Look how fears have presented themselves, so have supports and encouragements; yea, when I have started, even as it were at nothing else but my shadow, yet God, as being very tender of me, hath not suffered me to be molested, but would with one Scripture or another, strengthen me against all; insomuch that I have often said, “Were it lawful, I could pray for greater trouble, for the greater comfort’s sake.”
-John Bunyan (1628 – 1688)
Another outstandlingly bright rainbow appeared over my garden this week. I put down my work and just reveled in its beauty for a while. After the three that showed up on the same day, (here) it was another over-the-top reminder of the keeper of promises.
We don’t need to give up our day jobs and permanently park at signs of beauty or grieve when they fade though. Signs point to something greater than themselves.
I heard a new musician lately -well, new to me. It seems a lot of worship groups are comprised of attractive, energetic young people with strong, healthy bodies, thick shiny hair and impressive orthodontic work. I appreciate a praise band made up of members who look like they’ve been around the block. There’s an authority there. Some young people get it, but usually only time spent in the trenches gives a singer/songwriter the right to sing about endurance and promises kept. I had been listening to Bob Book’s song, Relentless, when the rainbow showed up.
Sometimes I find myself down in the valley
And the shadow is hanging so low.
I can’t see my way to tomorrow.
There’s something I know:
There’s a deeper magic ,
There’s a higher truth than these eyes of flesh can see
And I’m holding on,
My hand in Yours,
You are the greater reality.
Relentlessly good,
Relentlessly kind,
Unendingly patient to the questions we find.
Even the bad can work for the good.
Relentlessly faithful,
even when You’re misunderstood.
In a world where nothing seems certain
Your love is relentless.
Oh my God, You’re relentless!
-Bob Book from Relentless, from the album A Divine Conversation
An old song came to mind as I watched the sunset from my deck last night.
Up on the mountain
My Lord spoke.
Out of his mouth came
fire and smoke.
I look around me.
It look so fine,
I ask the Lord,
‘Is all this mine?’
Every time I feel the Spirit
moving in my heart
I will pray.
Yes, every time I feel the Spirit
moving in my heart I will pray.
-Spiritual
I’m never bored in the mountains. They are always the same, yet different with every moving cloud, every angle of sun, every shift of season.
I am never bored with God. Like the mountains he never changes, and yet I see many different views of him depending on what aspect of himself he wants to reveal in this season of my life and how willing my heart is to pay attention.
I found myself wanting to jump into a heated discussion about which is more in the character of God, giving his adopted children prosperity and perfect health or teaching them through poverty and suffering. As often happens each side made assumptions about what the other side meant without taking time to listen to their definitions and explanations of terms. I think they were closer than they thought, but somewhere between the lips of one and the ears of the other words morphed into strange bloated thought clouds from another source. Straw men make great flashy bonfires and due to volatility tend to erupt into conflagrations which usually produce more heat than light.
Still, they prompted me to research what the Bible says about the topic. There is a lot of material in there on the dangers of the love of money, the blessings of abundance, the abuse of power and resources, the rewards of trust, the ugliness of selfish wealth, the riches of the Father’s house available to all his children, the unacceptable neglect of the poor … Finding verses to back each person’s hobby horse (proof-texting) is easy.
The following passage caught my attention. (This was after the warning story of the man who hoarded his wealth in new barns only to die that night.):
Then he added to the disciples, “That is why I tell you, don’t worry about life, wondering what you are going to eat. And stop bothering about what clothes you will need. Life is much more important than food, and the body more important than clothes. Think of the ravens. They neither sow nor reap, and they have neither store nor barn, but God feeds them. And how much more valuable do you think you are than birds? Can any of you make himself an inch taller however much he worries about it? And if you can’t manage a little thing like this, why do you worry about anything else? Think of the wild flowers, and how they neither work nor weave. Yet I tell you that Solomon in all his glory was never arrayed like one of these. If God so clothes the grass, which flowers in the field today and is burnt in the stove tomorrow, is he not much more likely to clothe you, you little-faiths? You must not set your heart on what you eat or drink, nor must you live in a state of anxiety. The whole heathen world is busy about getting food and drink, and your Father knows well enough that you need such things. No, set your heart on his kingdom, and your food and drink will come as a matter of course.”
“Don’t be afraid, you tiny flock! Your Father plans to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give the money away. Get yourselves purses that never grow old, inexhaustible treasure in Heaven, where no thief can ever reach it, or moth ruin it. For wherever your treasure is, you may be certain that your heart will be there too!” (Luke 12)
Some people read this and say, “See? The poor have more faith. So God wants you to be poor.”
Someone else reads it and says, “See? The wealth of the kingdom is ours! Receive it now by faith.”
Someone else says, “See? The point is to obsess about neither poverty nor wealth, but to trust God, give generously and be content.”
I was thinking about this when I drove by these mountains. Storm clouds, caught by high winds near Pincher Creek, changed the look of the range every few minutes. By the time I found a place to stop my car, they shifted again. The view reminded me that every time I think I have some aspect God figured out he obscures the familiar and comfortable and shows me another side of his character.
God is not only good, His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts. He is very, very big and has very, very many facets. One snapshot, or one verse of scripture, or one experience is true about him, but perhaps does not reveal the whole truth. There is more. Much more.
