God Knows What He Is Doing

At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children;  yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. – Matthew 11:25-26

The ESV translation does an odd thing in verse 26.  A much more literal reading comes from the KJV:  Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight, or, even more literally, “well-pleasing in Your sight.”  It looks good to God.  Bewildering those who think they know it all and pulling back the veil for those who are relatively simple and child-like makes the Lord happy.  Of course, it is His will, and, while I would be hesitant to presume that there are things which are the will of God that are not also pleasing to Him, some might be more pleasing than others.  God is not a machine.  He loves; He has compassion.  Jesus wept over Jerusalem.  Even more, the Lord of heaven and earth wept by the grave of a friend. 

In any case, Jesus is saying, in this context, that the truth of the revelation of Christ has been concealed from the wise.  Those who sought to understand the Scriptures, the religious leaders were, on the whole, rejecting Jesus.  Conversely, He and His message were being welcomed, accepted and followed by the common people – those regarded as foolish and unworthy by the elite and the learned. 

Jesus might be seen as acknowledging some surprise at the way things are going, but He also acknowledges His own pleasure in it, as well as it being in line with the Father’s will. 

Like Jesus, we often find ourselves in situations that might be, at least on the surface, contrary, at odds with our hopes and expectations.  If the Son of God, Second Person of the Trinity, God Incarnate could say, in effect, “Well, even so.  If You want it that way, that’s the way it will be,” we ought to be able to do the same. 

That does not mean that we are mere spectators.  We are often placed in situations not just to watch what goes on, but, as God’s agents, to bring about a change and make a difference in the lives of other people.  We are all, as believers, ordained to the various ministries of encouragement, healing, serving, and imparting hope, joy and peace. 

Those who want to change the world are just changing the sets on a stage.  The world and all that is in the world is passing away.  Why waste time on something that is time-bound and bound to change anyway?  Souls are forever.  Our calling is to individuals, to our families, our friends, our communion, our neighbors.  

Like the man who asked Jesus for a definition of neighbor, we aren’t always sure how far we ought to stretch.  According to the story of the Good Samaritan, our neighbor is the person we can help.  It depends, sometimes, on our gifts, our resources, even our location.  I can’t help everybody, but I can help somebody.  And the one I can help, I am called to help.   

Quote the Raven

When the cloud remained over the tabernacle a long time, the Israelites obeyed the LORD's order and did not set out. — Numbers 9:19

Early in my alleged adult life, we moved a lot. In those days I could load the big stuff in the back of a full-size pickup. For the small, breakable things that needed protection, I would borrow my sister's 1970-ish Bonneville, the trunk of which would hold an entire Geo Metro, if broken down, and they usually were. As I got older and tended to stay in one place for more than two months, I began to accumulate belongings. I remember the first time I had to rent a truck to move our possessions. I've rented several since then, each one getting a little bigger. More than once I've had a car full of junk on a trailer behind the truck.

During their wanderings in the wilderness, the Israelites never had this problem. They were nomads — like the Indians of the Great Plains or the Bedouins Lawrence led against the Germans and Ottoman Turks. As far as the Tabernacle went, each of the major family lines in the tribe of Levi had specific tasks and assignments for which they were responsible when the Tent of Meeting had to be moved. Sometimes, the cloud remained in one spot for a long time; sometimes, they were in a place only overnight. It didn't matter. The idea was to follow the cloud.

There are probably some of us who have difficulty when things move too fast. Some of the Israelites likely complained, "I was just starting to like this place." There are folks who thrive on routine, who like to cut a groove and wear it smooth. I'm like that about some things. Don't mess with my coffee pot. I get up at more or less the same time every morning wherever I am, whatever is going on, regardless of how late I was up the night before, weekend, weekday, it doesn't matter. I am a regular guy.

Others of us like to think we are going somewhere, exploring strange, new worlds, living on the cutting edge, always moving forward. Among the tribes of Israel, there were probably many who got a little weary of waiting for a move after a week or two weeks or six months. Certain churches and ministers are always talking about a fresh anointing, fresh fire, a new move of God. I sympathize with those folks, too. I get bored easily with routine work. I like to learn new things, acquire new skills, face fresh challenges. I don't mind revisiting something I've mastered, but I like to push it a little.

The routine has its dangers. When the cloud stays in one place too long, there is a risk that we might forget about the cloud altogether. We get so used to seeing it hanging over the same old spot all the time that we don't really see it at all. If it moves on, will we notice?

