Psalm 18 - The Dragon

When one of His children is in distress and calls out His name in her desperation, ever wonder what God does in heaven?

Then the earth reeled and rocked.  The foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked because He was angry.  Smoke went out from His nostrils and devouring fire from His mouth.  Glowing coals flamed forth from Him.  He bowed the heavens and came down.  Thick darkness was under His feet.  He rode on a cherub and flew.  He came swiftly on the wings of the wind.  He made darkness His covering, His canopy around Him, thick clouds dark with water.  Out of the brightness before Him hailstones and coals of fire broke through the clouds.

The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Most High uttered His voice, hailstones and coals of fire.  And He sent arrows and scattered them.  He flashed forth lightnings and routed them.  Then  the channels of the sea were seen, and the foundations of the world were laid bare at Your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of Your nostrils.

God sometimes says:  "I have had enough!"  That He feels what we feel is evident here.  He is not just looking on saying, "Oh, I guess it's about time I help ole David out."  NO!  He feels David's indignation.  He is mad as ...well, you know.  God's boy is in danger, the fight is unfair and the kid needs a miracle.  Remember, David described himself as bound by cords of death with torrents of water drowning him.  He can't breathe and neither can God.  He rises, tears the heavens apart, sends a storm to end all storms complete with hailstones and fiery lightning.  God comes forth from His lair like a dragon with fire bursting from his nostrils and His footsteps made the earth quake and tremble.  That is how furious He was at the enemy's treatment of His child.  Wouldn't want to mess with that.

He sent from on high.  He took me.  He drew me out of many waters.  He rescued me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me for they were too strong for me.

Oh, we need our Father today to send from on high and take us out of our seas of distress.  Can't you see that strong right hand reaching out of time and space and plucking you up right now?  Visualize it!  There are just some things you cannot work out for yourself....they are too strong for you!  Face it and cry out! 

What if He doesn't come through, you say?  You need to read the above verses again...and again..and again..  Realize that this is YOUR God, too.  He loves you just as much as He loved David and is ready to rend heaven and reach His mighty hand down into your earthly desperation to annihilate it with the fire from His nostrils.  Things in heaven are as they are on earth.....so, He moves heaven for you, too.  Can you see Him thundering around there, blistering mad on your behalf?  Done with things you have let bind you for so long?  Give up.  Call out.  Then watch your Salvation, your Shield, your Deliverance, your Rock, your Stronghold and your God turn your world upside down to set you free.

Psalm 18 - Who Is Your Enemy?

I love you, Lord, my strength.  The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my God, my mountain where I seek refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.  I called to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I was saved from my enemies. (vs. 1-3)

Who is your enemy?  David spoke the words of this psalm to the Lord on the day the Lord rescued him from the  hand of all his enemies and the hand of King Saul.  He starts with:  "I love you, Lord."  Can you see David standing there on the plain with the enemy either scattered dead around him or having fled from before him in the wake of God's intervention in his life?  He cannot believe the magnitude of the victory.  Sweat and blood are caked on David's brow because the battle was fierce and he was losing it.  With the swords of the enemy clanking over his head and the sounds of battle escalating, David screams out, gladiator-like to his God.  "Save me!" 

The Lord heard and hid him behind a rock, built a fortress of angels around him, became the high mountain into which David ran, stood there on the plains in His glory and routed the enemies of his child.  When the battle was at its bleakest, God thundered in and saved the day. He was David's defense.

Most of us are not on a literal battlefield today.  But if we think we did not get up today to do war with our enemy, we could be making a deadly mistake.  Armor up!  Think Braveheart.  Because your enemy waits for you to let your guard down. 

Addiction?  Depression?  Fear?  Finances?  What threatens to overcome you? 

The ropes of death were wrapped around me.  The torrents of destruction terrified me.  The ropes of Sheol entangled me.  The snares of death confronted me.  I called to the Lord in my distress, and I cried to my God for help.  From His temple He heard my voice, and my cry to Him reached His ears.  (vs. 4-6)

David's picture of himself entangled in the ropes of death while torrents of water rolled over him is a terrifying prospect of his envisioned death.  Houdini could not save himself from such a trap.  David cannot free himself from the web of ropes nor stop the raging water from coming toward him....no escape is in sight.  Only God can save him now. 

Ever thought why God might have allowed you to be overwhelmed?  Growing tired of trying to save yourself?  Does your addiction or attachment get harder and harder every day to keep up?  It takes its toll on you and leaves you daily less able to get free of its webbing.  Wearying of giving God ideas about how to get you through your present problems?  Do what David did.  Cry out to your God!  He waits to do for you what you cannot imagine!  Get your hands off the wheel and let Him drive the getaway car.  Stop meddling in His provision.  Stand up in your battle and see Him coming in His chariot...oops...that is for tomorrow.

