing a conversation, of not taking enough time to understand another person’s point of view before responding, of trying to fix people who believed I was the one who needed to be fixed. I deserved a blast of “correction” in those circumstances. But this time my attempts to respond to a cry for help and to extend love stirred up a pocket of hatred which, although it comes from a source totally unrelated to me, is now aimed at me like I personally started World War II. And World War I. And the Black Plague.
I realized I was falling into the trap of being defensive, and entrenching myself in a position which is not what I really believe about who I am nor about who the other person is. I poured out my heart to the Lord.
“Remember what I told you? ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.”
“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
So what do I do about this pain?
The first thing I saw this morning when I checked my messages was a short video by Tera Carissa Hodges posted by a friend. She was sharing something God showed her in the incident after Paul was shipwrecked on an island. While gathering firewood a poisonous snake latched onto his hand. The people’s reaction was that he must have been an evil person after all and this was something he deserved. “Karma”, if you like. In dream symbolism a snake can represent aggressive lies.
He shook it off. The poison had no effect on him. Instead the people marvelled and responded to the good news of the Kingdom of God revealed in Jesus. She entitled the video “Shake it off.”
Those were the words that stood out in answer to my question: Shake. It. Off.
Sometimes I walk around with those stupid arrows of cruel words stuck in me for far too long. I watch little children at the beach smash each other over the head with little plastic shovels. They cry, they forgive, they shake the sand from their hair and get on with life. Ten minutes later they are building something fabulous together — or somebody’s mom steps in.
Have you been unfairly attacked by someone close to you when you thought you were in a safe place?
Shake it off. God has plans even for this. You are his beloved child.
I will lift my praise above everything to You, my God and King!
I will continually bless Your name forever and always.
My praise will never cease—
I will praise You every day;
I will lift up Your name forever.
The Eternal is great and deserves endless praise;
His greatness knows no limit, recognizes no boundary.
No one can measure or comprehend His magnificence.
One generation after another will celebrate Your great works;
they will pass on the story of Your powerful acts to their children.
Your majesty and glorious splendor have captivated me;
I will meditate on Your wonders, sing songs of Your worth.
We confess—there is nothing greater than You, God,
nothing mightier than Your awesome works.
I will tell of Your greatness as long as I have breath.
The news of Your rich goodness is no secret—
Your people love to recall it
and sing songs of joy to celebrate Your righteousness.
Psalm 145
Streams of mercy,
never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
(From Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing by Robert Robinson)
The stories of God’s provision in our parents’ and grandparents’ lives are a precious inheritance. In the same way our stories not only build faith for our own journey, as we recall them, they also build a foundation of faith for our children and for their children and for future generations.
My grandchildren ask for stories about their parents, about their grandparents and especially about themselves as babies. I tell them stories when we walk in the woods, when we travel together, when we get ready for bed. They especially want to hear the stories about miracles, about escapes from danger, about noble deeds and about the way God brought everything together to give them life and this precious moment right here, right now.
Do you have a story to tell of God stepping in to your own history?
Has he rescued you, healed you, or freed you from addictions?
Has He spoken to you through a song or an angel or left a gem on your bed?
Has a promise in the Bible caught your attention like a beacon in the dark?
Have you heard his voice in the shower or in the truck or had a dream that came true?
Have you experienced a co-incidence that is too much of a co-incidence to be a co-incidence?
Have you found your soul mate or a loyal friend or the child you were meant to adopt?
Have you walked a hard road and found that God’s grace did keep you and did get you through the valley?
Stories about God are not just for children but for anyone with ears to hear.
Would you tell me about it? I would love to hear.
I’ve told a lot of my stories here, how my paternal grandfather saw Jesus in the barn, how my maternal grandparents were late and missed their boat – the Titanic, how I found my lost keys deep in the forest, how God lifted depression, how I heard Him speak through a bicycle shop advertisement and a dancing prairie chicken, how God did a miracle in our son-in-law’s body and in a lot of other people’s hearts after he was given a 0% chance of surviving flesh-eating disease…
Now it’s your turn. What’s your God story? Just write in the comment box on the bottom. (You may need to click on “leave a comment” under the title first.)
Tell your story.
Listen, dear friends, to God’s truth,
bend your ears to what I tell you.
I’m chewing on the morsel of a proverb;
I’ll let you in on the sweet old truths,
Stories we heard from our fathers,
counsel we learned at our mother’s knee.
We’re not keeping this to ourselves,
we’re passing it along to the next generation—
God’s fame and fortune,
the marvelous things he has done.
He planted a witness in Jacob,
set his Word firmly in Israel,
Then commanded our parents
to teach it to their children
So the next generation would know,
and all the generations to come—
Know the truth and tell the stories
so their children can trust in God.
(Psalm 78 The Message)
A story worth telling: https://charispsallo.wordpress.com/2014/12/13/i-want-my-daddy/
I heard the children talking.
“The sun has gone behind the clouds,” said one, disappointment in his voice.
“No. The clouds just got in front of it,” said the other. “The sun is still there. Even if we can’t see it, it’s still there, else everything would die.”
We do not mourn as those without hope. God is still there.
Even though the fig trees have no blossoms,
and there are no grapes on the vines;
even though the olive crop fails,
and the fields lie empty and barren;
even though the flocks die in the fields,
and the cattle barns are empty,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord!
I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
(Habakkuk 3:17,18)
I’ll never forget a TV show I saw which asked the question, “What do people who live very long lives have in common?” The answer surprised me. It was not their diets, or their lifestyles. They knew how to grieve well and had a reason to get up in the morning.
The church should be the safest place in the world, and yet again I recently heard a person suggest that a grieving mother shouldn’t come back to the group until she had finished mourning. Grief is part of life and we need to demonstrate, in a loving community, how to grieve well — with real emotions and with a real sense of hope, surrounded by loving acceptance.
When I read this blog by Ryan Matchett on the heart of All Saints and All Souls Day when the Church acknowledged those who mourn, I knew he understood the season. A loving community can weep with those who weep, but also help encourage each other to find a reason to get up and keep going. This is a beautiful post. Thank you, Ryan.
When we lost our first child to miscarriage I was stunned. It was never something that I considered to even be in the realm of possibility. I remember just sitting there, watching as my wife wept, not knowing what to do or feel. Death had been just a theory and grief was a total stranger to me. By the time we buried our son (our fifth and only late term miscarriage), grief had become more like a winter rain; it was now in my bones.
It begin with what was supposed to be a romantic get away for just the two of us but, instead of romance it had this strange weight of dread over it. We didn’t know why until we returned home to discover that our unborn sons heart had stopped beating. Very quickly we found ourselves in the emergency room wrestling with the doctors recommendation that the baby…
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Charis: Subject to Change 