Many years ago a pastor friend of ours told us that we had a "raven ministry" — it was an explanation we needed. When Elijah had prophesied against Ahab and the apostasy of Israel, he called for an extended drought on the land (1 Kings 17). Then he retreated to the Wadi Cherith through which flowed a little brook. The prophet drank from the brook, and, twice a day, ravens would fly in carrying bread and meat they had picked up somewhere. Notice these were ravens, not angels. The common raven is a large, black bird known to be good at problem-solving, omnivorous and opportunistic in feeding, and liable to become a pest. Except for the black part, that's me. Ravens are not clean birds, that is, Jews should not eat ravens, which are also known to feed on carrion when they get the chance. Chickens that pick grain out of cow manure are fine, but not ravens.

Anyway, that's what we did, as the Spirit of God led us, we moved from place to place and brought spiritual food to God's people, especially to His weary and fainting prophets. It was a pretty cool thing to walk into a church and have the pastor almost run up to us and say, "I see you are in the ministry." Of course, the downside was that, usually, we were just there to help them move on down the road. The little wet-weather stream in Elijah's Wadi is going to dry up, and he is going to have to get up and go. The ravens go back to minding their own business and looking for roadkill. The pastor might be glad to see us, but, ultimately, we were a sort of "bad sign".

I'm not saying it wasn't tough to make friends, to share meals with people, to learn to love them then, one day, experience a painful break and realize our work was done in that place. Four or five times this happened in the course of about eight years. Recently I ran into a couple we had met during our time as ravens. They barely remembered us. My wife talked too much — she never could quite let go of a place or of the people. It was almost as if they had been hit with the Men In Black machine that wipes away memory. As she reminded them of this or that, I could see they were fighting against it, as if it were forbidden. She gave them our phone number, and, at Christmas, she insisted we send them a card. We'll never hear from them again.

So there are advantages and disadvantages to being a raven, but the one thing about it was that I was always paying attention to the cloud. The brook has dried up. I glance over my shoulder. The cloud is moving. This is our last delivery.

I'm glad I don't have to do the raven thing any more. You're not allowed to not love them. That's the bread and meat. If you don't love them, there's no point in showing up. You leave a little piece of your heart in four or five church foyers — come to think about it, it was closer to seven. A shattered, scattered heart. Fifteen or sixteen years after, we happened to fly by one of those Wadi Cherith's where the prophet had been and where the cloud had touched down. It was a little while before the evening service started, and we didn't have time to stay, but we walked into the big front door. In a case on the wall there were names we knew and pictures we recognized. I asked about one and was told he was gone to his reward. I asked about another and received an uncomprehending shake of the head. As I looked around I couldn't hide the tears, like rain in the dry season. The auditorium would soon be filled. The stream runs strong. But an old raven is just a pest in this place now.

And I have a cloud to catch.

Following Jesus for Fun and Profit

When you eat and are full, and build beautiful houses to live in, and your herds and flocks grow large, and your silver and gold multiply, and everything else you have increases, be careful that your heart doesn't become proud and you forget the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery. -- Deuteronomy 8:12-14

When I was a kid, we sang hymns in church and little choruses in Sunday School and Vacation Bible School. Even hour or so on KWTO, someone would sing a "sacred song" in between the ordinary run of hillbilly music. When KWTO was still broadcasting live music radio shows, the performers would often close with a gospel song. On television, the "Ozark Jubilee" always included the performance of a gospel number, usually by Red Foley. Tennessee Ernie Ford typically sang a sacred song on his show. Porter Wagoner always did one.

As far as preaching and teaching in mass media, there was, of course, the broadcast of Billy Graham crusades. Many local pastors had brief spots on the secular radio station. Philip Wannemaker, the long-time pastor of Central Assembly — the "mother church" of the Assemblies of God, did a five-minute devotional every weekday morning during a local break in the "Today Show". I had the privilege of talking to Brother Wannemaker on the phone once when I lived in Texas about an entirely different matter, and I mentioned that I well-remembered those carefully crafted sermon miniatures. They were just enough to nudge one into thinking a little about God to start the day.

Now things are very different. There are Christian television and radio networks that blanket many regions of the country, especially in the Bible Belt. On the FM band of my Sangean ATS 818, I can pick up, I think, eight all-Christian stations between 88 and 92. I can pick up two or three daytime AM stations, probably some more at night. I don't prowl shortwave as much as I did before the internet, but there used to several Christian/patriot broadcasts out there as well. Now that I'm off satellite, I can only pick up the Daystar network on television, but that still gives me access to Christian programming 24 hours a day. Satellite and cable customers can be swamped by the Gospel.

With so much teaching, preaching, and singing being pumped through the airwaves, not to mention the webs, why aren't Christians stronger and more resistant to corruption by the culture? The divorce rate among Christians is as higher or higher than among non-Christians. Pastors and Christian leaders continue to fall to scandals. We lack power, and we lack peace.

