God's Splendid Obsession

This morning's reading in the Daily Light begins with Lamentations 3:40:

Let us examine and probe our ways, and let us return to the Lord.

I've been going through difficulties this past week that have forced me to probe my ways, and I’ve been feeling a heavy weight of guilt for what I'm discovering. I can't find any sins that are terribly uncivilized, but I am finding spiritual sins--the sins of pride--the worst kind. Pride is the great sin of the Devil. The sin that says, "I am God."

The world doesn’t find pride sinful. This past week, in a mythology class, I had to teach high school students that the story of Adam and Eve is a story of the coming of age of human beings. God created them, then put a serpent in the garden to “tempt” them to grow up, to become adults, to leave the nest. Then God was angry, like a bad parent, when they chose to go their own way—to become their own persons.

This interpretation is a doctrine of the ancient religion of paganism. We now call that religion secular humanism. According to our evolved social mores, we should not “probe our ways and return to the Lord.” That would be like crawling back into the womb. And if we’re tempted to do that, it’s only because God’s anger has put a heavy burden of false guilt and shame on us.

So I was supposed to teach these students, by implication, that their task is to throw off this weight of guilt, to become fully human, to live their own lives to the fullest as seems best to them. Oh, and also, the book implied we are all to try to do a better job of parenting our children than God did His.

I taught the lesson, but I also told the students the other, more traditional interpretation of the myth of Adam and Eve. I said the story is also considered an explanation of how evil came into the world. I had to add that interpretation. It wasn't in the text. It’s interesting that modern mythology textbooks would teach a pagan interpretation for a Jewish myth, without any mention of the interpretation Jewish scholars have given it down through the years.

But I digress. My own guilt. I feel the weight of it. The guilt is real and justified. And it’s a hard thing to make myself recognize what I’m doing wrong and correct it.

Then I made a glorious discovery: though the guilt is justified, the weight doesn’t have to be there. I don’t have to work at realizing my guilt and repenting and confessing.

John G. Elliott's devotional reading for today has given me a whole new perspective on my malady. John speaks of God's refining fire.

It is God who does the work of refining. We don't have to do anything but surrender. To put ourselves in his hands. He does the rest. It’s a task He does very carefully, because He loves us so much.

John G. Elliott says:

To Him we are of infinite value - - - even in our raw condition. We are the ore that is largely composed of “earth” - - - the “world”. These anti-Kingdom motives, values and desires loom larger in us than we are aware. But He sees the gold deposited in the mix and undertakes a life-long process of “un-earthing” the ore where it is lodged deep within. The filtering process for a small amount of gold is time consuming and costly - - - for Him and for the disciple. But He has never doubted His objective. His love is determined concerning us- - - to the point of splendid obsession. It would seem that the more a disciple yields to this process the more times the furnace is heated up for yet another round of purification.

Ouch. Another round? Not fun. But it is such a relief to know He is responsible for the purification, not me. I will never be “adult” enough to do that task for myself, and I’m happy to leave Him to it.

My New Year's Resolution--to Pedal

My New Year’s resolution for my walk (ride?) with the Lord in 2011 is to charge boldly into the new year, embracing the Gulp and Whee mentality I first discovered in the last part of 2010. (For a more detailed definition of "Gulp and Whee," see the post by that title in my writing blog.)

The G and W mentality is perfectly exemplified in this anonymously written poem that inspires me again every time I read it. I hope it challenges and encourages you in your own spiritual journey.

The Road of Life

At first I saw God as my observer, my judge,
Keeping track of the things I did wrong,
So as to know whether I merited heaven or hell when I die.
He was out there sort of like a president.
I recognised His picture when I saw it, but I really didn’t know Him.

But later on when I met Christ,
It seemed as though life were rather like a bike ride,
But it was a tandem bike, and I noticed that Christ was in the back,
Helping me pedal.

I don’t know when it was that He suggested we change places,
But life has not been the same since.

When I had control, I knew the way.
It was rather boring, but predictable. . .
It was the shortest distance between two points.

But when He took the lead,
He knew delightful long cuts, up mountains,
and through rocky places at breakneck speeds.
It was all I could do to hang on!
Even though it looked like madness,
He said, “Pedal!”

