Prayer and Plows

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. -- Psalms 34:18

The Lord, I want to say, is near to us all.  I look at a statement like this and think about how we are drawn to comfort a friend or family member who is physically ill, going through trials, or suffering in some other way.  Jesus called the One whom the Father would send the Paracletos -- our Comforter or our Helper (John 14:16).  Our God does comfort and sustain the afflicted. 

Yesterday, I talked about being broken through prayer that we might bring the Light of Christ into the world’s darkness.  I can’t say that brokenness must always precede blessings, but it certainly seems that way sometimes.  As long as I can handle things, God steps back and allows me to find my limits.  “God helps those who help themselves” is not a direct quote from the Bible though a similar concept may be found.  We can do what we know to do.  Pray for the Lord to bless your garden with rain and sun in season, but you are still going to need to plant the seeds and pull the weeds.

As Christians, we should cultivate brokenness:  For thus says the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.  Circumcise yourselves to the LORD; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem … (Jeremiah 4:3-4).  This is the opposite of resignation, lethargy, sloth, or apathy.  We are, if anything, hypersensitive about our own disobedience and stumblings, quick to admit our faults and careful to turn from anything that might grieve the Spirit.  Prayer is the plowshare for heart soil.

While it is essential that I remove the beam from my own eye first, when I can see clearly, with the humility that comes with the knowledge of my own imperfections, I also must be grieved by the sin around me in the world.  Revival ought to begin in my own heart, but it ought not end there.  Salvation is good news.  Christ is hope and deliverance, healing and wholeness, light and life and joy and peace.  Like the bread He multiplied when He broke it, He will always be more than enough to meet the need.

Keys

And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.  -- Jeremiah 18:4

I suppose I have always read this as saying, more or less, “God is in control.”  And He is.  He’s the potter; we’re the clay.  He can do with us as He pleases.  Nevertheless, He allows us to decide how it is going to be:

If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.  And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. (Jeremiah 18:7-10)

This is repeated by other prophets, notably Ezekiel, but the thing here is that it occurs within a passage that has a flavor of predestination. 

Over the weekend, I was praying Psalm 32.  In verses 8 and 9, the Lord responds to David saying, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.  Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you. “

Yes, the Lord can beat a person like a rented mule to get their attention.  He can make our lives so miserable that we may feel that we have no choice except to obey.  He’d prefer not to.  He invites us to be close to Him.  He has made every provision possible for us to abide with Him, and He with us.  He knocks, and all we have to do is ask Him in.  The one thing that will prevent that is our own stubbornness. 

Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, knew what was coming to his people.  He pleaded over and over for them to hear and to repent.  They remained defiant.  They resisted the calling of the Lord to change, to repent, and to receive forgiveness.     

“Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ‘Thus says the Lord, behold, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds.’   But they say, ‘That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’” (Jeremiah 18:11-12)

We want to exalt the sovereignty of God.  We want to glory in His omnipotence and rejoice in the fact that He rules and reigns over all things, that He has a hand in even the most mundane aspects of our lives.  I understand the motivation and the thinking of those who minimize man and maximize God.  Man is nothing compared to God.  But the Lord makes us something.  That, too, is His glory, that He willingly and in love hands to men the keys of the kingdom.  He says, “What you bind on earth is bound in heaven, and what you loose on earth is loosed in heaven.”  (Matthew 16:19)  Here are the keys of history.  Here are the keys to the potent force on earth.  Here are the keys to life, and to death.  Take care how you choose. 

The Price of an Ass's Head

And while he was still speaking with them, the messenger came down to him and said, This trouble is from the LORD! Why should I wait for the LORD any longer? – 2 Kings 6:33

I have a translation that gives that question as “why should I trust the Lord”, and to wait upon the Lord is to depend upon Him.  We don’t “wait” upon the Lord unless we have faith and trust that He will intervene on our behalf, that somehow He will resolve the situation in accordance with His divine and perfect will. 

