Given Into Our Hands

 

“Then the Lord said to him, ‘What is that in your hand?’ ‘A staff,’ he replied.”

—Exodus 4:2

Sam Kressler played the saw. This older gentleman in my home church—a farmer, a man who loved both God and His church—didn’t have any formal musical training. Nevertheless, Sam Kressler had a handsaw and he had a desire to play music to honor the Lord.

Dorothy Anderson, a single woman in a church at which I was once a member as an adult, nurtured fabulous flower gardens. She gave her flowers a great deal of attention. She carefully and lovingly decorated the Communion Table in the church sanctuary with her blooms every week, without fail.

Catherine Winkworth, a Nineteenth Century English woman, had a particular interest in German chorales. As a personal devotional exercise, she began translating German hymns and German chorales into English. By the time she had finished her passionate labor, she had found and translated 400 hymns, including the following well-known hymns, which we cherish in our congregational singing today:

• “If Thou But Suffer God to Guide Thee”
  
  
• “Jesus, Priceless Treasure”
  
  
• “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”
  
  
• “Now Thank We All Our God,”
  
  

The Old Testament Scripture records that Moses only had a staff to offer to the Lord. Oh, but how God used that staff of this famous patriarch! With that staff and with direction of the Lord, Moses brought about the plagues on the Egyptians, parted the Red Sea, brought water from the rock in the wilderness, and defeated the Amalekites.

Similarly, young David had a slingshot and five smooth stones. Yet God used those implements to defeat a giant—Goliath—and his mighty army.

Considering how God has used what He has provided in each of these instances, I am prompted to ask this question:

“What has God put into our hands?”

God has given each one of us something that He wants us to use for His glory. And, God will surely use the gifts He has given us, if He also has our willing hearts. We must never think that anything God has given us is too small, or too insignificant, for Him to use for His glory.

As we give ourselves to God today, let nothing seem out of reach for His mighty use. We will be surprised what He draws on for His purposes.

 

 

A Place of Abundance

 

Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah [meaning: “bitterness”]. And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer.” Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.

—Exodus 15:22-27

The whole tribe of Israel, approximately two million people strong, had left Egypt by the miraculous hand of God. They had seen God defeat their Egyptian captors who had pursued them to the Red Sea, where God parted the waters for the Israelites and drowned their enemies with those same waters.

If you read Exodus 15, you see there the victorious song they sang, led by Moses and Miriam. They had bright hopes and a marvelous future in the Promised Land ahead of them. Yet, in verse 22, the story changes when God shows His people that He intends to test them before giving them this promise.

They finally found water after three days of thirsty travel. But, at Marah they could not drink because of the bitterness. That which should have refreshed them, would only have poisoned them. God directed Moses to find a log of wood he could throw into the water to make it sweet so that they could drink. God “healed” the water.

After they had taken a drink, God shared with them His intention to test them in the wilderness. He also made a pact with them that He would “heal” them of all the diseases of Egypt if they would pay attention and obey His commands. Once He promised them this, they moved on and He brought them to an oasis in Elim of rich, verdant, lavish palm trees and springs of water.

This story reminds me of friends who have lived in the “wilderness” of their lives far longer than they could have ever imagined. The “water” they have had to drink tastes bitter and putrid. This story from Exodus reminds me to pray that God would send “healing” to these bitter waters while He assigns them to dwell in Marah, so that they witness God’s sustaining presence.

Of course, while they may have imagined that Marah was God’s place of blessing for them, they haven’t even begun to imagine that He has an Elim for them down the road. This better destination is described in Exodus 15:27:

Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.

This was not only a place to drink, it was a place to stay for a while. This was a place of God’s provision for His chosen people. This was a place where they would find true respite from the difficulties of life against which they had previously struggled.

When we pray for those who may be traveling in the “wilderness”—even our own selves—we need to pray that God will give sustenance in Marah with His healing of life’s waters, but ultimately that He will lead them and us to Elim, a place that holds the abundance of His blessing—a place where they and we can at last find camping ground!

 

 

Looking Back from Here

 

“Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!”

—Matthew 25:23

Do you remember this advertising slogan: “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby!”? Even if you’re a non-smoker like I am, if you grew up in the 1960’s and 70’s, you will likely remember this catchy slogan for Virginia Slims cigarettes—an all too clever marketing campaign targeted at women. This age of the female gender gaining equality with men, women’s rights, and the sexual revolution brought with it these symbols of what the world regarded as “elegant” or “sophisticated.” Any “modern” woman aspired to look like the cultural images portrayed in such advertising.