I worried and was anxious and asked, “Where are you taking me?”
He laughed and didn’t answer, and I started to learn to trust.

I forgot my boring life and entered into the adventure.
And when I’d say, “I’m scared,” He’d lean back and touch my hand.

He took me to people with gifts I needed,
Gifts of healing, acceptance, and joy.
They gave me gifts to take on my journey,
My Lord’s and mine.

And we were off again.
He said, “Give the gifts away; they’re extra baggage.
Too much weight.”
So I did, to people we met, and I found that in giving
I received, and still our burden was light.

I did not trust Him at first, in control of my life.
I thought He’d wreck it.
But He knows bike secrets, knows how to make it bend to take sharp corners,
Knows how to jump to clear high rocks,
Knows how to fly to shorten scary passages.

And I am learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places,
And I’m beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze in my face
With my delightful, constant companion, Jesus Christ.

And when I’m sure I just can’t do any more
He just smiles and says. . . “Pedal!”

Author unknown

May the coming year be one of sweet, exciting surprises for you in your journey with the Lord.

My Gift at the Manger

We were on our way to the Christmas morning worship service and I was not in the mood to worship. I could trace the problem to its source. The grumpiness had started on December 22nd, when I first heard a Christmas song on the radio that had the Baby Jesus saying “Ho, ho, ho.”

Bah, humbug.

The racoon who ate the pumpkin pie off my back deck during the Christmas Eve service didn’t help any. Nor did the discovery, later in the evening, that my jar of poultry seasoning was empty. It could have been on my fruitless pilgrimage around town that night, looking for an open grocery store, that I lost the right front hubcap off my new volkswagon.

So, driving to church on Christmas morning, listening to my husband’s idle musings about which of the three curbs I had bumped in the last four days might have dealt the death knell to my hubcap, I was in full grinch form.

“Merry Christmas,” I said (pointedly) to him in the middle of his one-sided discussion of the missing hubcap. Being, as he is, consistently oblivious to subtle hints regarding proper topics of conversation when I am in a funk, he continued the conversation until I told him, without subtle nuances or vague metaphorical references, that I needed a few minutes of peace and quiet “because I am not in the mood to worship and it’s being very hard for me to get myself there.”

During the next few minutes of brooding silence, I dragged my reluctant heart to Jesus, laid my insignificant frustrations at His feet and pried my heartstrings away from the bitterness trying to take root in my spirit.

I came close to tears when I realized, once again, after all these years of basking in the light of His unconditional love, that I still have nothing worthwhile to leave at the manger on Christmas morning.

At church, the pastor told us the true story of the little church in a small town that decided to take a chance and bring real animals to its Christmas Eve service. A local farmer lent them a cow, a sheep and a goat, and the animal rescue facility down the road sent them a donkey.

It seemed to be working. The animals, and the people, were behaving well. Just as on that famous night, all was calm. Until the donkey got too close to the empty baptistry and fell in.

Finding himself trapped in the unfamiliar “stall”, the poor beast flailed and brayed until the pastor gave up on his message and called the care giver from the animal rescue facility. The man came, took off his shoes, got into the tub, covered the donkey’s head with his coat, whispered sweet comfort into his ear, and finally crouched down on all fours so the donkey could use him as a stepstool to climb out.

“It’s a perfect metaphor,” the pastor explained. “That’s why Jesus came.”

My mind wandered now and then. I was still trying to find a worthy gift for the baby in the manger. Maybe the prayer I prayed in church last Sunday. Several people said they were touched by it. Or the Tim Horton’s card I gave to my lonely friend. Or the time I spent talking about the Bible with the sweet young woman who had just become a Christian. Those things would be good gifts for Jesus.

“No.” I heard Him say, distinctly. “The first gift you gave me—that’s all I want.”

A broken and contrite heart.

The only gift a sinner has to offer a holy Saviour.

Yes, Christmas is about giving. But it’s not about our giving. It’s about God’s giving. I knelt at the manger that morning and received His gift—the true peace of Christmas—with a heart open and subdued.

Then I went home to subdue the five grandchildren who were running around our house, high on Christmas candy, and the thirty-pound turkey I’d wrestled into the oven that morning.

