As grace is first from God, so it is continually from him, as much as light is all day long from the sun, as well as at first dawn or at sun-rising.
– Jonathan Edwards
For some reason this chair in front of a windowed door caught my eye. I snapped a photo of it and continued on my way. Later, while I was experimenting with editing dud pics and wondering what it would look like in black and white, I heard this phrase in my spirit.
Nor sit in the seat of scoffers.
This is from the first verse in the book of Psalms: “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers.”
Other translations call scoffers mockers, deriders, the scornful. People who are familiar with social media call them trolls.
I’ve been thinking about scoffers and the temptation to sit in that seat. How many of us no longer read comments on news sites or have ceased joining discussions in formerly interesting groups because scoffers have entrenched themselves there? Scoffers block the way to greater insight the way the troll in the children’s’ story blocked the three billy goats from reaching greener fields.
Scoffers don’t move. They sit.
Mocking, scornful deriders have been around for a long time, and they sit in the middle of many pathways. Sometimes you don’t realize you have been dealing with scoffer until they are gone. It’s like the moment when someone shuts off the persistent background noise of a loud fan. Peace. During their rare absences, quarrelling, abuse, strife, doubt and dishonour are also absent — until someone else decides to sit in their chair. Sometimes that empty chair is hard to resist.
The book of Proverbs has a lot to say about the scornful.
“He who corrects a scoffer gets dishonour for himself,
And he who reproves a wicked man gets insults for himself.
Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you.”
Contrast that with the next sentences:
“Reprove a wise man and he will love you.
Give instruction to a wise man and he will be still wiser,
Teach a righteous man and he will increase his learning.”
(Proverbs 9)
A scoffer presents him- or herself as someone seeking wisdom, but who can’t recognize it when it is plainly demonstrated to them. Arrogance blocks their own view. Arrogance is the inability to esteem others more highly than yourself. A mocker has no grace for anyone “not up to their standards” and will miss the wisdom of children and folks they consider to be of lower status.
My brother and I were only a year apart. Teachers in our junior high school loved his class and hated mine. His class had natural leaders (my brother was one) with a great sense of humour and sense of comaraderie that honoured classmates. Our class was greatly influenced by two extremely intelligent, but rather bitter scoffers. From the first day they so intimated the other students (I was labeled “hairy arms” by one of them) that we felt we needed their approval before cooperating with any project a teacher suggested. They rarely gave it. Secretly, many of us envied their power and wanted to be like them. For three years we turned into an entire class of cross-armed witty, but nasty, skeptics who dared the teachers to engage our enthusiasm. Scorn is contagious.
To make things worse, one year our home room teacher announced a seating plan based on academic merit. Every month we all knew exactly how we ranked when he re-assigned numbered desks. Those two boys never lost their seats in the first row. The teacher actually joined them in his derision of the last row. He believed he could shame the “low” achievers into trying harder, and that “healthy competition” would stir them on to greater things.
It didn’t work. For a couple of students the results of this experiment were tragic. Not all gifts can be measured by percentages on a test. Names stick.
I found scoffers entrenched in universities as well. One would think that in an environment dedicated to new ideas and daring research would be highly honoured. Many discouraged potential PhD candidates and their supervisors can tell you how often a project is dismissed by a scoffer with power who sits in front of the door to research grant approval.
I’m not surprised by scoffers and mockers of those who don’t believe in God or Jesus Christ. It’s a lifestyle. What surprises me is the number of scoffers who identify as believers. Now I’m not holding up naivety or gullibility as virtues; good questions lead to knowledge and wisdom. If you have a hole in your boat or those jeans really do advertise that your backside looks like a barn door you need to know. But some questions don’t lead to answers. Some questions are only meant to mock and deride and discourage and stop folks who want to press on.
Paul quoted the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk when he spoke in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch. “Behold, you scoffers, and marvel, and perish; for I am accomplishing a work in your days, A work which you will never believe, though someone should describe it to you.’” (Acts 13:41.)
I’ve met people in churches who insist there is no proof that God still does miracles today. When provided with documentation they dismiss it or ignore it. Scoffing makes it hard to believe. Scoffing entrenches disbelief because the scornful cannot give up the power of the scoffer’s seat and turn to see the light shining behind them.
Wait. What?
I was about to finish up this essay when I heard the Lord say in my spirit, “You’re still in the scoffer’s seat yourself, you know.”
“What? How so?”
“Why do you find it so hard to believe what I’ve told you about the way I see you, about your identity in Christ.”
I’ve been struggling with writing a short bio for a project I am joining. It’s sometimes easier to ask someone else to write these things because it does stir up the scoffer’s stopper question, ”Who do you think you are anyway?”
Oh boy. Busted.
Change is hard, but it’s time to kick the scoffer out of her chair and open that glass door by faith. Here goes.
Ok Lord, I am no longer a hungry caterpillar crawling on my belly. I am a butterfly who is learning what wings can do.
I am, like Snow White, one who appeared to be dead, now raised to new life by the kiss of the Prince of Peace.
I am learning about the power of love because You love me and by Your grace I am still subject to change.
“Grace is the most perplexing, powerful force in the universe, and, I believe, the only hope for our twisted, violent planet.”
― Philip Yancey
To stand before the Holy One of eternity is to change. Resentments cannot be held with the same tenacity when we enter his gracious light.
– Richard J. Foster
My grandson and I cuddled on the couch watching his favourite video. I listened to the theme of Thomas the Train and watched his train friends’ adventures for what seemed like the fiftieth time. Maybe it took that many views for me to notice how many times the word “useful” was used to describe the little engines’ motivation for his adventures. He wanted to be a really useful little engine.
