Pouting and the Pandemic

 

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

—Romans 1:21

A year ago almost to the day, America went into this long COVID-19 Pandemic. It has bewildered even the most astute among us. Christians and non-believers alike have been amazed that a virus like this could cause such havoc. Christians at least can ask: “What is God’s purpose in all of this?”

Many parents, when they are dealing with a bratty child who wants nothing more than his or her own way, will punish that child by sending the child to his or her room. Could it be that God has been punishing us because we have strayed so far from His will? If so, God certainly has sent us into our rooms this year. Has His purpose been achieved? Have we learned anything?

In reading through Romans 1:18-32, we find no better a comparative description of American society than this one. Get a look at this list of possible offenses:

degraded sex lies shameful lusts unnatural, indecent perversion greed envy murder strife deceit malice gossip

slander God-hating insolent arrogance boasting disobedience to parents senselessness faithlessness heartlessness ruthlessness

We have done just what Satan tempted Adam and Eve to do—to be like gods without God, self-knowing good and evil.

We need to repent of America’s sins, and also repent of the sins of the American church. Every day, we see on television and on the Internet humanity’s attempt to remake all things into an unrecognizable image—even nature and biology.

Remember, when God planted His created order in the Garden of Eden and set up the natural rules of the universe He called it “good” and the creation of mankind He called “very good.” We play “god” when we throw out the created order and natural laws and try to substitute our own understanding of nature and creation.

I think in this Pandemic, it is quite possible that God is calling His church back to Himself. We need to bow to His Lordship, to His will, and to His written Word. We need to spend time before Him, not merely asking for His blessing—which He has given us again and again—but we need to ask Him for His forgiveness and His mercy.

Our society loves to play the victim, to empower one group and to cast blame on another. We need to get back to the first step down into cultural sin mentioned in Romans 1:21. We need to glorify God and return our thanks to Him as Creator and Lord of all.

O Lord, deliver us from this pouting! Have we learned anything by staying in our rooms alone? Has our Heavenly Parent’s purpose been fulfilled? Or, do we still have a pout on our faces?

We need a new Breath of God by His Holy Spirit to sweep over us and bring new life on His people. I like the way Bessie Head put it in her hymn:

Oh, Breath of Life ¹

O Breath of life, come sweeping through us,
revive Your church with life and power.
O Breath of life, come, cleanse, renew us,
and fit Your church to meet this hour.

O Breath of love, come breathe within us,
renewing thought and will and heart;
Come, Love of Christ, afresh to win us,
revive Your church in every part.

O Wind of God, come bend us, break us,
till humbly we confess our need;
Then in Your tenderness remake us,
revive, restore, for this we plead.

Revive us, Lord! Is zeal abating
while harvest fields are vast and ripe?
Revive us, Lord, the world is waiting,
equip Your church to spread the light.

______________________

1 Head, Bessie. “O Breath of Life, Come Sweeping Through Us.” Hymn in the Public Domain.

 

 

Watching or Sleeping?

 

“Are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”

—Mark 14:37-38

As the time of His crucifixion drew near, Jesus knew the terror ahead for Himself. He needed His closest friends to stand with Him. He needed them to watch over Him and pray with Him for the strength only God could give.

Yet, the disciples, while they had heard Jesus speak of the danger coming, never really took it to heart. They never comprehended the suffering that Jesus would have to endure, as He gave His life on the cruel Roman cross of torture.

Yes, Peter made bold promises about his loyalty to Jesus. But, when it really came time to show up and stand firmly at Jesus’ side, Peter failed.

Over and over in the verses of Scripture, Jesus has warned us, too, of the days to come. These days will not be days of ease, but of trouble. He has said that bad times will come upon the world before He returns to earth for the second time.

As Christians, we largely follow the direction of the culture in which we live. We watch awhile and feign interest and devotion. But then, like the rest of the society in which we live, we sleep, rather than standing guard over our lives, warning others, and preparing for Christ’s appearance.

In a Lenten Devotional, Biola University Emeritus Professor of Art, Barry Krammes, shares the likeness of the Western Church to a cruise ship where professionals entertain and meet our every desire, rather than a battleship engaged in prayer and spiritual warfare. He writes: ¹

These days I often feel like a drowsy disciple, or a virgin without any oil, sleepwalking through thick fog—trying to make sense of what’s happening around me. Yet, in moments of clarity I realize that now is the time to wake up and put my house in order. Hebrews 12:1-2 admonishes us:

“Stripping off every unnecessary weight and the sin which so easily and cleverly entangles us, let us run with endurance and active persistence the race that is set before us, [looking away from all that will distract us and] focusing our eyes on Jesus, who is the Author and Perfecter of faith.”

