Interference

For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear. -- Ecclesiastes 5:7

It has been a busy week despite the fact that I took a couple of days of vacation following the Monday holiday, or maybe that’s the reason it has seemed busy.  I have covered quite a bit of ground, without accomplishing much in a tangible way.  Yet, I think that what I did had value.  I spent time with people that I love and did what I could to make them happy and to draw out their laughter. 

“God is the one” – yes, we must fear Him as we fear a loving father, fear that our attention will wander, that we will be distracted by the baubles and din of Vanity Fair and lose track of Him, not be able to hear His voice above or through the stridency of the world’s shouting and pot-beating.  He is the One. 

Here in this valley town, the circus has arrived, and we all go out to see the sights.  They fascinate and transfix, glow and fade and swirl.  Over here and over there are urgent calls, what we might miss if we don’t run, hither and yon. 

The waterfall is inspiring and delightful to behold.  Not much lives in the falls, and those who pass through risk destruction.  It serves its purpose, for winnowing, breaking, and even death have their times.  The river is one, and there is life where the waters run deep and still. 

Busy Business

I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. -- Ecclesiastes 3:10

Solomon and I have one thing in common, we have seen the business wherein we are busy.  In my case, it looks to continue right on through, unabated by the weekend, though I do anticipate a little respite after that. 

Excessive idleness can be as wearying as excessive busyness.  We truly rest when we can rest in our labors.  Some people conclude that God has given us the business and are bitter and resentful.  I've done that myself, but if I can see, instead, that all this is God's business and that what He has given me to do -- as overwhelming as it may seem at times -- is from His hand, I can be at peace.

My body gets tired a lot more quickly than it did even ten years ago.  I just logged yet another birthday.  Still, it's relatively easy to rest from physical weariness.  You may wake stiff and sore the first day or two, but you sleep well -- dead to the world, as we say.

Soul-weariness is the killer.  Mental and psychic exhaustion cannot be cured with sleep -- if the sufferer can sleep.  To receive relief from soul-weariness we need a different kind of rest.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).

Christ Invictus

In Judah God is known; his name is great in Israel. 

His abode has been established in Salem,

his dwelling place in Zion.

There he broke the flashing arrows,

the shield, the sword, and the weapons of war. Selah

-- Psalm 76:1-3

God is known in Judah – in praise, and He abides in Salem – peace. 

You don’t have to read any further.  

 The last few days have been hectic, calls for help from every quarter, everybody needing something right now.  It is my nature to try and please everyone.  One of the things I say most often is, “Don’t worry.  I will take care of it.”  Sometimes I can’t.  It might be because there aren’t enough hours in the day, because I’m not Ironman, or Einstein, or Jesus. 

Jesus, however, is Jesus, and His power exceeds that of any genius or superhero as the oceans exceed a raindrop carried on the breeze.  I can, on occasion, evade my enemies and solve my problems.  The hero can win the battle.  Jesus gives us peace. 

The Cross destroys all of the enemy’s weapons, and renders both the adversity and its allies powerless.  Heroes are conquerors.  We are more than conquerors through Him who loves us.  Not on some distant battlefield resplendent with banners and trumpets, not in the hazy, honeyed realm of heavenly imaginings, but right here, surrounded by challenges and difficulties, amid our pain and hurt, our anger and anguish, our suffering and our fears, we are at peace. 

In the dust and dirt and decay of everyday life, we speak the praises of God and make His presence known to our circumstances.  As we are pressed, we are at peace.  We are in the light, though thick darkness may obscure the path ahead.  As we move forward, the light goes with us.  We are not the Light, but the Light abides in us, and we in Him, and the darkness cannot overcome us.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.  We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;  persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed … (2 Corinthians 4:7-9)

Earth Moving

And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none. -- Ezekiel 22:30

Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, Be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. -- Mark 11:23

I am far from perfection, so it seems.  Yet, there is this:  that I have put my faith in Christ Jesus, identifying with Him in His death.  Whether I understand it or not, whether I can fully accept and appreciate it or not, I have been crucified with Christ.  My problem is that I see so much that I do wrong.  Possibly even more discouraging is what I might do in the future. 