In this case, the city of Samaria was under a prolonged siege that resulted in great suffering for those within the walls. And there was a great famine in Samaria, as they besieged it, until a donkey's head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove's dung for five shekels of silver (2 Kings 6:25).   Bird poop soup.  I'd say the donkey head was a deal.  People resorted to cannibalism (vv 26-29), which is one of the curses that God pronounced for disobedience and apostasy.  Israel was guilty of spiritual adultery, and they were reaping what they had sown. 

We know, as I was saying a couple of days ago, when we are off course.  It bothers us.  We feel guilty and alienated from God.  If, while we are in this state of mind, something bad happens to us, our inclination is to believe that we are being punished for our moral failure.  While it is very true that sin is the seed of destruction, it's not that God is sitting on His throne just waiting for us to slip up so He can teach us a lesson we won't forget.  Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? (Ezekiel 18:23) -- though He does, perhaps, find humor in our grandiosity, vanity, and arrogance sometimes (Psalm 2:4).  

 

One thing we should note is that Elisha and his followers were also within the walls of Samaria.  It is important to examine ourselves, but we are not always at fault.  Sometimes we are simply caught up in the larger scheme of things.  From that point of view, we are not suffering for our own sins but as inhabitants of a fallen world or an apostate nation.  When a nation begins to reap what it has sown, more than ever, Christians in that country must be salt and light.   Whether we live or die, whether we are afflicted, persecuted or struck down, we must continue to trust completely in the Lord and in His goodness while offering hope to those around us, encouraging them to turn to the Savior.

A second point is that those who wish to continue in their pursuit of wickedness are apt lay blame upon the righteous.  King Jehoram, faced with the desperation of his people, swears that the prophet Elisha will be put to death.  His thinking seems to be that Elisha has it in for him and Israel.  Elisha and the Jehovah crowd were clearly intolerant of the Samaritan lifestyle.  Telling people the truth can be dangerous.  Having our illusions and delusions stripped away can make us angry and cause us to denounce those who bring the message when it ought to cause us to abandon our comfortable lies and repent.

When we find ourselves in difficulty and recognize, even subconsciously, that the fault lies in ourselves and not the stars, we may assume that God has abandoned us.  After all, we have, by our own decisions and actions, turned from Him, from His law and His truth.  Why should we then expect Him to help us?  Yet God is compassionate and forgiving.  He waits for us even when we are unwilling to wait for Him.  He is merciful and ready, always, to welcome us back if we will lay aside our pride with its self-consciousness and shame and humble ourselves in seeking Him.  He will not be hard to find.  The Cross makes our reconciliation possible, and its redemptive worth knows no bounds. 

Good Grief

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. -- 2 Corinthians 7:10

I suppose this is obvious to most people, but I was always puzzled by it.  What’s wrong with “worldly grief”?  Partly because I have had such a blessed existence compared to other people – not because I am better but because I would probably shatter like a wine glass under real pressure – I associate grief with death.  The only thing that ever really grieved me was when someone died or when we lost a pet. 

It finally dawned on me over the years that grief is not exclusively grieving over a lost loved one.  We may call it by other names like sorrow and heartache or broken-heartedness.  We feel bad when we are rejected, when we fail, when a relationship falls apart, or an opportunity is lost.  That’s understandable.  Sometimes, though, it can devolve into self-pity and other destructive ways of thinking.  Worldly grief can become focused on self-justification and self-validation.  It can become hopelessness and depression as the boil of anger and hurt declines to a slow, relentless simmer.

Rather than being an inducement to change, worldly grief can easily become an excuse to continue on a path of caustic self-indulgence, making up for what we feel we have lost.  Conversely, we may decide to punish ourselves (consciously or not) for our perceived failings – not by embracing positive and healthy discipline, but by increasingly bad choices leading to diminished self-worth in a deadly downward spiral.  Sometimes we destroy our physical health on this path.  I often wonder how much sickness and disease can be traced back to an open, festering wound of grief. 

When I get caught in the undertow of sorrow, I am not willing to see the situation from any perspective other than that of my personal pain and longing.  I cannot accept that my loss and hurt might be a result of God’s greater plan.  Nor am I willing to offer it to Him and allow Him to redeem my pain and turn it into a blessing. 