If you do not think God hears you, you will still fight your battles alone.  Not because He is not faithful, but because you will call out to Him and then go and do it by yourself again.  He is not just your failsafe...He IS your deliverance.  If the ropes of death have ensnared you and the crushing floods of this life have overwhelmed you, praise Him because only He can move in to show You His strength and save you.  Then, with David, you will stand on your battlefield the victor, head swimming, legs shaking, and hands lifted to the only One Who could have delivered you.  Then with him you will praise your God, your Deliverer, your Mountain, your Shield, your Salvation, your Strength, your Stronghold and your Rock!!!!

Psalm 17 - Occupy Everywhere

Lord, save me by Your power from those whose reward is in this life.   They have plenty of food.  They have many sons and leave much money to their children.  Because I have lived right, I will see Your face.  When I wake up, I will see Your likeness and be satisfied.  (vs.14-15).

Occupy Everywhere is under way.  The so-called 99 percent is up in arms over those whose reward is in this life.  Lots of money.  Lots of food.  Mega-inheritances stored up for their snobby rich kids.  The 1% are wicked.  The rest of us are sanctimoniously entitled.

Hmmm.  Really?  I would say that the values of the 1% are the same as those of the 99%.  Both are basing their lives on riches.  Worldly gain.  Thinking that is what satisfies.  The 99% think if they had some of the money going to the 1% they would be happy.  Wondering if that is true.  Wondering if gain brings us soul-satisfaction.

I know of a young college graduate who, along with the other 90% of her graduating class last year, had a difficult time finding a job.  Her heart's desire is to help young women who are victims of the sex trade.  So, she moved in with her grandmother and volunteered at a pretty high risk (to her) facility that houses women who have been abused and/or sold as objects.  She worked late, long hours while preparing for her wedding to boot.  Her life counted even though she was unpaid for her internship.  Today, she works full time for an organization that is dedicated to aiding these women.  But, her original heart was to make a difference whether she was paid or not.  She worked hard so that she could now work hard.

There is plenty to do in this crushingly oppressive world in which we live.  Doing what matters.  Yes, there are those who become wealthy without morality.  But there are those who stay poor without it, too.  Joblessness has hit our family, also, so I am aware of the economics of the Occupy crowd.  But if they are looking for wealth to be their satisfaction, they will be sorely disappointed. 

The key is to be content either way.  To know that your way is guided by a God who does not disappoint.  That your treasure is in Him.  "Don't store treasures for yourselves here on earth where moths and rush will destroy them and thieves break in and steal them.  But store for yourselves treasures in heaven where they cannot be destroyed by moths or rust and where thieves cannot break in and steal them.  Your heart will be where your treasure is." (Matthew 6)

It always comes back to the heart, doesn't it?  I am part of the 99%, too.  I don't make a million dollars a year.  Should I expect to?   Fortunately, by His grace, I know where my treasure is in an ultimate sense and on a practical level.  Am I doing what He asks of me today?  I want to with all my heart.  He is my hope not only for today, but for eternity when I will see His face.  I don't want my heart to be all about hating someone else for having money, especially if they came by it corruptly.  I want to live by a positive, not a negative. 

"All those who stand before others and say they believe in Me, I will say before My Father in heaven that they belong to Me.....Those who try to hang onto their lives will give up true life.  Those who give up their lives for Me will hold onto true life." (Matt. 10)

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life.  It was shining like crystal and flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the street of the city.  The tree of life was on each side of the river.  It produces fruit twelve times a year, once each month....The throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and God's servants will worship Him.  They will see His face and His name will be written on their foreheads.  (Revelation 22)

Whether I occupy this tent in which I exist here or wake up occupying a new one there, I want to be about doing what He has called me to do.  I am not judging the hearts of those who feel compelled to throw up a dwelling in downtown Everywhere. I don't know what their motives are, really.  I just know that I have been adopted into a family with a Father Who provides for me here and feeds me there.  So, wherever I "wake up" I know that I am His.

Psalm 17 - Daughters and Brides

Found something really sweet this morning in the Key Word Study Bible.  In Psalm 17: 8, the word for pupil or apple of the eye is also literally the daughter of the eye.  Lest we think the Bible just for chauvinists, the Lord wants us to know he loves His daughters. 

What is it with daddies and daughters?  A young man was telling us last night that his little eight month old daughter was saying "Da-da" now.  Proud that he was so important in her life.  Puffing out his chest as his eyes sparkled with the joy of it.  Do you suppose our Father does the same?