If you have ever dealt with a habit you wanted to break, tried to diet, keep up an exercise regime, or break an addiction, you know what I mean.  It’s the future that ruins it because it is a lot easier to quit tomorrow or do right tomorrow than it is today.  To break out of an addiction, a person has to stop believing in tomorrow.  Yes, I know, Fleetwood Mac.  The truth is tomorrow is always tomorrow.  Today is the day of salvation. 

In order to live the crucified life, I have to live solely in the now.  I have to reject my old nature now, right this minute.  That’s all I have to do.  I don’t have to worry about tomorrow with its future trials and future failures because I can only fail or succeed in this moment.  Christ is in me and in control of my life only in this moment.  I am only going to overcome my bad temper or succumb to it in this moment.  It cannot happen any other time, because there is no other time. 

We talked yesterday about not yet being able to move mountains until we take care of ourselves and get our own hearts right.  We can't wait until tomorrow for that.  We get ourselves in alignment in Christ right now.  Just like eating too much carrot cake and ruining a diet, walking in the truth of who we are in Christ takes place right now.  Once we realize that, it changes everything.  Self-doubt is gone because self is gone.  We are connected to the Father just as Jesus was in the Incarnation.  The branch is connected to the Root through the Vine, but it is no less connected than the Vine.  It’s all one. 

The place I began to understand this was public speaking, of all things.  I was always a very shy person.  I was stricken with panic that someone would notice me.  I would hide when people came to visit our house.  My fear was that someone would notice me and make fun of me.  It wasn’t humility but self-consciousness.  I could not bear to be mocked or ridiculed.  Since I was, throughout grade school and high school, physically intimidating, I could control some of it by inflicting pain on my oppressors.  Some accused me of being a bully.  I guess it was true, but I don’t recall bullying anybody that left me alone.  It may not have taken much to set me off, but I never started anything. 

Being pulled up to the front of the class to race against another student doing arithmetic was no problem because I was facing the blackboard.  If I ever had to turn around and face the class, it was a different matter.  I never got over that.  Any time I had to get up in front of people, and, really, even talking one on one, I couldn’t face people without nearly debilitating panic.  I carefully avoided Speech in both high school and college, going so far as to take French to get the Fine Arts credits I needed.   

Imagine, then, how I felt when my pastor asked me to teach an adult Sunday School class.  He was a wise man.  The first couple of times were as painful for the class as they were for me, but I learned to leave my self somewhere else and stand up in the “role” for that forty-five minutes or an hour.  I ended up filling the role of “teacher” in five or six different churches under different pastors, occasionally speaking on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, or Wednesday night.   Learning to step out of self and into Christ did more for me as a Christian than anything else I can think of.   

One of the things negative thoughts such as fear, dread, despair, shame, guilt, and regret do is show us where self is.  Like pride and lust, greed and envy, they mark the boundaries of self.  When we step away from and out of those negative emotions and desires, we step into Christ. 

I cannot move mountains.  Jesus doesn’t say that I can.  He says,  “… it will be done for him.”  My part is to believe today.  The question of when and how and even if our mountain will be moved is not ours to resolve. 

We see this mountain before us.  I fear for my children and grandchildren.  I am concerned about the direction the nation is going because I love my country (my government, not so much).  A part of me wants to turn back the clock and restore all the values we had when I was growing up.  Turning back time is not possible.  I’m not even sure that is a good idea.   I have a lot in common with my Amish neighbors, but never go full Amish. 

A lot of society is rotting and decaying.  I won’t call it gangrenous because it is already detached from Reality, already dead and withering, for that reason.  People are going to try desperately to save what is not worth saving and cannot be saved. 

We are not going to make that mistake.  We are going to put off self, put on Christ, and stand in faith to make up the breach and stand, like Aaron, between the living and dead.  The mountain is moving.  Don’t be surprised if the ground shakes. 

Pretender

Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. – Psalm 32:2

This is a psalm about the power of confession and the pain of deceit.  It does not say that a person is blessed because he or she is sinless but because the Lord pardons sin.  We are reminded of what Jesus said about the lost sheep, that there is more rejoicing over the one that is found than over the ninety-nine that never strayed.  It only seems unfair until we realize that “we all like sheep have gone astray”. 

