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God has a lot of questions directed His way. Most of them start with the word “Why.” They go like this…
· Why is there so much suffering, and so little done to ease it?
· Why is love not more obvious in people’s actions?
· Why are some in need, while others around them have plenty?
· Why isn’t there more encouragement and happiness in the world?
What’s worse, it often seems that God doesn’t reply. Perhaps that’s because the queries are misdirected.
When I’ve brought such concerns to God, I’ve sometimes sensed Him turning the conversation around and asking me those same things. Of course I’m limited to what just one person can contribute. But He knows that and expects no more.
Inquiring of God is fine. It’s also appropriate to give Him answers.
I’ll admit, I was skeptical when my friend recommended the CD. “Another teaching on the Beatitudes?” I groaned (not in his presence, of course.) “I’ve heard them all.” Admission number two: I was wrong.
The teacher said something that had never before come to my attention. The phrase “poor in spirit” that Jesus spoke is more rightly translated “desperate.” That gives the message new meaning.
“Blessed are the desperate, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven,” said Jesus. I’m all for the Kingdom of Heaven, so maybe I can learn to embrace being desperate.
The road to hope, peace, calm, satisfaction, and the like is the path of distress and despair. Desperation, therefore, is not my enemy – it’s my friend. When I see things becoming dire, I’m really close to finding the Kingdom.
I’m not ready to ask God to bring on the desperation. But when it comes, as it does in every life, I hope I’ll remember this. It might at least make the situation bearable. Who knows, maybe I’ll even be blessed.
(Thanks, Frank, for the CD.)
The servant of Abraham, whose name we do not know, was given a task by his master to find a wife for Abraham’s son Isaac. Out he went. Sitting by a well to rest, he devised an elaborate plot. “If I meet a woman who does this and this and this,” he said, I’ll know she’s the one.”
Along came Rebekah. The servant set the test in motion. Unknowingly, Rebekah responded exactly as he had envisioned the right girl would.
The next step for Abraham’s servant was to get permission to take Rebekah far away from her family to become Isaac’s wife. He went to her home and explained the whole situation to Bethuel, her father, and Laban, her older brother. The servant described in detail exactly the plan he had devised and how Rebekah fulfilled each part perfectly without knowing anything about it. He then said “If you are going to let the girl come with me, say so. If not, I’ll go elsewhere.”
Realizing the significance of the way it had all happened, Bethuel and Laban’s response was simple: “This is from the Lord; we have no choice in the matter.”
There are times when I am not pleased with the hand life has dealt me. I want things to be different, and I seem unable to make them so. Circumstances line up to clearly put me on this path or that.
Do I have options in those situations? Well, maybe. And I guess Bethuel and Laban could have refused to let Rebekah go back with Abraham’s servant. The wiser response is to realize that – sometimes – exerting a lot of effort to alter life is fighting against God Himself. (This is never successful in the long run, by the way.) Much better to give in and say, “Whether I like it or not, this is from the Lord; I have no choice in the matter.”
Most likely God says “Sure you do,” then He winks and adds “but really you don’t.” Nonetheless, I think He’s pleased.
I’m tired of Bible teachings. Make that REALLY tired. In well over three decades of church involvement, I’ve heard and read hundreds of them. Ask me how many I remember… not a lot. The number that have really affected my life? Fewer still.
What do I want instead? To know God. To see His character in action, expressed through His followers. To experience the mysterious presence that exists when people come together around a common desire to share love, joy, peace, truth, reality, and the like – and then learn that those are actually Someone’s name.
Thankfully, I’ve been there a time or two. It happened while working shoulder to shoulder, riding with a friend in a car, enjoying a common meal, or sitting around a living room in a group. And, sure, it’s even happened while listening to someone explain scripture. In most of those cases, however, the teacher didn’t realize that he or she was teaching.
The Bible writer James said to be doers of God’s Word, and not only hearers. OK, so hearing isn’t all bad, and I’m sure I’ll keep at it, although – honestly – I think I’ve heard almost enough. Please… somebody show me the doing. And God help me to be a doer myself.
Jesus entered the human race in the weakest way possible – as a baby, completely dependent on others. Similarly, He enters my life at the place of weakness and dependence.