I am thinking of some of the daughters of the Bible.  Ruth, who Boaz praised for finding her refuge in the under the Lord's wings.  Esther who obeyed with prayer and fasting then declared: "If I perish, I perish."  She knew she was made for just such a time as the one in which she lived.  Hagar, alone in the desert with her son, Ishmael.  They had run out of water, so she left the boy under a bush to die.  Both then cried loudly.  God heard and an angel called to her from heaven and led her to water.  He was to her "the God who sees."  Hanna at the altar in Shiloh.  Desperate for a child.  Then Samuel is finally on his way.  Bathsheba, pregnant by the king, loses the baby as well as her husband.  Her grief seemingly limitless.  Soon Solomon is forming in her womb - the only son of David God sees fit to be king in his place.  Rahab, a prostitute, hides the spies and lets them down over the city wall.  She is subsequently saved along with her family when the city is taken by the Israelites.  Her line brought forth the Messiah.  Mary, a young girl, chosen before the foundations of the world to carry the Son of God not only in her body but on her hip.  Mary Magdalene, used by men for all her adult life, set free by One because God loved her.  Bleeding for years without help from doctors, a woman dares to simply touch the robe of God and He stops.  "Who touched Me?"  Ah, He knows, but He wants her to understand that touch was special.  He felt it.  He knew power had gone from Him to her and He wanted us to see her face when she acknowledged it.

Then there is me.....and you, if you are a daughter.  (This applies if you are a son, too, btw.)  The Lord your God is with You.  The Mighty One will save you.  He will rejoice over you.  You will rest in His love.  He will sing and be joyful about you.  (Zephaniah 3: 17)  Can't you just see the daddy lifting his daughter up over his head and adoring her cuteness as her face beams at him?  She is safe with him up there in his arms, the apple of His eye.

You have stooped to make me great. (2 Samuel 22:36)  Ever seen a daddy get down on his haunches to look straight into the face of his little girl?  To speak with her eye to eye - pupil to pupil?  There is a touching gentleness about that posture.  In fact, the other translation of this sentence is:  "Your gentleness has made me great."  This Abba who has adopted us is gentle, compassionate and tender toward His little girls.

Ezekiel 16 compares the nation of Israel to a newborn girl the Lord finds abandoned in her blood, umbilical freshly cut.  He looks with compassion on this baby girl and commands her to live!  He made her flourish like a beautiful plant until she grew up tall and had reached puberty.  When she reached the "age for love" He covered her nakedness and made her His.  He made her His bride.  The young woman was anointed with oil, clothed in the finest embroidery and given expensive leather shoes (every woman's dream).  On her wrists He put bracelets of gold,  in her ears were diamond studs, and a beautiful crown was placed on her head.  The bride ate the finest foods and drank the best wine.  Her beauty was so great she was world renowned because it was perfect "through the splendor" He had bestowed upon her.

Alas, her beauty made her proud and she left her husband to give herself away to lesser men.  But the love of this God for His "woman" is astonishing.  This is the heart of God for His bride. Us. The church.  To show how He loves, He lets us see His compassion as Father and as husband.  The tenderness of a man for the women in his life is a picture, God tells us, of how His heart is to His people.  He found us bleeding and alone.  Abandoned by all that was supposed to give us life.  He cannot stand that, so He cried:  "Live!"  And we did.  Then He clothed us in His royalty and put a crown on our heads so that the world marvels that this could be the same person who only recently was so destitute.

Oh, let us stay in the royal palace with Him, not straying to other idols.  For in the rooms of His mansion are pleasures forever more.

Psalm 17 - Ouch!

I call on You, God, because You will answer me.  Listen closely to me.  Hear what I say.  Display the wonders of Your faithful love, Savior of all who seek refuge from those who rebel against Your right hand.  Protect me as the pupil of Your eye.  Hide me in the shadow of Your wings. (vs 6-8)

Not too long ago I had a really bloodshot left eye.  For several days, when people saw me they would ask, "What in the world did you do to your eye?"   I was embarrassed to tell them that I had stuck the bristles of a hairbrush into it when I was hurriedly fixing my hair.  In my rush, I had not protected my eye, which watered profusely for hours. 

There are a few places on our bodies that are in need of special care.  We wear protective glasses so that stuff won't fly into our eyeballs and blind us.  Our eyes lead us around.  We need them.  So when David cries out to God to protect us as He would protect the pupil of His eye, I get it.  A rock comes flying in and our hands go up to protect our eyes from the missile coming our way.  Eyes shut tight, arms around our face, we have multiple layers of security to keep our vision safe.  Therefore, David is asking God to cover us so.

There is another verse in Zechariah, though, that gives a little different slant to God's pupils.  Anyone who touches you touches the pupil of His eye.  And that hurts.  Leaves it bloodshot, if not blind.  So think about what that means.  He loves you so much that it hurts like sticking something in His eye when someone hurts you!  It also makes Him fighting mad.  "I will move against them with My power, and they will become plunder for their own servants."  He will display the wonders of His faithful love and protect those who belong to Him because when you hurt, He hurts.

This is a God we can know will hear us, then.  He says about us as He said about Jacob and Israel:

He found him in a desolate land, in a barren and howling wilderness.  He surrounded him, cared for him, and protected him as the pupil of His eye.  He watches over His nest like an eagle hovers over her young.  He spreads His wings, catches him and lifts him up on His pinions. (Deuteronomy 32)

That's me!  Right there.  Found me desolate.  Swooped down and gathered me up in my misery, set me in His Nest, and watches over me.  The baby bird falls from the nest, the mother bird catches it on her wing and brings her safely back home because the mother has been hovering over her babies and sees when they are in distress.  Ever really pictured our God as a mother bird?  That is a very specific heart. 