This phrase came to mind one summer when I spent an evening with my high school graduating class. Such an event is a rather “normalizing” occasion, in which all present meld again into just “Ann, the girl whose father died when we were in the third grade,” or “Jim, the farm boy with red hair and freckles.” It seems almost impossible to put into dinner conversation a full explanation of how far we’ve come as adults along the road of life since those long-ago days in high school.

As follower of Jesus, we can see how far we’ve come in a much more beneficial way by examining our Christian personal spiritual growth. We look back at commitments we made to Christ as teenagers and the “young love” we experienced toward Him then, as compared to the mature walk of faith we strive for now. Or, we look back to see how drastically different we lived without Christ in our youth to our days of walking with Him faithfully now.

If you journal your faith life, you can benefit from looking back into your old volumes and see how far you’ve come. God wants us to grow. He wants mature servants. He works His grace in us, in all its various forms, and wants us to join Him in working that grace out in our lives.

I am reminded of the “Parable of the Talents” that tells how a wealthy landowner called in his servants and entrusted his property to them in the form of talents. He expected them to invest and grow the trust He had given them. He rewarded those who put the talents to work, and threw the servants out as “worthless” who only buried their talent. This Parable reminds us that at the end of our lives, Jesus wants to speak to us the words from Matthew 25:23:

“Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!”

Sophistication—an elegant look, or a culturally acceptable persona—do not come close by comparison to a life lived in obedience to God. But, if we’ve walked faithfully with Christ, with a smile and with a heart of gratitude, we can still say “You’ve come a long way, Baby!”

 

 

Stagnant Cisterns

 

“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

—Jeremiah 2:13

“Me do it!” We hear this exclamation from the mouths of “Terrible Twos”—those very young children who want to show their independence of others. Unfortunately, the trend continues well into adulthood. We find we would rather do it ourselves than accept God’s provisions for us. The men of Babel revealed this sinful inclination to self-sufficiency when they said in Genesis 11:4:

“Come let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

Sometimes, men and women of sincere faith—like Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration—feel they can “help God” by doing something meaningful for Him. Notice what Peter said in Luke 9:33:

“Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

Why do we offer up these “stagnant waters” from our own “cisterns” and forsake the fresh springs of Living Water that God offers? Not only did God speak to Jeremiah about this kind of sparkling, clean water, but when speaking to the Samaritan woman, Jesus called Himself the “Water of Life.” Jesus said in John 4:13:

“Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Jesus not only wants us to quench our spiritual thirst by receiving the Living Water, He wants that water to flow from our lives to others. When speaking at the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem, Jesus told the crowd in John 7:37-38:

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.

Anything we offer to others, or to God, from our own reservoirs will only leave them running for a mouthwash! When we give the Water of Life—our Lord Jesus Christ—through the power of the Holy Spirit, we arouse their appetites, quench their thirst, and stir to life those who live in the land of death.

Let us forever take a sledgehammer to our old cisterns and fill them with cement. Then daily, let us drink deeply from the Spring of Living Waters, so that we might have something of great value to share with others.

 

 

Our Suitable Portion

 

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

—Psalm 73:26

I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.”

—Lamentations 3:24

I may lose, and lose, and lose: people, place, position, possessions, but not my portion. We tend to take our comfort, our joy, our stability, our sense of well-being, and our balance from these things.

Back in 1967, a study called the Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory identified the top ten stressors they found. The list included:

• death of spouse
  
  
• death of close relative
  
  
• injury or illness
  
  
• being fired from job
  
  
• retirement.
  
  
• marriage
  
  
• separation
  
  
• marriage reconciliation
  
  
• divorce
  
  
• jail
  
  

Personally, I would add: “moving to a new city.” And, from the experience of many Christians, I would add: “strife within the church.”

The human race has never been without stress. Can you imagine how stressed Adam and Eve must have been when God expelled them from the Garden of Eden, their home, into a “big, bad world” they had never known? A world now filled with sin, pain, and death. Stress and loss pretty much sum up the human condition under the rule of sin that permeates every molecule of our existence on this earth.