I would suggest that perhaps it is the very glut of teaching that causes part of our problem. See, Christian broadcasting, like everything else, has to be funded. Most Christian radio stations run programs from various ministries. Those ministries pay for the stations' airtime. The ministries are, in turn, funded by donations, love-offerings, or the sale of ministry products such as books and CD's. Now these ministries are not like me. I try not to pay attention to the number of hits I get for a particular topic. I generate the same revenue for 1 hit as for 20 or 30. When I check things it is just for curiosity's sake. My post ranting against all things Janis Ian, and a post on a Hayek quote called "Why the Worst Get on Top" probably generate the most new traffic. I could, possibly, get more attention on the internet if I did more talking about popular culture figures I don't like and posted more quotes from The Road to Serfdom. But I can afford not to do that. Ministries that depend on donations cannot be so cavalier. They have to pay attention to topics that generate offerings and orders. They may not hit those topics all the time, but they will certainly keep them in the rotation. And there is nothing wrong with that, except — except that all too often those are not the kinds of things that really move the listeners closer to God.

My guess is that practical topics — how to raise better kids, have a better marriage, have more money, more peace, more answered prayers, etc. — are more popular than deep theological discussions. That's a fairly educated guess because we usually have a Christian radio program on while we're eating, and we often watch whatever is on Daystar in the evenings before going to sleep. Even when the teacher is dealing with weighter topics like atonement or Christ's indwelling, we are usually told how this makes our lives better. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

At least, not at first. After a while, though, if all we hear is how God is interested in making our lives better and better, we might start thinking that Christianity is really all about us. So we look for a church that has lots to offer us and the kids. We complain if we don't get anything out of the "praise and worship".

Somehow, somewhere, we have missed the point that the worship service isn't for us. This is less, much less, of a problem in Catholic and Orthodox churches, I'm sure, although I have heard some of my Catholic friends express sentiments that sound as if they might not get it all the time either. Still, evangelical Christians are the worst offenders in this regard. We give, often very generously, because we are told that we will be repaid. We are much more rarely told that giving is not to enrich us or even to build a shiny new multipurpose family activity ministry center, but primarily to acknowledge our dependent relationship with our Father.

Paradoxically, I think evangelicals probably start out better than any other tradition. The reason for that is that we preach salvation by grace, and, mostly, the helpless sinfulness of man apart from Christ and the Cross. Because we cannot save ourselves, our deliverance depends entirely upon a relationship with Christ. It is this relational understanding of salvation that underpins the initial joy many experience in forgiveness and reconciliation with God. Unfortunately, shortly after that, all this "teaching" kicks in, and we start looking to God, not in a relational way, but in a manipulative way. We begin to hear how thanksgiving pleases God, so we give thanks. We hear how God inhabits the praises of His people, so we praise. What begins as seeking after God too frequently leads us to seek for something through God, and it is our popular, practical teaching that contributes to this.

I can't tell you the number of "Seven Steps to Answered Prayer"-type formulas I've heard — more than seven, for sure. New Christians, in particular, eat this stuff up, but it's like trying to live on Oreos. Sure, people like it, and it will draw a crowd, and everyone will be excited afterward. But when a couple of hours have passed, and you have to push the truck out of the ditch, the sugar buzz has left you flat. Cornbread and beans may not be as exciting part of the time, but you're still going at the end of the row.

Of course, there are individuals in all traditions, including evangelicals who grasp that Christianity is supposed to be relational. Prayer is meant to be a vehicle whereby we get God, not get from God. God welcomes our petitions and intercession, but only when we have our relationship with Him at the core of our lives.

Perhaps our Father intends for us to work through things this way. It's not altogether unlike the normal pattern between a child and parent. At first, we are thrilled just to have Daddy around. He romps and plays and makes us smile. We are filled with joy when he walks in the door and rush into his arms to tell him all about whatever has happened. As we grow older, sometimes we lose a little of that joy in just being around him. He becomes the one who disciplines us. He is the one we go to for ice cream money or new shoes or car keys. Now we may still appreciate him, but we appreciate him for what he does for us.

But still later many of us come back, and we are happy to just be in the same room with him. We are content to hear his voice, to listen as he talks — not because he tells us something new and exciting, but because it's his voice. And so it is with some of us whom God has blessed.

We've been out there enjoying life and doing whatever it is that we should or shouldn't be doing. We're getting by OK, but there's a nagging feeling that something might be missing. We find a quiet spot and just start talking. Then we pause and listen. Just because it's His voice.

Second Story Man

When He entered Capernaum again after some days, it was reported that He was at home. So many people gathered together that there was no more room, not even in the doorway, and He was speaking the message to them. Then they came to Him bringing a paralytic, carried by four men. Since they were not able to bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above where He was. And when they had broken through, they lowered the stretcher on which the paralytic was lying.