Significant Trivia

When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.'"
Matthew 2:3-6

A bit of shepherd trivia.

Shepherds, in Jesus' day, were considered one of the lowest classes of people. They were so suspect as liars and thieves that their testimonies were not accepted in a court of law. Yet they were the ones to whom the angels first announced the birth of Jesus, and were probably the first to begin spreading the word to others.

Shepherding was the chief industry of the little town of Bethlehem. The animals were raised to be sold in Jerusalem, to pilgrims who needed them for sacrifices in their religious ceremonies. Lambs were killed to atone for the sins of the people who gave them at the temple for sacrifice.

So this little town is where the Lamb of God was "produced"--the lamb whose sacrificial death on the cross was pre-ordained to "take away the sin of the world." (John 1:29)

With the destruction of the Jewish temple in 60 A.D., the practice of animal sacrifice was discontinued, and has not been re-instituted.

I love Christmas!

A Whisper in the Wind

This discussion on hearing from God has raised a raft of questions for me. I’m shy about sharing some of them, because I’m not sure they even make sense. Both the questions and the answers are still incubating. But Jenifer’s comment on my November 18th post, interestingly enough, speaks to the first of my questions, recorded in my journal on November 15th.

Jenifer says: “God is always speaking to us. Sometimes it is in the big things and sometimes it is a whisper in the wind. The more aware we are of Christ in our daily activities, the more we will notice when He speaks to us.”

My November 15th journal entry asks this question: Does God speak specifically to me every day, or are there only some times when I need to hear specific words? Are there some days when we just walk together in companionable silence?

Jenifer’s statement is obviously true, and I want to especially note her reminder that “the more aware we are of Christ in our daily activities, the more we will notice when He speaks to us.” But how does God speak? Is it always specific?

So here’s my mind trying to work out this truth:

God speaks all the time.

I know He does. He thunders on the mountaintops and he whispers in the wind. But what does that mean? Does He speak specific words in those sounds? Or does he just give us an intuitive sense of who He is—a majestic, powerful God, or an infinitely gentle One?

Psalm 19:2 says that the heavens declare the glory of God, day after day and night after night. God speaks to us constantly through the natural world.

He speaks constantly through His written word too. Every time we open the Book we read God speaking, even if nothing we read connects specifically with where our minds are at the moment.

And I’ve also come to believe that He is constantly whispering “I love you” in our hearts, as if those words are constantly being broadcast on some kind of spiritual airwave. Whenever we happen to tune into that station, we hear them.

But the kind of speaking I’m trying to listen to right now is more personal, more specific. How often does God want to take one of His eternal truths and apply it to my life, for a specific reason, at a point in time? How often does God want me to experience this kind of realization of Him?

God also speaks specifically at particular points in time and space.

One day when I was walking alone along a forest trail, He pointed out a flower that He said He’d put there just for me. I needed a flower that day, but I didn’t want to pick it because then it wouldn’t be there for someone else. He said, “It’s yours. Pick it. I can make more.”

When I was in agony over some things that were happening, or NOT happening, in my church, I wondered if God’s Spirit had departed from us—given up on ever being able to use us again. I picked up the Bible and read Haggai 2:5: “Be strong, and work, for My Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.”

And every time I ask Him for a random word, for no specific reason except to be reassured He is there, I hear an instant response: “I love you.” I know that’s true, but for some reason it surprises me again every time He says it.

So maybe my question about how often He speaks specifically is nonsense. Maybe I just need to keep my ears tuned, as Jenifer has said, and let Him speak however He wants.

Maybe I need to hear His voice in the thunder, the wind, the giggles of my grandchildren, the sigh of a friend, but also make my ears available for a specific word that says, “This is the way. Walk in it.” when I turn from the left to the right.

Thanks, Jenifer, for stimulating my thinking about this.

And, Kristen, God does use you. Keep up the good work.

An Amazing Truth!

The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them. Psalm 25:14

God confides in us. That's amazing!

One more blog post from my personal journal, to show how God has spoken specifically to me in the last week:

I think I’m getting more of a sense of God’s urgings, in even the littlest things. I may be wrong about these urges, but I don’t think it will hurt anything if I step out on faith, as if they are from God. This morning I picked up my Bible from the nightstand and Prison to Praise was under it. I felt I needed to pick it up too, as if God might want to say something to me from it.

