“We must learn to live on the heavenly side and look at things from above, to contemplate all things as God sees them, as Christ beholds them, overcomes sin, defies Satan, dissolves perplexities, lifts us above trials, separates us from the world and conquers fear of death.”
– A.B. Simpson
It’s easy to see sin, satanic influence, perplexities, and trial after trial. It’s easy to listen to the voices pointing out that we are not taking threats seriously enough, that we need to listen to the world’s point of view and ramp up the fear motivation.
It’s easy to respond to suggestions with “The problem with that is...” It’s easy to look for escape routes and to distract ourselves with entertainment or bury ourselves in denial.
It’s easy when that’s the way we’ve always responded.
And how is that working for us?
What does God want to do instead?
Jesus lives to intercede for us. He never stops. How is he praying? What is his perspective? How can we join in his plans? How do we access the provision of joy he has set aside for us?
Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle!
This may be the coolest, wettest July I have experienced in years. Our grandchildren are here and we have not been able to hike or go to the beach even once. The sun comes out and by the time we get our act together it’s raining again.
Now when you live in the middle of thousands of hectares of fuel in the form of forest summer rains are usually welcome – except when you want to go to the beach with the kids. This is unseasonable. Different.
This morning I read about an explanation of the Greek words of a phrase in Romans 5:20 – “but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” The tense here means sin that is continually increasing. It also means grace that is continually increasing exponentially more.
Grace upon grace upon grace…
This has been a week where we have seen sin increase. Shootings, riots, the murder of innocents, the fall of trusted leaders, the exposure of faulty foundations, division, exploitation, panic…
It’s horrible actually. To all appearances sin is increasing and there is nothing we can do about it except (as some propose) to await for for evil to gain so much control over the world that God will zap his people off the planet and leave the rest to their own devices.
The good news is: grace is also increasing – faster and bigger. He has plans for our good. He is not defeated.
(And no. I do not define grace as license to sin so let’s just get that out of the way right now. Grace is the means by which we are changed to become fully who God intended us to be.)
I asked the Lord (trying not to use my pouty voice), “What’s with all this unseasonable rain? At the moment it is so loud on the roof it’s drowning out our conversation about how terrible the news is today.”
Then I hear a line from a song:
“Hallelujah! Grace like rain falling down on me…”
Thank you, Lord! Grace in abundance like showers that keep coming and coming and coming is available when sin in abundance keeps coming. But grace is greater. Greater than evil. Greater than despair. Greater than pain and loss. Grace that is greater than all our sin.
When we are tempted to return hate for hate grace enables us to return good for evil. The fruit of the Spirit has to be a supernatural response from heaven or it is merely more human effort. And seriously, how have our own efforts been working for us in this season?
It’s time to turn from our own methods, access the grace for change that flows from the throne of God. It’s time to see the salvation of our God. This is the season of abundant rain.
God has more for us than we can ask or even think.
I stood on my deck surrounded by a glorious sun shower. The abundance of light and refreshing cleansing rain seemed like dramatic contrast to the ugliness of hatred in the world today.
This is part of King David’s final prayer before leaving the rule of his country in the hands of his successor:
True God, bestow Your honest judgments upon the king and anoint the king’s son with Your righteousness.
May he be honest and fair in his judgments over Your people and offer justice to the burdened and suffering.
Under his reign, may this land of mountains and hills know peace and experience justice for all the people.
May the king offer justice to the burdened and suffering, rescue the poor and needy, and demolish the oppressor!
[May the people fear You] for as long as the sun shines, as long as the moon rises in the night sky, throughout the generations.
May the king be like the refreshing rains, which fall upon fields of freshly mown grass— like showers that cool and nourish the earth.
May good and honest people flourish for as long as he reigns, and may peace fill the land until the moon no longer rises.
(Psalm 72:1-7 The Voice )
Praying David’s prayer. May peace and justice fill the land -like refreshing rain.
Discouragement has been trying to sneak into my heart lately. I bar the doors and it makes faces at me through the windows. I shut the curtains and it sticks out its tongue on the news reports. I flip through Netflix and see it dressed up as reason or compassion or as humour – in black of course. I shut the TV off and discouragement pops up on my phone. Even in-person conversations take a sudden tilt toward you-think-that’s-bad.
Here’s the thing. You can’t escape discouragement when you’ve allowed it to have a camping spot in your head.
We had a problem with mice in the house once. While we were on vacation they got into the pantry. Screaming may have been involved when I opened the doors. I set traps, cleaned up and stored everything in plastic bins after that, but they would still show up. (More screaming.) We called for help.
The exterminator searched all around and found we had a spilled bag of grass seed in the garden shed near the back door.
“There’s your problem,” he said. “They eat in your garden restaurant then come into the house to keep warm. They only need an opening as big as their nose to squeeze through. Get rid of what they are feeding on and they will go away.”
It was one of those moments when I heard God speaking with the accent of a pest control expert.
Get rid of what they are feeding on and they will go away.
I said this to someone else yesterday and heard God’s voice in my own.
Get rid of what discouragement is feeding on and it will go away.
What’s it feeding on? Words that don’t include His perspective. I call them Helena Handbasket speeches. Sometimes I listen to them and sometimes I make them myself.
“But the situation looks dire, Lord.”
“Come up here and see the big picture,” He says.
“How? I mean really. HOW?”
This morning I woke from a dream about friends who were were shutting down a coffee shop kind of place. Business was too slow. A handicapped person came in looking for someone to talk to, then a shy older woman, then a child who offered to share her candy with the lady. All the while the shop was being readied for closure with chairs stacked on tables being pushed against the wall.
They made one more pot of free coffee for the people who had wandered in. While they set a couple of chairs back at a table more people showed up. They needed more tables and opened another section. More and more people were suddenly there. The thing they all seemed to have in common was loneliness and feeling like they didn’t belong anywhere and were out of place in time. Some even wore clothes from earlier decades.
The child sharing her candy had only meant to give it to one person, but it was passed around in a bowl and like the fish and barley loaves the disciples saw multiply as they passed baskets around, the candy in the dollar store crystal dish never ran out.
I woke up with a song in my head that I never paid much attention to before. I didn’t know more words than I needed to google it. A Buddy Holly song? Seriously?
“Why this one, Lord?”
“You asked for my perspective.”
These Helena Handbasket voices that make dire predictions? Well yes, there is a right and left perspective, neither of which can offer solutions, but there is also an up and down axis. And that is a game changer.
At one point in the dream a man who had been a addict ran out into the street from the now busy cafe and said, “People say change is not possible. I tell you it is! I am free and more people are being set free every day!”
Eternal One: Hard to believe, but it shall be so.
The captives will be taken from the hand of the mighty,
And the spoil of war will be rescued from the tyrant.
I will liberate them from their captors and contend with your enemies.
Charis: Subject to Change 