If there is any doubt that God hears you when you pray, dismiss that now.  He is hovering over you and me today.  God is the one who found you desolate in a howling wilderness.  His heart always wants to protect and defend you because of the wonder of His love.  What was it about you that made Him see you there alone and in need of a savior?  Were you so beautiful in your dust-covered state that He just could not resist?  Or was there something in Him that is touched by our affliction?  A heart that seeks to bind up the broken heart to stop the bleeding? 

This God we can trust.  This God loves us more than we can imagine.  He has chosen to love us because He has chosen to love us, dry-mouthed and scorched.  It is a wonder.

Psalm 17 - Don't Be Your Own Defense Attorney

Oh, I love this psalm!!!

Ever felt like you needed to vindicate yourself?  You have been unjustly characterized but you were not able to defend yourself?  I have.  Many times over the past ten years or so I have had to close my mouth and say nothing as I was excoriated by a few people.  People who should have known my heart and some who could not have.

The most disappointing thing about this kind of scourging is that I never was able to say what might have convinced the other person or persons that there was another side to what was being said.  Most recently, a young man who does not really know me that well told me many of the things he felt were wrong about me and how I do business.  I was not aggressive enough.  Then I was too pushy.  I did not work hard enough, then I should wait for them to call me.  He spent two hours pelting me with his ideas of me.  Because he talked so much, I never really felt the opportunity was right for me to speak the truth of the situation as I saw it.  He wasn't going to listen anyway.  It was as though he had put his hand over my mouth while he told me stuff about me.   When he was done, he removed his hand, left my house and there I was.  Unvindicated.  What to do?

Lord, hear my just cause.  Pay attention to my cry.  Listen to my prayer -- from lips free of deceit.  Let my vindication come from You, for You see what is right.  You have tested my heart.  You have examined me at night.  You have tried me and found nothing evil.  I have determined that my mouth will not sin.  (vs. 1-3)

What I did was take my case to God.  He listens when others put their hands over their ears.  He lets me speak when others don't care what I think.  The picture in this psalm is of going before a judge.  Yahweh, of course, and presenting your case before Him as a just cause.  I meant to help this young couple.  Had only that in mind.  This Judge is ever mindful of my heart.  That is all He cares about.  Motive.  I could argue my intent with the one who misjudges me until I run out of breath, but the kind of person who would clap a hand across my mouth is usually not the person who will hear me anyway.  The more I say in the situation, the more my opportunities to sin with my own mouth.  Say things out of my hurt that are not true of her/him.

That God could look at my heart and find nothing evil is preposterous in the flesh.  What David is going for is the fact that he is living a life that is habitually faithful to God, not one of rebellion and blatant sinfulness.  Of course, I don't always know my motives or my own heart.  But God does.  So when I take my just cause before Him for defense and vindication, I let Him take over from there. 

It has been a few months since the conversation above.  In that time, my prayer has been that God would vindicate me in the eyes of this young man and his wife.  It has been interesting to watch things play out that he decided were wisdom against what my advice was to them.  They will be out the exact amount of money I warned them of, and that is no small amount.  Time has slogged on, as I said it would, for their business opportunity, with no closure really in sight.  I am still hoping for their absolute best.  I want them to have what their hearts desire, so I am not glorying in their situation, but noticing that things have not played out far from my prediction.  Will that ever be acknowledged?  Probably not.  But, seeing God come to my defense is satisfying.  Knowing that I was not so wrong as the young man said.

The thing about vindication is that I usually see justice from my own perspective without real consideration of the other side.  Isn't that why we need vindication in the first place?  Perhaps when we feel the need to attack another person for her/his actions toward us, we should stop first and ask them why.  Without assuming we already know the answer.  So many offenses would probably be squelched in the moment if we thought the way our adversary did.  And, many times the adversary, as in this case, is a Christian brother or sister.  Creating an offense with another Christian is counterproductive and ridiculous.  What if we listened to each other?  What if we determined not to sin with our mouths?  What if we decided to let our Father mediate our differences and defend us from evil others might plan against us?  That would allow us to still love the brother without judging his actions in return.  Not sure that takes maturity so much as focus.  "Abba, here is what was said or done.  Judge between me and him because You know both hearts."  Then leave it there.  Don't play the "trial" over and over in your mind while being your own defense attorney.  Trust me.  You will always win the judgment. 

When it comes right down to it, only your Father deeply understands where you are coming from.  Your heart is an open book before Him.  Only He can truly defend you.  Take offense to Him and leave it there. 