The Son of God is the most real when my strength is the least visible. It is at the point of temptation that I am powerless to overcome, in loneliness that consumes me, in doubts and fears that won’t go away. To ignore those realities or try to conquer them alone is to miss Jesus. When I admit my frailty, I find Him.
Henri Nouwen said, “Where you are most human, most yourself, weakest, there Jesus lives.”
Paul the apostle said, “For when I am weak, then I am made strong.”
An angel speaking to some shepherds said, “And you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”
I’m still finding that weak baby today, mostly at times when I admit that I am weak myself. His presence fills the gap, gives me hope, and provides a reason to go on.
Merry Christmas.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been looking for a hero. As a child, that meant beings who appeared ordinary enough, but could fly, see through walls, bend steel in their bare hands, etc. In adulthood, my hero quest centered on those who had character traits I admired, or had achieved a certain level of success.
I think all of us are born with an inner need to connect with something or someone bigger than ourselves. We find a person who can do one thing really well – like sing, act, write, run a company, throw or hit a ball – and we think “Maybe that person is better than the rest of us in other ways as well.” We desperately want that to be the case, so we convince ourselves it is, creating near idols in the process.
In time, however, the truth inevitably comes out… the one I’ve made my hero is revealed for what he really is. Sadly, this often happens via a moral failing or other serious situation, in a very public forum, since these people are typically famous. The cynics cry out condemnations and judgments. The reasonable, and sometimes the de-throned heroes themselves, simply say “He (or she) was merely human after all.”
Those who believe the Bible know that only one not-human person ever walked the Earth. (Yet He was somehow fully human at the same time.) He lived a life completely consistent with His values: loving God and His neighbors, all the way to a horrible and unfair death. A true hero.
When humans who I and others have placed on pedestals fall from those positions, I’m not shocked, angry, or disappointed. I don’t declare how unintelligent they were, or think that I would have done better. It simply confirms that I finally found the only hero worth following… a divine one at that.
Over the past week or so I’ve been thinking about everything I’m thankful for. Shame on me.
The list starts off noble enough: Family, friends, health. But from there it goes downhill to things like food that does more than provide sustenance, shelter that doesn’t just keep the rain off my head, my car (make that plural), etc.
There was a woman in the Bible who gave everything she had. It wasn’t much, because she didn’t have much. But Jesus said that in reality, it was more than anyone else had given, because of what it meant to her. I can learn something about thankfulness from that woman, and from a few others I know who are sacrificially generous.
These people seem to know a secret. They are more thankful for what they are able to give than for what they have been able to get. That’s the path I want to travel.
During one of the seasons of my Christian life, I attended a church where people referred to each other as “Brother” and “Sister.” There was “Brother Thompson,” “Sister Jenkins,” “Brother and Sister Johnson,” – you get the idea.
One day I was with a friend at a department store, and we ran into Brother Wallace from church. As I began to make the introduction, I said “This is my friend, Mark, and this is…….” At that moment, I realized that I didn’t know Brother Wallace’s first name.
I also realized right then what a sham the whole thing was. Although we were supposedly brothers and sisters, we didn’t even know each other’s names, much less our struggles, concerns, joys, shortcomings, and the like.
How thankful I am that today there are a handful of fellow journeyers around me. We share our lives with one another. Better yet, we serve a God who desires to be known and to know us intimately. To make a point, He said that He even counts the number of hairs on our heads.
If you and I should ever meet, let’s be sure and learn each other’s first names. Then let’s go on to deeper things. Perhaps one day, you’ll be able to say “I love him like a brother.” And vice versa.
The word “grace” can be described as a situation that arises when a person receives something extra good that he or she does not deserve. It may even seem a bit unfair, such as if someone worked only two hours and got paid for eight. But those on the receiving end of grace never seem to complain… especially when they realize how badly it’s needed.
Biblically, we’re told that God gives grace to his human creation in the form of His love, forgiveness, direction, etc. We’re not worthy of it, but we get it anyway. How is it, then, that a God who claims to be just overlooks people’s shortcomings?
The answer is found in the Bible itself. John tells us that we not only receive grace, we receive “grace upon grace.” Because we don’t deserve grace, God gives us the grace to receive grace. Of course we don’t deserve that either, so He gives us the grace to receive the grace to receive the grace. You get the idea.
Thank God that He has chosen to give me what I don’t deserve, so the grace I certainly don’t deserve can be mine as well.
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