I always think it’s best to read my Bible first, before any other book in my quiet time, but this time as I asked God where I should read I felt Him say to read the book first. I turned to my bookmark and started reading [the author's] chapter on the power of praise—really the heart of his message. It was a powerful read, and again I sensed the urging of the Spirit to blog a passage from the book. So I got up and did it, afraid if I didn’t obey immediately it might get lost somewhere in the shuffle.

My blog posts are coming so much easier and more frequently since I relinquished my right to play Spider Solitaire! I’m convinced I can’t develop the discipline to do what God wants me to do until I exercize the discipline to quit doing the other things that get in the way. So I wonder if that blog post has a specific purpose in God’s Kingdom, since it seemed so specifically inspired? I might never know, and that’s all right.

Later I added this:

I said above that I might never know if the posting of this blog was God’s idea, but in the depth of my spirit I asked God for some kind of confirmation. A little while later I checked my e-mail messages and got this message from Lisa:

“I really enjoy reading your blog. In fact, I sent part of it to a friend who is feeling overwhelmed today. Thank you for posting this! I want to always bring the sacrifice of my praise to Jesus.”

I learned several things from this experience:

I was reassured that God does speak to us specifically if we make the effort to ask Him for specific wisdom AND if we take the time to listen for Him to speak. He spoke to me in prompting that blog post. He spoke to Lisa, asking her to send it to her friend, and He spoke encouragement to Lisa’s friend through her obedient action.

I realized that when we feel God’s prompting, we need to obey instantly. If I had waited to write that blog post, it might never have happened. I know, because I’ve lost good ideas like that before. The idea comes, and I think I’ll do it later, and it never goes any farther.

If Lisa had not responded immediately to send the message to her friend, she might never have done it, and her friend would have missed that blessing.

Lisa was doubly obedient to God’s prompting. Her encouraging message to me had impact because she sent it right away. If she had waited a day or two, I would not have had the specific confirmation I asked God for.

I also saw a demonstration of God’s love here. God went out of His way to encourage Lisa’s friend. He prompted me to write the blog post. He prompted Lisa to read it, and then to send it on to her. When God goes to a lot of trouble to say, “I love you,” the message is powerful. This friend of Lisa’s must be greatly loved by God, and He wants her to know that.

Next post will move away from these personal experiences. I want to talk about three other ideas before I leave this subject. I want to discuss how God speaks, what kinds of things He says, and I want to ponder the “sound” of His voice. I hope those discussions will help answer the question, “Is it really God speaking to me?”

I love the comments I’m getting. If you have something you’d like to share with others, please e-mail me (see the sidebar for my address). I can then include your comments in the body of the blog posts.

It's Not About Sofas

So I’m having fun with the current topic of hearing from God. I think I'll post some examples of the experiences I'm having. Here's one from a week or so ago:

I am looking on Craig’s List for furniture for our front room. I find an ad that looks promising, contact the person who is selling, and make arrangements to go see it tonight. She is leaving town in the morning for ten days and has to get rid of her things before she moves permanently at the end of the month.

On the way to her house, I begin to wonder if God might have a greater purpose in the encounter. I ask God to guide and use the situation for His purposes.

We meet, and I look at the furniture. It’s not what we’re looking for, but my spiritual eyes have been moved to a bigger goal than finding a sofa.

I ask her if her move is a happy one. She says yes, that she travels a lot with her work and she’s hoping to settle in this new city. I tell her I will pray for her on her trip, that God is going with her and that He loves her. She receives the message with a smile.

For the next several days I find myself praying for Jill (not her real name). I feel this contact is definitely of the Lord, probably just for the prayer and the word God wanted her to have.

I love this new awareness that God wants to be intimately involved in my life, speaking to me and letting me hear Him, using me for His purposes.

Every day, not just now and then when I remember to ask Him if there’s anything I can do.

Every contact we have with anyone, God is there, and we need to be alert to it.

Now, I need to see if I can remember this the next time I get a phone call from a telemarketer. I wonder if anyone ever tells them that Jesus loves them?