For the one who wants to love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.  And he must turn away from evil and do good.  He must seek peace and pursue it.  Because the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and His ears are open to their request.  But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.  (1 Peter 3: 10-12)

Psalm 16 - My Father's Hand

I praise the Lord because He advises me.  Even at night I feel His leading.  I keep the Lord before me always.  Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.  (vs. 7-8)

Awake again at 4 am and wondering why I cannot sleep, I wander downstairs to the living room, wrap my robe tight around me and sit in the dark, waiting to hear from God.  I have learned that He wants to speak to me in these times.  Sleepy-eyed and groggy, don't think I am super spiritual because I get up.  Usually He gives me no alternative.  I am compelled to obey my Father when He asks for time with me.  I have never been disappointed in these early morning meetings.  Tired the next day sometimes, but most often not even that. It seems to me that when I have given time to so many other things the day before is when He calls me to refill in His Presence.  To connect to the Source of life that drains me as I go about my day.  I need His advice.  Especially in these times when I really don't know where He is leading.

Isn't it what God has wanted all along?  To lead us day by day?  We are not born with our life's blueprint in hand.  I don't have a life map (though, I tell you the truth, I wish I did!) or inner GPS that points the way into next week, next month or next year.  Neither did Adam and Eve.  They should have been content to walk with their God in the cool of the day.  To fellowship with the Creator one-on-one.  But, alas, they were not. 

God took the Israelites into the desert, miraculously fed them on a daily basis.  Dwelt with them in their traveling temple, and led them on their journey as a cloud by day and a pillar fire by night.  The Lord wanted them to trust Him for their daily bread as well as their daily guidance.  Don't know where you are going?  Neither did they.  But He does and did, and He wants us to grab onto that strong right hand of His and take a walk to wherever He leads.  Scary, huh?  But maybe not as scary as lighting out on our own in some random direction we choose.  Because, really, either way you take this trip called life, you don't know where you are going.  That is the truth of it.  You can make all the plans you want for how it will all play out, and if you are lucky they might succeed.  But without His hand holding yours, it is a shot in the dark.

Consider Whose hand you are holding.  It flung stars, molded mountains, dug out oceans and streams.  It drew the plans for trees, flowers, giraffes and elephants.  With love it took dust from the earth and fashioned man.  I'd hold that hand any day.  I'd let that strong right hand take me on the adventure that my life is, and though I quake at the thought of not knowing always where He leads, I am sure the course is charted out for me because He is the master designer.  The problem is, I have to keep looking at Him and not the path.  My next step needs His guidance, so looking down the path with my earthly eyes, I can almost never see any good outcome.  It is dark before me, often, so I am blind to what will come next.  Not my Father.  This is the way He wants it so that I will keep a tight hold on Him, look into His face for reassurance of His presence, and take the next step with my little hand in His.

So He wakes me in the night.  He doesn't want me shaken by what might come my way in the day before me.  He wants my relationship with Him so firm that I can say with Habakkuk:

Though the fig tree does not bud and there is no fruit on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will triumph in Yahweh.  I will rejoice in the God of my salvation!  Yahweh, my Lord, is my strength.  He makes my feet like those of a deer and enables me to walk on mountain heights!

What can be shaken will be one day.  God's voice shook the earth when He spoke from Mt. Sinai.  The earth quaked at the death of Jesus.  And God will shake this earth again.  Yet once more will I shake not only on the earth but heaven also (Haggai 2:6)  The writer of Hebrews says:   This expression, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of what can be shaken - that is created things - so that what cannot be shaken remains.

I want to remain.  I want to be so attached to the vine that I cannot be shaken loose though everything falls apart - because it is going to.  I'm with my Daddy, my Abba, and He knows the way through.  If He is the One doing the shaking, aren't I safest holding onto Him?  I need His advice and leading, so if He has to wake me in the night to get my attention, I will embrace the quiet with my Father.

Psalm 16 - My Love Song

Lord, You are my portion and my cup of blessing.  You hold my future.  The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.  Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. You reveal the path of life to me.  In Your Presence is fulness of joy.  In Your right hand are eternal pleasures. (vs 5,6,11)

I have read these verses over several times this morning, and they continue to bring tears to my eyes.  It is my love song to my God.  Oh, how I love Him.  He has always blessed my life with good things, even when times were stormy and I was far away.  He is always faithful. I am a joint heir with Christ, receiving all He receives.  That puts my life on a wholly different plane than I am usually aware of.  I am remembering the words of Jesus in His prayer:  "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

I think my prayers tend to be asking God to make things in heaven as they are on earth.  Do what I need You to do here, in other words.  These verses today have caused my heart to cry out for Him to do here with me what He does in heaven.  Where my inheritance is.  Where HE is.  To bring me into His presence, not His presence to come into my every situation.  To think like HE does.  To  understand the evanescence of this life and trade its troubles for the fulness of joy His presence brings even here.  To truly understand that if He is my cup of blessing, I need not look elsewhere. 

Does He satisfy?  Is He enough?  In Jeremiah 3, God shares His heart like this:

"I thought:  How I long to make you my children and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations.
I thought:  You will call Me, my Father, and never turn away from Me."