When Jesus fasted in the desert for 40 days at the beginning of his ministry, He engaged in spiritual warfare. When He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane near the end of His life, He also engaged in spiritual warfare.

In like manner, Jesus has given us the task of preparing ourselves for the days ahead by engaging our minds and hearts and churches in the warfare battle against evil in our world. He has made it clear that He does not want us sleeping.

If Jesus returned to earth today, would he find us watching, praying, then moving out onto the field of spiritual battle? Or, would he find us asleep and unaware of the dangers, like His twelve disciples were in the Garden of Gethsemane?

______________________

1 Krammes, Barry. The Lent Project—Online Devotional: “The Spirit is Willing, but the Flesh is Weak.” La Mirada, California: Biola University, Center for Christianity, Culture and the Arts, February 27, 2021.

 

 

Running on Empty

 

About Asher he said: “…your strength will equal your days.”

—Deuteronomy 33:25

We had made the long trip from Hartford, Connecticut, to Portland, Oregon, for a conference. Having an afternoon free, we decided to take a carload of friends with us in the rental car the 80 miles out to the coast to see the Pacific Ocean. We had a beautiful trip, waded in the ocean, grabbed some lunch, and headed back toward Portland.

Little did we realize that the route we chose went directly through miles and miles of forests with no houses, or towns, or people, except the occasional logging truck. This happened before the days of hand-held cell phones. And, in that wilderness, the installed car phone had no reception either.

Not understanding the distance we had to travel, we soon notice we were low on fuel—really low. We prayed that over the next hill we’d see civilization and a service station. The minutes ticked away. Nothing came into view.

As the fuel gauge reached that awesome and foreboding red-colored “E,” we finally crested a hill and saw in the distance the very oasis we had looked for—a service station! Coasting in on fumes, we purchased fuel and were soon on the road again toward our destination.

I would suppose that many people during these days of the COVID-19 Pandemic are also running on empty. We didn’t realize when we started just how far the trip would be. We had not understood all the desolate places we would be forced to travel through with no end in sight.

I confess that in my own prayers, I have begged God for the gift He gave the tribe of Asher through Moses: a strength to equal my days. As this period stretches us more and more, we need to experience the never-ending strength of God.

Thank the Lord for the promises of the Scriptures. We read in Psalm 84:5-7:

Blessed are those who strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca [a place of drought], they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength.

If those of us who know the Lord are moving through life feeling empty, just imagine how those must feel who have no such Source of strength in their lives. Let us pray—not only that the Lord will give us this persevering power to live—but that we will testify to the witness of that strength before a watching world.

 

 

On Loan

 

And he [Job] said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

—Job 1:21

Regardless of your political leanings, when you hear the phrase: “Talent on loan from God!” you immediately recognize the slogan of the radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh. The first impression that many have on hearing that phrase is to think of it as a boastful and arrogant statement. On closer examination, however, those of us who believe in a Creator God who made us all in His image and gave us all that we are and all that we have can agree that we all can and should make this same declaration.

Not only do we live with the loan of our gifts and talents given to us by God, we live with so much more that we borrow from, yet only for a time. All of our possessions, all of our experiences, all of our education have been loaned to us for use in living our lives for the glory of God.

In my particular situation, I may not have the difficulty that some may have with thinking in terms of temporary, or borrowed, living arrangements. I have lived far more years of my adult life in rented properties than in properties that my husband and I have “owned.” Even those houses that we once owned now have new owners. So, too, that childhood home for most of us likely has new residents since we have grown and moved away.

In some respect, I considered the thousands of children I taught in public elementary and middle school as “my” kids. However, in moments of clarity, I remember that, in introducing school chorus concerts, I would often thank parents for loaning their beautiful children to me to teach. Though I didn’t have children of my own, I could “borrow” some from others, if only for a season.

And, what about those other “things” that God has loaned us and of which He is actually the sole proprietor?

• The sixth and a half years that I held the position of organist, using the largest organ in the tri-state area (Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio)—a five manual, 6,000 pipe instrument. I certainly had no ownership rights to that position, nor to that magnificent instrument.
  
