Everything I am will praise and bless the Lord!
Oh Lord, my God, your greatness takes my breath away,
Overwhelming me by your majesty, beauty, and splendor!
You wrap yourself with a shimmering glistening light.
You wear sunshine like a garment of glory.
(Psalm 104:1,2 The Passion Translation)
Again friends and neighbours face crises as homes burn, jobs disappear, false accusations pop up, loved ones make foolish choices, doctors predict dire outcomes, marriage promises evaporate, supervisors exhibit incompetence, and leaders cloak corruption in meaningless words. Sometimes it seems like the trolls and curmudgeons on social media have created an alliance to keep folks living in a place of fear and disappointment.
And the fear of disappointment is perhaps our greatest fear.
What if all this effort is in vain? What if the things that have always defined success for us disappear, or fail to meet our expectations? What if the good job isn’t there to go to in the morning, or the city burns, or our marriage fails, or our kid becomes an addict, or the judge believes the liar?
How do we keep the faith when we want to put up thick walls to protect ourselves from disappointment?
I wonder if the point where people position themselves on the gullibility/cynicism spectrum has to do with how they handle disappointment. I wonder if trolls and curmudgeons are using negativity as a shield against the expectation of disappointment. Romans 5 talks about the hope that does not disappoint. The question is, what is that hope and how does it stand up in the face of the very real possibility of loss or deception?
Times of loss can become times of gain when they cause us to pause, assess, and change our way of thinking.
When our hope is in perishable things – or even perishable people – we will inevitably suffer disappointment. When our hope is in the Eternal One we have a handhold in the future. David, the warrior poet, understood this.
Oh Lord, the God of faithfulness,
you have rescued and redeemed me.
I despise these deceptive illusions,
all this pretense and nonsense;
for I worship only you.
In mercy you have seen my troubles,
and you have cared for me;
even during this crisis in my soul I will be radiant with joy,
filled with praise for your love and mercy.
You have kept me from being conquered by my enemy;
you broke open the way to bring me to freedom,
into a beautiful broad place.
(Psalm 30:5-8 The Passion Translation)
May the radiant joy of freedom in Jesus Christ be your shield today. May your heart settle in a beautiful broad place.
Fall on your knees and grow there. There is no burden of the spirit but is lighter by kneeling under it. Prayer means not always talking to Him, but waiting before Him till the dust settles and the stream runs clear.
– F.B. Meyer
“We sometimes come to God, not because we love Him best, but because we love our possessions best; we ask Christ to save Western civilization, without asking ourselves whether it is entirely a civilization that Christ could want to save. We pray, too often, not to do God’s will, but to enlist God’s assistance in maintaining our continually increasing consumption. And yet, though Christ promised that God would feed us, he never promised that God would stuff us to bursting.”
– Joy Davidman
Last night while we were chatting with friends, my husband joked that we have updated the old Ten Commandments package and reissued it as The Ten Commandments Lite. Thou shalt have no other gods before me – as long as you recognize them as gods. Thou shalt not bear false witness – unless it would interfere with business practices or increase your taxable earnings. Thou shalt not kill – unless someone threatens your way of life… or your portion size…
One commandment, he pointed out, we have abandoned almost entirely: Thou shalt not covet.
At least one industry, advertising and marketing, exploits our tendency to want what what someone else has. Our entire economy depends on consumerism that labels products as “dated” and in need of replacement by the latest variation on the market. Instead of saying, “Wow! These shoes have lasted ten years!” we say, “I can’t wear these shoes. They’ve been out of style for two years!”
There is an open-sided shed at our waste disposal and recycling center. People can leave items there if they don’t want to make the effort to drop them off at one of the thrift shops a few blocks away. I was dismayed to learn that if no one takes them within a day or two they go into the pile of uneaten food and packaging and construction material destined for the landfill. Trucks carry away a lot of items doomed to dumping for the crime of being “dated.” A great deal of the stuff we toss in the landfill are things we absolutely had to have five years ago – like plastic and synthetic objects made from limited resources.
I suddenly realized that sometimes we are willing to take children’s daddies away for months or years, then document their return (with PTSD) in tear-jerking surprise reunion videos just to protect “our way of life.”
Joy Davidman’s statement shook me. Have I ever actually asked the Lord if this way of life with its increasing consumption model is something he wants to assist us to maintain? He has said he will prosper us, but does he agree with our definition of prosperity?
We were just goofing around last evening when my husband talked about The Ten Commandments Lite, but this morning this passage in scripture came to my attention:
Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. (Ezekiel 16:49 ESV)
If a wave of God’s kind of blessing hits us, will we recognize it for what it is?
I waited
and waited
and waited some more;
patiently,
knowing that God would come through for me.
Then, at last, he bent down and listened to my cry.
He stooped down to lift me out of danger,
from the desolate pit I was in,
out of the muddy waters I had fallen into.
Now he’s lifted me up into a firm, secure place,
and steadied me while I walk along his ascending path.
A new song for a new day rises up in me
every time I think about how he breaks through for me!
Ecstatic praise pours out of my mouth until
everyone hears how God has set me free.
Many will see his miracles; they’ll stand in awe of God,
and fall in love with him!