With tears now streaming down my face, I just must express that I love this Father more than anything!  He longs to give us the most desirable things.  Not just here.  Think bigger!  If things are to be on earth as they are in heaven, then the larger reality is there, and here is just a shadow of it.  That is why God can know our path.  He has walked it first.  He has taken His scythe and cut the weeds and thorns so we can walk it straight to Him.  It leads to fulness of life and pleasures forever more.  Not to the next job or the next breakthrough for which we desperately pray.  Not that those are unimportant to Him.  They are!  But they are not the end in themselves that we often see them to be.  If they do not lead us to take His strong right hand and trust the warmth of its reality, then we are wandering aimlessly down a path of our own making, going literally God knows where.

So I ask again, Is He enough?  My answer.  More than enough.  If we are looking to mend our broken hearts with anyone or anything else, we take at least second best.  Jesus said He came to give us life, and that to the fullest! (John 10:10)  So what is with our groveling and complaining?  Why are we walking around emptied of joy, crouching in fear, and plagued with doubt?  What is the answer to this life devoid of all that Jesus died to bring us?  I propose it is this:   Get into His presence.

Last time you spent an hour with the Lord.  Go!

Yes, I know.  You are busy.  Me, too.  But He, our Father, longs for us to be His children.  Yearns to be with us.  Doesn't that do something to your heart?  It breaks mine.  It softens mine.  It calls me to Him, crying,  "Abba, Father....dear Father!"

Taste today, and see that the Lord is good.  Find the pleasure here on earth that is generated from His throne in heaven...pleasure not remotely available anywhere on this earth no matter how high the high.  The God who made all things for His pleasure delights most in you, the highest of His creation.  He looks at you longingly today for the chance to satisfy your heart with pleasures forever more.

I am going to pray now.  I cannot see what I am writing anymore.

Psalm 16 - Inordinate Love

"Inordinate affection brings inordinate pain."  Matthew Henry.

The sorrows of those who take another god for themselves will multiply.  I will not pour out their drink offerings of blood and I will not speak their names with my lips.  (vs. 4)

"Another god."  Hmmm.  Little "g."  Where is your comfort?  To what do you run when you need a "fix"?  When the world crowds in around you and you want to run, where do you go?  If the pain is too great, what makes it feel better for a while?  Food?  Cigarettes?  Another person?  Cocaine?  Alcohol?  Shopping?  Meditation?  Medication?  Exercise?  Travel?  Sex?  On the surface many of these things are not evil.  But when pain leads you to "love" one or all of them, you have an idol.

Here is what I have learned over the years.  The enemy loves taking your pain and using it to lead you into more pain.  The vulnerability of sorrow or disappointment is real.  It leaves an aching, bleeding soul that needs to be healed.  In desperation, we often look for a "medicine" that fixes us now!  The liquor cabinet is right there!  That man who has been flirting with us has ratcheted up his attentions.  Running a few extra miles feels like the answer.  Controlling food so I feel that at least there is one thing that I can manage.  We crawl in pain toward the panacea, wanting just not to hurt anymore.  All the while the enemy of our souls is enticing our pain toward ruin.  In running toward a little "g" we are running away from our Father.

I was watching "Hoarders" yesterday afternoon while putting together some marketing materials for my real estate neighborhoods.  Lisa, the subject, is a woman probably about my age although she looks much older.  Rats in her home had actually died from ingesting the tons of expired and rotting food that fill her kitchen.  Her refrigerator had stopped working years before, yet had food in it.  When she bought groceries, she had to hang the bags from the ceiling lights to keep the rodents from eating it before she did.  Floor to ceiling litter - like a garbage dump - filled every room of her home.  She was even eating some of the expired and rotting food she kept in jars on her shelves.  Most telling to me was a jar of hot sauce the cleaners found in the refrigerator.  "Oh, my husband likes hot sauce.  That is why I saved it."  Lisa's husband left twenty years ago.  That is how long that jar had been in the fridge.

Ah, her husband.  Her idol.  He had abused her for years.  Isolated her from others.  Told her she was a slob and unworthy of love.  Lisa's daughter said through her tears that her mom had once kept an extremely clean house.  The house had now become a picture of the woman's interior.  When asked why she could not throw away the most disgusting garbage from her home, she said:  "Everything has some good use for it."

"Then, what are you good for?"  asked the therapist.  "If you would see keeping this garbage to be more important than living?"

"Me?" she replied.  "I don't have any good use."

This is a picture of what the enemy does to us.  Wears us down in our pain in order to bring us to absolute submission to what he thinks about us.  Ponder it.  What is the end to inordinate love for whatever medicates you?  Addiction.  What is the end to addiction?  Slavery.  All the pain that drove you to your idol is now multiplied by your inability to get free from it and your original sorrow.  Your sorrows are now multiplied.  David understood this.

Ever talked to someone who is trying to leave an addiction?  Or, even been one yourself.  There is, at first, in recovery, a certain tantalization about speaking about the "days of addiction."  The name of the lover, the good times at the bar, the highest high - in the past, of course.  But the speaking its "name" brings the lie to life again.  The addicted relives some of the medicinal effects of the passion and "looks back."  Not a good idea.  Don't even speak the name of your idol.  God is not only jealous of that name, but He is also jealous over your heart.  It will take a while to walk out of your trap.  To get the cobwebs cleaned from your thinking.  Don't muck it up with talking about the good ole days of addiction.