  
• Nor did I have any rights to the beautiful Kawai grand piano that I had helped select and on which I played for fifteen years at another church.
  
  

I merely “borrowed” these positions and these instruments in order to use them in the praise of our God and for His glory.

So, what do we learn from thinking about the use of “all things borrowed” in this life?

For one, we need to express our gratitude to God, more and more, as we realize all that He has given us to use and enjoy. Secondly, we need to hold the precious gifts He has given in a very light grasp because He may choose to take them from us at any time in exchange for something else. Thirdly, we need to hold no bitterness if God chooses to take these borrowed things away.

Like Job, no matter what God chooses to give us for a season and later take away from us, we should learn to bless the Lord for His gracious borrowed gifts, we should enjoy those gifts to the fullest, and then we should always, and without hesitation, submit to His wisdom and to His perfect will for us in every situation.

 

 

Hope for the Upside-Down

 

I say, “My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord.”

—Lamentations 3:18

Suppose you thought that the answer to your happiness came from standing on your head. You had watched other people who could accomplish this feat and saw how happy they seemed, so you tried it and it stuck. You felt you had truly found the way to look at life and the key to your happiness.

Now this sounds absurd to us. But, I believe we all have dreams of wonderful things, even pray and expect the Lord to fulfill our wishes. We feel the real key to our happiness comes from hoping that He will bring whatever we seek to pass in the manner we think He should.

Perhaps a career path we saw as the ultimate goal for our life looked possible. We had prepared for it, we had prayed for it, we had worked hard to achieve it. Yet just when we hoped that God would fulfill our dream, it was taken from us.

Or perhaps, we had looked forward to purchasing that beautiful house on the corner of our street, had prayed and hoped that the Lord had that house for us. But, when it came time to buy it, someone else actually offered more money, bought it ahead of us, and moved into what would have been our ideal residence. Our dreams were shattered.

When we lose hope, we end up in despair. In our Scripture passage at the beginning of this devotional from Lamentations 3, we see that Jeremiah had great hope for himself and for God’s people. He had hope that God would work to bring the kind of splendor and blessing to the Holy City of Jerusalem that he felt was within reach. However, that hope had been shattered.

In Lamentations 3:18-26, we find Jeremiah remembering the affliction, the wandering, and the bitterness he had experienced while praying and preaching to God’s people. In his remembering and despair, he meditated on his dreams. But, and most importantly, Jeremiah also meditated on his God. Once his attention shifted and he was able to look at things “right-side-up,” everything changed.

Note in verse 25 what the Prophet Jeremiah says:

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him.

Do you see the one word that has changed from the verse that appears at the beginning of this devotional? We go from “upside-down”—hoping from God, to “right-side-up”—hoping in God.

This one change in focus changes everything. Instead of hoping for something Jeremiah thought would please him and answer the troubles he had, he decided to hope in God and trust that God would bring to pass the best results for himself and for God’s people. It was all a matter of trusting God and submitting to God’s will over Jeremiah’s will.

Sometimes this kind of change in thinking takes time, struggle, faith, and waiting, as this passage also relates. But then again, sometimes this kind of change just takes a change in our way of thinking, a new perspective—a change to right-side-up thinking!

—Posted: Monday, February 15, 2021

 

 

A Psalm for Sequentials

 

I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.

—Psalm 34:1

Do you like lists? I do. I think I even have some lists of lists! We “Sequentials” like to put things in order and then to look back and forward to gauge where things stand. We like binders with page dividers.

Studying my Teacher’s Plan Book, I could see what my students were taught last week, last month, and last year. By looking back at previous records, I could know what I wanted them to have learned by the end of the month and the end of the year. I could even determine what I wanted them to have learned by the time they finished elementary school.

Several of the Psalms were written as acrostics. Psalm 119 is the longest of these. But, my favorite Psalm of this type is Psalm 34. This particular Psalm is sequential, through and through. And, I love it.

An acrostic is based on a sequential list beginning with a letter of the alphabet. Each stanza of Psalm 34 begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This sequential format made it easy for Hebrew children to study and memorize this Psalm.

Acrostics have long been used to provide memory hooks for students. Early readers in the United States of America used acrostics to help them learn, even memorize, their lessons. Some of the acrostics appeared on counted-cross-stitch designs based on a page from the Puritan primer, like the one at the beginning of this blog post. As the children in colonial times, and later, embroidered these designs, they learned the lessons the designs intended to teach.