I’ve known a few people, as you probably have, who were saintly if not official saints.  To us, such holy people seem to have passed beyond the possibility of any human weakness, yet I’m sure every true saint would tell us that they are often grieved by their own faults, flaws, and failures.  The difference between the saint and the sinner is not in the fallen human nature both cannot help but share. 

A sinner clings to and defends what he thinks, says, and does.  He seeks, often desperately, to justify himself, and, in doing so, deceives himself.  The path to redemption begins with honesty.  “Blessed in the man … in whose spirit there is no deceit.”  The saint abandons pretense before the Lord.  He gives up any thought of self-justification, of defending his position, of making excuses for why he stumbled. 

By hiding behind carefully woven walls of exculpatory fig leaves, we may think we are safe.  As people who have been shot at know, there is a difference between cover and concealment.  Generally, fig leaves are not bulletproof.  The only person I am fooling with my elaborate but vacuous vindications is me.  Certainly, I should not insult God by thinking He does not know the truth.      

Jesus advised to us to agree with our adversary quickly.  My adversary, the devil, the accuser of the brethren, doesn’t have to make up much stuff on me.  The devil is a liar and the father of lies; nevertheless, he can tell the truth about some of us and still do his job.  I do try to make it harder for him anymore, but I don’t argue with him. 

For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.  For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah 

(Psalm 32:3-5)

I've Read Your Book

Put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house. – Micah 7:5-6

Most of us are more familiar with this passage from Matthew chapter 10 as quoted in part by Jesus after He said that He had “not come to bring peace, but a sword” (v. 34).  Those early Christians were often seen as troublemakers and people who upset the right order of things, as described in the book of Acts.  For example, Acts 17:6 says, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also …” -- that is what the truth does.  It puts the world on its head, uprooting and thus restoring the divine order.

It isn’t just the outside world that finds this disturbing.  In dreams the house usually represents the dreamer’s life.  When the Lord is at work in our hearts, we may find ourselves in disarray, at odds with those close to us while at the same time dealing with internal conflicts.  The house is divided against itself, and a choice has to be made.  Are we going to sink back into our normal state of complacency and try to restore peace with all the elements of our old life by either partially or completely rejecting God?  To do so is to die.  As the man said, only the dead have seen the end of war.  It seems a hard way to obtain a false peace.

The alternative is to embrace God’s truth, to allow our world to be stood on its head.  The battle will move out a circle, and we will find our internal turmoil soothed and quiet.  We may be still in the midst of storm and war, but our hearts will be as still as a deep and sheltered pool.

There is one other thing that I have believed for a long time and stated on occasion, though I was never able to give a good reason or a Scripture reference as to why I believed it.  It may be that I picked it up from verse 5 above.  Sometimes we have to be careful of whom we ask prayer.  Not all people have my best interests at heart, but beyond that, not even all of those who love me (few enough in my case as it is) are willing to accept what God wants to do for me.  Many of us are confounded by this.  Pride, envy, and jealousy are powerful.  I’ve known fathers who were troubled by their sons’ successes for fear that it might overshadow their own achievements, forgetting, perhaps, that the sons’ accomplishments redound to the glory of the fathers.  How much more likely that the prayers of other family members or of some friend might be chilled by an envious frost?    

Are there not mothers who fear that God’s will done in a child’s life might loosen her own influence?  Some of those close to us may draw a slightly perverse pleasure from our dependence on them.  I have to watch that tendency in myself with regard to family and friends.  It’s a dangerous thing to play god, though it can be thrilling.  We should beware of polluting our good intentions toward others and likewise of their best intentions toward us being less than perfectly pure.  

We don't even have to mean to do harm.  Suppose a friend of modest means comes to me and asks that I pray with him for a car to replace his broken-down, unreliable vehicle.  I should pray that God will bless him with the perfect car for him -- not the one he wants or the one he'll settle for or the one I think would be good enough for him.  For all I know, the Lord may have a Lexus convertible for him while I'm envisioning a solid, low-mileage Toyota pickup.  Would I feel bad if he got a better rig than I have? 

Sadly, to know my enemies, I may not need to do as Patton did with Rommel and read his book.  I may need look only to my own heart, my own impulses and inclinations.  

There is One we may always fully trust and to whom we may make known our deepest desires without fear.  But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. (Micah 7:7)