I remembered another conversation on the couch, with a friend this time. Her daughter, and the entire family, was suffering terribly. The girl had not told them, until her methods of coping landed her in a psychiatric hospital, that for some time she had been molested by a trusted member of their church. Like so many other victims she blamed herself and was drowning in shame.
“I try to tell her it will be okay, “ her mother whispered. “God can still use her. But that just seems to make her shut off even more.”
“Maybe ‘God can still use her’ is not the best choice of words,” I tried to explain gently. “She has already been ‘used’ and it has not turned out well.”
“I never thought of it that way,” she said. “Anyway, she knows God still loves her.”
“Does she? Right now she feels such shame she can’t even look her earthly Dad in the face. Her ability to trust authority figures has been thoroughly shaken. It’s going to take a while for her to sort out who God is and especially who God is not. We need to demonstrate to her the same kind of grace and love God does. She needs to know that she does not have to do anything to receive your love. Love and accept her just as she is, with all her dysfunction. She does not need to be an honour student, or a perfect weight, or a junior missionary with a “testimony of victory.”
As I recalled this conversation I had to ask myself, “Who is God for me now? Do I still carry vestiges of the message that I am more acceptable if I am useful?
I have never made friends easily. Acquaintances, yes. Close friends I felt safe with and in whom I could confide, not so much. There have been a few who have been tremendous blessings, but even though much improved, I still have trust issues myself. My pattern over the years was to keep friends by making myself really useful like the little train. It’s been hard to believe I could be loved otherwise. Usefulness was my insurance against rejection.
I’ve been going through a time when the Lord has asked me to set “workin’ fo’ da kingdom” aside to learn, on a deeper level, that I don’t have to earn his approval. This goes deep. It’s not about the importance of engaging in activities like teaching, or providing music, feeding the poor, or even meeting with friends to pray for various excellent ministries. It’s about motivation. Can I admit this is tough? I question this action all the time. What will people think? What is the measure of my faithfulness now?
When the son who demanded his inheritance early – and blew it all – returned to the Father, it was with a sense of shame. He thought if he made himself useful, like the other servants, he could earn a place in the household. The Father not only accepted him back without asking first for any pledge of behaving better in future, he honoured him as a son, in the stinky pig state he was in, without a two-year disciplinary period to prove he was worthy of acceptance. The son’s shame was met with unexpected honour.
That’s grace. Amazing, shocking grace. Hard to believe, hard to receive, but that is the fine robe God wraps us in when we turn to him, empty-handed.
The elder son didn’t believe it. He took off in a huff. The Father went out to him and assured him that he had access to everything in the house, but jealousy kept him from sharing the Father’s joy. The eldest demanded to know how anyone who was not useful could be a part of this family.
When people first come into the household of faith they come as orphans, grateful for food and shelter. They long for, but don’t really expect – or know how to handle – the Father’s affection. They focus on learning the rules in the orphanage, lest they do something to offend and face rejection.
Some people, longing for friendship with God, move on to become voluntary servants, hoping to secure a place by becoming essential workers and ingratiating themselves with the Father’s favour. One of the signs that they see themselves as servants and not sons is competition and flare-ups of jealousy toward others.
A son, however, knows he is held in the Father’s embrace by nothing more than the Father’s love. He learns, just by remaining there, that bond of love is so strong he can feel the Father’s heartbeat. Not until a sense of shame and unworthiness is washed away by a flood of grace upon grace can he afford to extend that same love to others.
We can try to use God to supply our wants. We can try to earn his approval by being used by God. But we don’t realize that we are sons of God until we come humbly as orphans and bond servants and discover, much to our surprise, that He simply loves us because He loves us, because He loves us, because He loves us…
Then we find joy and fulfillment in being who he made us to be – His workmanship, created for great things, partners in the Father’s plan.
For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. (John 1:16 ESV)
That which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond. To Him. To the God whom we endlessly crave.
– Ann Voskamp
I love this place. This is one of my favourite spots in British Columbia. My dear friend and I drove past it yesterday on our way to Starbucks in Fernie for an October treat: a pumpkin spice latte. We stopped to take photos and noticed the fly-fishermen wading in the river down in the valley. I soaked in the abundance of beauty, a gracious gift from God, and my soul felt refreshed.
The autumn colours remind me that even in change there is beauty. There is abundant grace.
Thank you, Lord.
And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.
(2 Corinthians 9:8 NASB)
Grace comes into the soul, as the morning sun into the world; first a dawning; then a light; and at last the sun in his full and excellent brightness.
– Thomas Adams
I took a wrong turn.
I’m helping my elderly mother-in-law. Her apartment is in the centre of the downtown core of large city. I am not used to this kind of traffic or the visual and auditory distractions everywhere. Sirens, flashing lights, construction barriers, drivers honking at me. It takes a while to build up selective inattention; my senses feel assaulted. And I always seem to be in the wrong lane! I just slipped out on a quick errand and by the time I was halfway home my nerves were shot.
Well, I was in the wrong lane again and ended up in a parking lot in the river valley. Instead of aiming my poor little car back into the fray I got out and went for a walk (a stomp would be more accurate). I came upon a green space and followed the asphalt trail, jumping out of my skin every time a cyclist whizzed by me and blushing every time I happened upon couples who really needed to get a room. I saw a deserted-looking path going up a narrow gorge. I know, probably not a good idea for a woman alone in the big city but I craved solitude and missed the woods back home. So I followed it.
Ahh. There, right in the midst of rush and shove of angry people (including me) an unpopulated refuge. A gift. The song in my head was about God being a strength and shield. “You give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from those who walk with him.”
Thanks, Lord. I needed that.
I’m still learning to maintain that peace while looking for an address in heavy traffic. My husband will tell you I’m not there yet, but at least I know peace can exist in the middle of a stressful place.
I had my quiet time in the woods yesterday. And there were no bears.
Charis: Subject to Change 