Beyond the connection to acrostics and sequential learning, Psalm 34 details how the Lord should be extoled (or praised). If you choose to meditate on all the words of this Psalm, you will quickly observe that praise comes from our lips, (v. 1) from our souls, (v. 2), from our faces (v. 5) and from our lives (vv. 8-9).

As we continue to meditate on Psalm 34, we learn that when we look at the way God takes care of us, and how He keeps us, we see that we fall under His protection, (vv. 6-8), under His provision (vv. 9-10), under His constant attention (vv. 15-16), and under His compassion (vv.17-20).

How’s that for a set of sequential lists?

To further break this Psalm down into learnable chunks, each of those categories listed in the above paragraphs goes into detail. For example, when we praise the Lord from our souls, we do it with boasting, with audible exaltation, and by exalting Him with others.

Do you see how perfectly Psalm 34 was planned and written?

And for what reason do you suppose that God gave us this wonderful, sequential, perfectly crafted song of praise? God gave us Psalm 34 to help us praise Him, to understand His care, and to comprehend the detail with which He watches over us and provides for us.

Studying Psalm 34 may also encourage you to write your own sequential Psalm. You can begin doing this by asking the question: “How has God shown up in my life?”

As you answer that question, you will likely discover that God has made Himself known in your life through His love, His power, His wisdom, His compassion, and by the application of His many other great attributes.

I strongly encourage you to join me in meditating on this wonderful Psalm. Together we will see the beauty of the words. But more importantly, we will see the beauty and majesty of our God!

 

 

God's Omniscient Journal

 

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

—Psalm 139:16

Both of my grandmothers kept diaries. My mom also kept a diary. I keep one, as well, but I call mine a journal. I find the styles and the myriad of ways that people write down what has happened in their lives quite interesting.

My one grandmother used a pencil to write in tiny bank books. Usually, she merely wrote just one line a day:

“M and G came from Cleveland today.”

She included no details. Just the facts. It was as if she had taken lessons from the character, like Jack Webb, on the TV show “Dragnet.”

My mom’s diaries had similar entries. But with each entry, she always recorded the weather, like any good farm wife of her day.

Each day, my other grandmother wrote many paragraphs of newsy information about the family and the neighbors. She wrote using the most beautiful penmanship with a lovely script handwriting.

None of these women forerunners of mine ever wrote about their feelings. They also never wrote about the spiritual lessons they’d learned, or anything deeply personal.

My own journal writing has changed over the years. At first, my journals carried only Scripture passages and spiritual lessons that I had learned. Now, my journal entries are a combination of those spiritual meditations, my feelings about them, a running day-to-day recording of activities, and once in a while, even comments about the weather.

All this, by way of introduction, to say that God keeps a journal on us, too. God’s journal about us in an “omniscient journal.” Studying the nature of God, at least to the extent that He has revealed His nature to us in the pages of His written Word, we learn that God has written odd and magnificent things in His journal about our days before they have taken place. No human that I know has such an ability.

Yes, we do make plans. But, as the Scripture tells us in Proverbs 19:21:

Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.

Even more than having written the activities of each day ahead of time, God has written our feelings about Him, our feelings about life, and our feelings about those things He has brought about to bring us closer to Him. He records our trials, our joys, our thoughts, our dreams, and our physical ailments. He knows more about us before our actual days happen than we know about ourselves after those days happen.

Can you record in advance how God brought about that meeting with someone who needed your word of encouragement? Can you record in advance the blessing you gave to someone whom you never saw again? Of course not. I repeat: God knows more about us before our actual days take place than we know about ourselves afterwards.

What does this fact cause us to do? First of all, I believe that it should cause us to joyfully worship Him, acknowledging His power, love, and omniscience. Like the Samaritan woman at the well, who exclaimed in John 4:29:

“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”

Then, knowing what we now understand about God’s knowledge of us, we should find this fact comforting, as we look at days before they occur and wonder what will ever happen to us in this situation, or in that one. God already knows what will happen, how He will help get us through that situation, and the reasons He has for allowing everything to occur the way that they do.

As we continue to move through each day in our lives, may the wonderful knowledge of God’s omniscience cause us to trust His awesome love and power. Knowing that God sees what will happen to us before it even occurs should give us a sense of peace that passes all understanding.