But sometimes it is the storms in life, when the familiar is obscured by dark clouds, that reveal important truths about God that we missed before.
Lord, I will lift my eyes to the hills
Knowing my help is coming from You
Your peace You give me in time of the storm
You are the source of my strength
You are the strength of my life
I lift my hands in total praise to You
You are the source of my strength
You are the strength of my life
I lift my hands in total praise to You
Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen
Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen
-Richard Smallwood
What if God is actually who he said he is?
What if you are actually who he says you are?
God has placed a promise and a provision next to every difficulty. When we locate the tribulation, we uncover the revelation that is also present. We stand on the promise, looking at the provision and we rejoice! As we “count it all joy,” [James 1:2] the truth becomes our experience and we are set free. -Graham Cooke
We all live off his generous bounty,
gift after gift after gift.
We got the basics from Moses,
and then this exuberant giving and receiving,
This endless knowing and understanding—
all this came through Jesus, the Messiah.
No one has ever seen God,
not so much as a glimpse.
This one-of-a-kind God-Expression,
who exists at the very heart of the Father,
has made him plain as day.
(John1:16-18 The Message)
Some people love to be able to look at their calendars and tell you precisely what they will be doing at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday eight and a half months from now.
Not me. That which feels like order and security to others feels like restrictive ropes to me. I love the blank page, the open road, the uncommitted agenda. I guess I’m addicted to the potential found in freedom. I like to be busy, and I like to plan ahead, and some routine does rescue me from the challenge of devoting too much thought energy to the mundane, but I do love having space to be flexible. There is more; I know there is more.
A single phrase from a simple song keeps playing in my head:
“We step into freedom.
We step into all you have for us.”
What do you want to do today, Lord? What do you have for us?
I was praying for people I care about as I drove through Kootenay Park yesterday. Some of these dear folks are chronically ill, or depressed, or broke, or facing heart-breaking circumstances that seem to drain hope from their lives. The dark clouds and rain fit my mood. Sometimes I feel the weight of their burdens myself and I forget the Lord’s instructions to come up higher and trust Him. I had another health scare myself earlier in the week and the resulting loss of sleep was making me feel quite weak physically and emotionally.
Sometimes it seems like the same problems and the same type of people and the same situations keep showing up in our lives. Sometimes it feels like God is not taking us seriously enough.
Sometimes we miss the point of the exercise because we do not take God seriously enough.
We tend to ask for relief from suffering and, when the stress is over, forget the one who has given us so many benefits. God longs for relationship with us, and frankly we sometimes only pay attention to him when we want something instead of someone.
When I reached the summit of the pass near Radium, B.C. the rain was lighter, but there was still enough to keep my windshield wipers labouring. I decided to stop at the pull-out and walk for a bit, hiding my camera under my rain jacket – just in case the sun broke through and lit up the peaks on the other side of the valley. I thought the contrast of the snow-tipped mountains with dark ominous clouds might make a good black and white photo.
I was alone up there and I told the Lord I sure could use some encouragement. I know we walk by faith and not by sight and that it is all about relationship with Him, but I could use a hug about now.
Suddenly a rainbow began to form right in front of me. I happily snapped some photos, but it kept growing until a double rainbow I couldn’t entirely fit on my screen filled the valley. I think it was the brightest I have ever seen.
After a while passing cars stopped and folks jumped out with their cameras – but for a while I felt like the rainbow was all mine.
Then, of course I felt silly. “Ideas of reference” some people call it, when a person thinks a general event was meant specifically for her. Crazy people think like that.
So I decided that if I was going to be crazy I would do something even crazier. I asked the Lord that if this was a reminder of His promises if he would do it again.
He did.
About two hours further down the road another rainbow glowed in the sky ahead. I raced ahead to a place overlooking the valley where trees and electric lines wouldn’t block the view. It remained in the sky for quite a while and again, the colours shone in glory.
A promise.
When I finally got home (11 hours after I set out in the morning) I turned the corner to see a third rainbow arching over my town. In dream symbolism the number three can represent confirmation – as “in the presence of three witnesses.”
How can I help but praise him?
I didn’t ask for three rainbows on my journey last evening, but they showed up as gifts that reminded me of the glory of the One who makes and keeps his promise to respond to us when we call out to him.
God is Good. He is relentlessly kind and loving. He is not on a budget.
And he gives great hugs.
Now he’s wrapped himself
in a trench coat of black-cloud darkness.
But his cloud-brightness bursts through,
spraying hailstones and fireballs.
Then God thundered out of heaven;
the High God gave a great shout,
spraying hailstones and fireballs.
But me he caught—reached all the way
from sky to sea; he pulled me out
Of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos,
the void in which I was drowning.
They hit me when I was down,
but God stuck by me.
He stood me up on a wide-open field;
I stood there saved—surprised to be loved!
(Psalm 18: 11-13, 16-19 The Message)
Some people say God has no wrath, that He is all gentle universal soft love. But when evil threatens a father’s beloved child a good father will defend them and come to their aid -with a vengeance. Our heavenly Father’s wrath toward the evil one, the enemy of our souls, the one who comes to steal kill and destroy, is an indication of his love. He will act. He cares and He has emotion. He sent Jesus Christ to destroy the works of the devil. He is our defense.
Charis: Subject to Change 