The Psalm that inspired Martin Luther to write the hymn—“A Mighty Fortress is Our God”—speaks the following from Psalm 46:1-3:

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

Sometimes we feel like the “earth is giving way.” Everything we have relied upon, or that has helped our sense of stability, can be taken from us. Why does God allow this to happen? I would suggest that God uses such losses to drive us to Him alone. He wants to be the sole portion on which we feed, that which gives us nourishment and gives us delight.

In the 17th century, the Puritan author, Thomas Brooks, wrote: ¹

Our God is a suitable portion. No object is as suitable to the heart as he is. He is a portion that is exactly suited to the condition of the soul in its desires, needs, wants, longings and prayers.

Think about how awesome the banquet of God’s love and provision are to us. He who fed the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years on manna can feed us with everything we need. Yes, the manna gave these people a temporary provision while they waited to taste the full bounty of the Promised Land. But, God gave them all that they really needed, as recorded in Exodus 16:12:

You will be filled with bread.

The Apostle Paul writes of contentment in Philippians 4:12b:

I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

From the lessons of these examples, we see our need to learn contentment and to rejoice in the portion God gives us. Whether our portion today is a wafer of manna, or a feast of the finest foods, let us praise God that He is our portion and He is enough.

______________________

1 Thomas Brooks, Works, 11:27-28 as quoted in Voices from the Past, edited by Richard Rushing.

 

 

Hope in Your Tank

 

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

—Romans 15:13

We all need a “fill-up” with hope from time to time. The “Enemy of Despair and Hopelessness” can bring us down and ruin any day, relationship, job, church, or project. Hope keeps us going. Hope fuels our way, even through difficult times.

Joni Eareckson Tada writes: ¹

It’s amazing how far we can go on a little bit of hope. Hope means “I know I can make it!”

We have a God of hope, according to the Scripture verse at the beginning of this blog post. We must trust God to keep us going, to assure us of both His presence and His good plan. In Lamentations 3:18, Jeremiah confesses:

My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord.

Notice the past-tense of the verb in this sentence. Fortunately, just three verses later, Jeremiah declares:

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness … The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him.

When we hope for things from God, He doesn’t always come through in exactly the way that we might desire. But, when we hope in God, He always appears, in order to lift us up. When Jeremiah looked at his circumstances, he saw nothing promising. Yet, when he looked at his God, he could rejoice.

Take a long look at our God. He has the answers we need and He has promised to never leave us nor forsake us. Let’s ask Him to refuel our drooping spirits. Then, we can rejoice with the hymn writer: ²

My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

On Christ the solid rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
All other ground is sinking sand.

His oath, His covenant, His blood
support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.

On Christ the solid rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
All other ground is sinking sand.

______________________

1 Tada, Joni Eareckson. Pearls of Great Price. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, ©2006, Devotional for September 30th. 2 Mote, Edward, My Hope is Built on Nothing Less. Public Domain.

 

 

Get Over Yourself

 

“Humble yourselves therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”

—1 Peter 5:6

Picture two brothers, ages five and seven, fascinated enough to come up to the front of the church every Sunday during the Postlude to watch me play the organ. As the organ music filled the sanctuary, they liked the action of the pistons, the movement of my fingers, and especially the movement of my feet.

One Sunday, the older brother posed the question: “Do you ever make mistakes?”

Considering that his question provided me with the opportunity to offer a teachable moment, I replied: “Sure I do. From time to time I make mistakes.”

To which he responded: “I thought so!”

I’ve thought about that encounter quite a number of times over the years, as I tried to camouflage an errant note or two while I played. Most of us have plenty of opportunities for God to humble us. Whether it’s a piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of our shoe, a wardrobe malfunction, or a “tied tongue” when speaking in public, we know how it feels to experience humiliation. Sometimes we even know why God has brought us down with an embarrassing event.

When we think too highly of ourselves, our Lord says to us in Isaiah 42:8:

“I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another.”

In so many words, God is saying: “Get over yourself!”

When we compare ourselves to others and boast, even to ourselves, about our imagined superiority, God, in His love and discipline, will allow us to suffer humiliation to remind us that we possess nothing He did not give us, even our well-honed skills. Again, in Isaiah 66:2, our Lord says:

“This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”

God wants us to become humble servants—grateful for all we are and have—not self-assured, boasting performers, who feel superior to those around us. When we, in pride, carry out our work—or even our service to Him—we steal His glory. When we bow before Him in humility and thanksgiving, we lift Him up and reveal His glory! We need to get over ourselves, but never place ourselves over Him!