In stark contrast, godly grief is anguish that leads us to changing our minds.  We are able to accept and acknowledge our part in what has gone wrong.  Rather than closing ourselves off, we open up to the Lord, asking forgiveness as needed and making restitution where appropriate and possible.  We can assent to the will of God, bow to His infinitely greater wisdom, and receive hope.  Holy Spirit-inspired sorrow leads to transformation.  It may not happen overnight, but it is happening.  Experienced from the divine perspective, grief can illuminate the knots and kinks in our thinking that interrupt our connection to the mind of Christ. 

The Parable of the Mudhole

Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me. -- Micah 7:8

For various reasons, most of which probably should not be discussed in detail, darkness falls on me from time to time.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing (Romans 7:19).  If I have learned anything, it is that when I can’t see where I am going, the best thing to do is stop and wait for the light.  It’s a good thought, but what if the light does not come?  Wait for it. 

I have screwed up just about everything it is possible to screw up, but the worst screw ups all too often result from trying to fix a screw up.  Let’s say that you are trying to put something together, and you drop some essential fastener down a duct.  Not that that would ever happen in real life.  You’re a little peeved as you pull the grate, but the fastener is right there hanging.  Then it falls down into the duct, but it’s still in sight, not yet around the bend.  You reach for it and almost have it, but it slips and rolls away over the event horizon.  You wonder why they didn’t put the ductwork in the attic.  An hour later, the fastener has been joined in the black hole under your floor by a magnet that came loose from the string and some vacuum cleaner attachments.   Meanwhile the original projects remains in disarray, all but forgotten in the angst and frustration.

We had to plow up a ten-acre section of our biggest hay field.  Dad did the plowing one evening while I milked.  The next morning was too good a hunting day to pass up, so he loaded his hounds and told me to hook up the disk and get the field ready to sow.  I might have been thirteen at the time, old enough to be trusted with some things.  The disk was an old heavy drag type.  It may have originally been horse-drawn.  It certainly wasn’t designed for three-point equipment.  We hooked it to a drawbar.  If I remember right, there was a lever that raised the plates a little for transport. 

I got over to the field and started around.  This field has a natural pond in it, and several places near the pond, it is seepy.  I didn’t really think it through too well and just assumed that I was supposed to disk what was plowed.  Right next to the pond, I hit a spot that had no bottom and stuck it. 

OK, I could go do something else and leave the tractor and disk buried.  I knew that would make Dad mad because it would have made me mad:  nothing accomplished and more work to do.  I got off the tractor, walked away and sat down on the broken ground.  The tractor wasn’t buried or high-centered.  It looked like it would come out.  If I could have raised the disk, the whole she-bang looked like it would come out, but I couldn’t do that.  I got down in the mud and disconnected then drove the tractor onto solid ground.  It was a matter of feet.  Then, instead of giving up and going to the house, I walked away and sat down again to think. 

I don’t remember – this was most of a half century ago – if the log chain was on something nearby or if I saw it in a vision.  Anyway, I got the chain, put one end around the hitch on the disk and the other around the drawbar on the tractor.  To my utter amazement, the disk came right out, nothing busted, nothing hurt.  A couple of short ruts and a wallowed spot were the only remaining indications of my struggle.  I kept the chain with me the rest of the day but had no more need for it.

I’ll bet I sat on that tractor ten minutes cussing myself and my stupidity.  I could have sat there all day and never figured a way out.  It was walking away and getting a different perspective that allowed me to see the solution. 

It was my fault that I got stuck there.  When I experience a moral or spiritual failure and fall that, too, is my own fault.   There’s no point in blaming anyone else, but there’s also no point in wasting too much time blaming myself.  If I can somehow rectify the situation, I need to find a way to do that.  Repentance is changing the way we think about something.  We could depict it as getting off the tractor and looking at the place in which we have been mired from a different angle, from the solid ground of God’s viewpoint. 

We can’t pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and we can’t get out of a pit by digging the hole deeper.  We have to find an anchor that will hold.  We have to have a purchase on the Rock of reality if we are going to pull our lives out of the muck and the mire. 

Sometimes when we are sitting in the dark, God will shine his light on the key we would never have seen in the broad glare of day.