I love how practical the Bible is.  God has read our mail.  He has forewarned us about everything possible.  John, the apostle, ends his first letter this way:

We know that those who are God's children do not continue in sin.  The Son keeps them safe, and the Evil One cannot touch them.  We know that we belong to God, but the Evil One controls the world.  We also know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we can know the True One.  And our lives are in the True One and in His Son, Jesus Christ.  He is the true God and eternal life.  SO, dear children, keep yourselves away from idols.

'Nuff said.

Psalm 16 - Suspended in Mid-Air

Keep me safe, O Lord, because I trust in You.  I say to the Lord, "You are my God.  Every good thing I have comes from You." (vs. 1-2)

Times are a little iffy at the Farish home right now.  We are kind of hanging in the heady air that tests of faith create, waiting to see what our God will do.  No ground beneath our feet, we are suspended, but not falling.  Not looking at the depth to which we would crash if God does not come through.  That is where the enemy would have us fixate our attention.  Instead, with great resolve, we are looking up.  That is where our help comes from.  We cry out, "Keep us safe, O Lord.  Our trust is in You!"

He is my God and there is such a litany of good things that have come, undeserved and unearned, from His hand to my life that I know He is trustworthy to catch us now.  As a matter of fact, Every good and perfect gift comes from God.  These good gifts come down from the Creator of the sun, moon and stars, who does not change like their shifting shadows.  God decided to give us life through the Word of truth so that we might be the most important of all the things He has made.  (James 1)

Good things in my life:  My salvation that brought me into the family of God, the Father, my own family, my health, my relative wealth, my giftings, my friends, my house and car and "stuff," my country, my new knees, living at the beach, God's continuing deliverance in me, my  peace, joy, and purpose.  These all from the immutable God who deigns to make me one of the most important things He has made.  He loves me.  I still am unaware, in my own finiteness, how much He has chosen to give His heart to me and all of His creation.  The cross is there to give us an idea.  So is the life of the God-man Who died there.  Calloused, sun-burned hands that reached into the dirt, spit on it and placed the concoction on the eyes of a blind man.  Sitting alone by a well at midday, He waited for the woman everyone else shunned to bring her water jars so that He could personally reveal Himself to her and let her know God loves her.  Mourners following the casket of a dead child find him restored to life because the heart of Jesus was moved by their sadness.  Empty wine bottles at a wedding spelled disaster for the party, but Jesus made a better vintage, saving the best wine for last.  This is what God is like.  Involved.  Bringing His life into ours...or, maybe better, bringing our life into His.

Unlike earthly things, my God does not change.  The sun, moon and stars, though set in their orbits, create shifting shadows that tell us something different depending upon the time of day or time of year.  The immutable God created things that change all around us.  But He is the constant at the center of it all.  He is my constant.  I can trust that He is always the same - yesterday, today and forever.  If He promises - He will come through.

So, today, I know that my God shall supply all of my needs through His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.  (Philippians 4:19)  I don't know how.  That is up to Him.  It will thrill us and surprise us because His ways always do.  I am looking up to the God in Whom I trust and making every effort to enjoy and embrace this suspension in mid-air, remembering that every good thing I have comes from Him.

Psalm 15 - A Whole Lot of Shakin' Goin' On

In asking the question concerning who will dwell with God, the response of David's song is those who are blameless and do what is right.  That seems to cut out most of us.  Even on my best day, I cannot with all my trying, be blameless.  David ends Psalm 15 with these words:  Whoever does these things will  never be shaken. 

We live in California and every once in a while we shake a bit.  On Easter Sunday two years ago our dining room chandelier had quite a swing for a few seconds.  The house shook hard.  But, thank God, it is still upright.  Not so much in Turkey two days ago.  People who occupied a hotel damaged by an earlier quake on October 23 were buried when it fell atop them, killing eleven guests.  It was shaken and it fell.

If you live long enough, something will shake your faith.  You will quake in your spiritual shoes.  The question is, "Will you still be standing when the trembling ceases?"  Earthquakes tend to blindside us.  The day is going well and then BOOM! our legs are unsteady and our lives are swaying back and forth with uncertain outcomes.  The difference seems to be how good the foundation is.  Swaying isn't permanent.  Falling to pieces is.  I have fallen to pieces before.  I have had to rebuild.  Better to hold on in the swaying, scary as it is, and trust you will be upright when the quake has passed.

How do we do that?  Hold on, that is.  When your life is in free-fall, no ground beneath your feet, how do you have faith that you will not be splattered on the canyon floor?  When you are moving downward so fast that it takes your breath away, how do you catch the branch that slows the fall?  Life is lived forward and understood backward, so I do have some answers I wish I had had before I missed the branch and was gravely wounded on the rocks beneath. 