Seeing their faith, Jesus told the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” -- Mark 2:1-5

This became a favorite passage for me one Sunday night down in a little town south of Fort Worth. We had shown up at church along with the rest of the very small congregation back in those pre-cellphone or at least pre-ubiquitous-cellphone days. The word came just as the service was to begin that the pastor and his family had an emergency requiring immediate attention. In a larger church that would have been no problem. In our little group, the pastor, his wife, and daughter were the entirety of the staff as well as the musicians and choir. We had no actual deacons or associate pastors. My only status was that of FOTP (friend of the pastor). We weren’t even technically members of that church. Still, rather than send everyone home or to one of the other local churches, my wife suggested I grab a music stand (as opposed to the pulpit) and start talking. We had one older lady with a beautiful and loud singing voice, and I asked her if she could lead us in a couple of a cappella songs. While she did that, I opened my Bible, which just happened to open to Mark 2.

For someone forced to speak extemporaneously and with no preparation time, the great thing about this story is its visual character. We can see those four friends hauling their buddy down the street, coming up against the loose fringe of the human mass, pushing forward a little then realizing that advance is hopeless. We can imagine them retreating and regrouping. One says we might as well give this up. Maybe we can catch Jesus tomorrow. Another is reluctant saying that their paralyzed friend was suffering and needs help today. And besides I have to shear sheep tomorrow. Three of them are arguing about the obstacles and the impossibility of the situation. But one guy is standing there just staring at the roof. Finally, when the thought is fully formed, he voices his suggestion. The other three are a little skeptical at first, but, as they ponder it, they begin to smile. It just might work.

A desperately unprepared person can use this quality of the narrative to draw in the listeners while creating both time and verbal space to pick up a salient point for teaching or inspiring, and this little passage is loaded with them: unity of purpose and the power of teamwork, persistence in the face of difficulty, the reality that sometimes none of us can make it alone, where there is a will there is a way, or the fact that Jesus won’t reject you just because you don’t come in the front door – just to mention the obvious.

The one that always jumps out at me first is that the four men carrying that stretcher must have loved their helpless, paralyzed brother and believed beyond all reason that Jesus was capable of restoring him. It says that Jesus saw their faith, but He also saw their love, their willingness to try anything to get to the Lord – not for their own benefit, but for the sake of someone else. The paralyzed man may not have been a particularly good person. We don’t know. He may have been just like us. After all, Jesus had to tell him his sins were forgiven before he could be healed. We don’t know if the four stretcher-bearers were part of the man’s family, some friends, or maybe they were just people who had gotten caught up in the moment, saw a crippled guy and wondered if Jesus could heal that one. The Spirit can work with most anything, and it was the Holy Spirit who grabbed those men and set them off.

I see, too, that Jesus didn’t have to ask them, as He often did with others, if they believed. He could see their faith – as James says, “I’ll show you my faith by my works.” These guys were the epitome of that statement. They didn’t hang back and say, “Well, let’s just pray and believe that old Sam here will be delivered and healed.” They pushed and pulled and sweated and maybe even cussed a little. I’m guessing these weren’t structures with high ceilings. Nevertheless, getting the deadweight of a person on cot onto a roof then down through a roof is work, not to mention tearing away the shingles or thatch or whatever it was they had to get through. Sometimes faith is manifested in simple acceptance of the word -- like the centurion in Luke chapter 7, but sometimes it must be evidenced by a depleted bank account when we give until it hurts or seen in broken blisters or felt in aching muscles when we press on through the pain.

The man on the cot is all of us. His paralysis is a picture of the human will in bondage. We are powerless to do anything for ourselves. Sometimes we know too well the path we took to this place. For others it appears they were simply born in their helpless states. No matter how we happened to get here, the only hope we have for freedom from our condition is Jesus. But what can we do? The New Testament gives us various illustrations. In some cases, seemingly out of the blue, like the man at the Pool of Bethesda in John 5, Jesus comes to us and asks us if we want to be healed. Other times, like Jairus’ daughter or Lazarus, someone may carry the word of our need to Jesus and implore Him to visit us. Or, someone may pick us up and carry us to Him.


That last method is work always because it involves close and sustained contact between the bearer and the borne. These that we carry are the impotent among are friends, family, and the people with whom we work. We have to live our lives consistently and persistently if we are going to get them past the many obstacles, past the hypocritical and hypercritical crowds. When our way is blocked, we can’t make it a one-man operation. We may need help. We may need to step back and think about a new approach, and we cannot be overly sensitive about offending anyone or anything that gets in the way.