(Psalm 40:1-3 The Passion Translation)
It was no one’s fault. Doctors get sick, equipment breaks, the critical displaces the urgent. It just happened to take a long time between symptoms showing up and getting the results of a biopsy. Months actually. The first time I was told I might have cancer I was sick with worry and too distracted to concentrate on work a lot of the time. This time I was more patient. I’ve had the experience of seeing the Lord come through for me. We went for walks together and talked about something else.
Today I finally got the report. Benign.
I still need healing for an underlying problem that, although I have tried and tried, I can’t fix myself. So even though it has been the source a lot of rejection in my life, I continue to come to God, just as I am. My only plea is that Jesus’ blood was shed for me.
He’s good with that.
Lord, don’t you hear
What my well-meaning friends keep saying to me:
“Run away while you can!
Fly away like a bird to hide in the mountains for safety,
For your enemies have prepared a trap for you!
They plan to destroy you with their slander and deceitful lies.
Can’t you see them hiding
In their place of darkness and shadows?
They’re set against you and all those who live upright lives.”
But don’t they know, Lord, that I have made you
My only Hiding Place?
Don’t they know that I always trust in you?
What can the righteous accomplish
When truth’s pillars are destroyed and law and order collapse?
Yet the Eternal One is never shaken –
He is still found in his temple of holiness
Reigning as Lord and King over all.
He is closely watching everything that happens.
And with a glance, his eyes examine every heart
for his heavenly rule will prevail over all…
(from Psalm 11 The Passion Translation)
His law is love.
“Grandma! Come play with us! Come on! There’s room!” said my little grandson.
“What are you playing?”
“Super guys!” said his cousin. “Look! We climb up onto the roof like this then we jump to the other building like this.” He demonstrated by jumping from the bed to an upholstered bench against the wall.
“Grandma doesn’t jump from roof tops as well as she used to, honey.”
“You can do it, Grandma!” shouted the oldest. He could gain remarkable height jumping on that bed.
“No, sweetie. I’ll just watch you.”
“You can do it!” chimed in the younger one, the cape on his superman jammies flying behind him as he too leapt across the gorge.
“Here. We’ll help you.”
Apparently superhero powers are transferable. My two adorable progeny jumped off the bench, put their hands on my arm and my tummy and imparted the super-anointing so I could join them on the top of the building. Who knew it was that easy?
“Okay, now you’re Supergrandma!!”
They climbed back up on the king sized bed, pulled me up with them, and helped me stand there above the city streets on the top of the building. I felt their mighty little steadying hands on my butt, encouraging it to rise higher as well. I didn’t try to leap to the next building when they next took flight, but I did do a a couple of knee bend warm-up bounces as my contribution to saving the world. Give me a minute. I’ll get there.
Later that day my mentors took me on a stealth mission through the dormant lilac grove in the park. We were a dynamic trio, we were. I felt tremendously honoured to be included.
Now as I understand it, the common standard for superhero status requires that one must have a unique super power, something extremely rare instigated by a highly unusual accident or spontaneous mutation of DNA in the hopeful monster sense. I have always assumed superheros are, for that reason, lone stars.
Nay, not so, according to my grandsons. Give them time for a ten second impartation service and you can receive the same abilities they have received and join them in the fight against the evil foe.
I’ve met and read about some people who I consider to be heroes of the faith. Some of them have followed the same path as the disciples of Jesus when he told them, “As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.”
My grandmother used to take me to revival meetings where a traveling evangelist (often dressed with flare) stood on a stage and told astonishing stories about how God used him in Africa or Asia or South America or a town in the southern States we had never heard of. The deaf heard, the bent straightened and angels with swords of fire stood guard outside their guest hut. Sometimes these men gave us ample opportunity to support their “Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show” ministries, but you know, I can’t recall any one of those guys offering to support the missions or giftedness of lovers of Jesus in the audience.
Since I was merely a girl no one ever suggested that Jesus would call me to do anything special. (Although one did suggest I should aspire to becoming a pastor’s wife someday. He actually told me which seminaries he thought provided the best hunting grounds for women seeking that position. Apparently job competition details are not usually announced in Christian Classifieds.)
I’ve noticed a change lately. In the past few years I have met a few people who remind me of my little grandsons’ demonstration of encouragement. You won’t find this new breed in TV studios or on platforms or making available slick promotional pamphlets with detachable donation envelopes. You will find them in the check-out line at Walmart, in the seat beside you on the plane, in the ice cream shop, on a beach in California, working in the back of an ambulance, or walking anonymously down main street. They are obeying the Lord with both boldness and stealth.
The reason they remind me of my grandsons is because not only are they using the gifts God gave them to tell people about God’s love and to make new disciples, they encourage others in the Body of Christ to come on up and leap tall buildings with them.
Making disciples -it’s not just for professionals anymore.
Neither is being one.
For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. (2 Timothy 1:6,7)
There are four degrees of love:
1) Love of self for self’s sake.
2) Love of God for self’s sake.
3) Love of God for God’s own sake.
4) Love of self for God’s sake.
– Bernard of Clairvaux
When you love God, you love what he loves.
And he loves you.
Charis: Subject to Change 