#1.  God did not cause my free-fall.  But He will catch me if I trust Him.

#2.  Don't grab just any branch.  Some of them have thorns like you would not believe.  Getting those suckers out of your hands takes a long time and leaves scars.

#3.  Do not blame God for the consequences of your own bad responses. 

#4.  Close your eyes and trust at all cost. 

#5.  Do not be afraid.  Fear is a great driver of bad choices.  Ironic, too, because you can never make a better choice than God, just a more immediate one.

#6.  Call out for help!  Loudly!  To those who know you and love your God.  Do not quake alone, stoically thinking you can ride this one out all by yourself.  Some won't come to the rescue because it is too much trouble.  Don't stop looking for your own personal posse just because there are one or two who will not do the work with you.

#7.  Don't choose to medicate with what is not God.  That is a trap of the enemy every time.

#8.  Stay "in Christ."  The world is full of baloney. 

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him Who called us by His own glory and goodness.  Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises so that through them we may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

Make every effort to add to your faith, goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.....For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  (2 Peter 1)

Therefore my brothers and sisters, Stand Firm!  Let nothing move you!  Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
(1 Corinthians 15)

Remember when the disciples were on the sea late at night and a huge storm came up, pushing their boat up and down on the waves?  Remember where Jesus was?  Right there.  Asleep in the storm. 

"Don't you care that we are drowning?" they cried as they woke Him.

"Why are you afraid?"  He asked.

Because we are about to drown, of course.  We are about to lose our home, or our health, or our marriage, or our lives.  "About to" are words that scare us to death because we can think of every negative outcome known to man and in our panic, we try to save ourselves.  Jesus would ask us, "What are you afraid of?"

Remember, He is in the boat, and just because it seems He is unaware of your storm,  He is really so confident of your rescue that He might just be napping.  He speaks to storms, to earthquakes, to every scary situation in which you find yourself today.  So, do not be afraid.  Trust.  Do not go to every bad scenario and live there.  The thrilling thing about our God is that He will make a way you have not thought of.  Hold on!  There might be a whole lot of shaking going on, but it does not have to bring you down. 

Psalm 15 - Hell

Trembling seizes the ungodly:  "Who among us can dwell with a consuming fire?  Who among us can dwell with ever-burning flames?"  Isaiah 33

The other question.  David wants to know who can dwell with God.  Isaiah speaks for those who go their own way, devising evil or living in apathy.  What do we do with the thought of God being a "consuming fire"?  Moses tells the people before they enter the promised land that they should heed the commandments when they go in without him, because God is a jealous God - a consuming fire.  We are His and He is not only protective over us, but jealous of our turning away to other gods.  It is the ungodly, however, that God will finally deal with.  Things done in the dark - atrocities out in the open.  He sees them.  Our holy God will deal by burning them up.  Ash to ash in an ever-burning fire.  He is righteous and cannot look on that which is not holy without becoming enraged.

Don't judge God on this.  Anyone look at Penn State in the last couple of days?  What did you feel when you heard about the coach who has been molesting boys for years, his deeds hidden by those who chose football over doing the right - the legal - thing?  Anything rise up in you?  Think, then, about what our God sees and wonder why He has not already set the earth on fire.

What of those who listen to God?  Who, as David says, live honestly, acknowledge the truth in their hearts, don't slander with their tongues, don't harm their neighbor, who despise what God despises and love what God loves, who keep their word whatever the cost, and who don't take bribes or lend with interest.  What can those who have believed with their hearts expect one day?

Your eyes will see the King in His beauty.  You will see a vast land...Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a peaceful pasture...For the Majestic One, our Lord, will be there, a place of rivers and broad streams...For the Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King.  He will save us...none who dwell there will say, "I am sick."  The people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity.  Isaiah 33

It is not that those who will see Jesus will have lived a sinless life.  That is impossible.  The Christian life is really impossible to live in the flesh because it is powered by the Holy Spirit.  That is why we must first "acknowledge the truth in our hearts" before we can endeavor to do all the other things.  And my motive for being "good" is not to win points with God.  My motive is Him.  Pleasing Him.  That I cannot do on my own, either.  I must rely on "Christ in me, the hope of glory."  I will be right with God because Jesus made me so, not because I have power on my own to do good. 

Then He showed me the river of living water, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the broad street of the city.  He said, "I will give water as a gift to the thirsty from the spring of life."

Both the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" Anyone who hears should say, "Come!" And the one who is thirsty should come.  Whoever desires should take the living water as a gift.  Revelation 21 and 22.

Thirsty anyone?  Anyone.  Regardless of what you have been in the past.  If you have been on your way to the consuming fires of an eternal conflagration, you can still come.  Anyone.  These are some of the last words of the Bible.  The parting words of Jesus to John the Beloved.  Avoiding eternal fire is as simple as accepting a gift.  Of water.  Living water from the hand of the God of all creation.  Drink.  Taste.  See that the Lord is good.

Psalm 15 - An Ounce of Pretension

Lord, who may enter your Holy Tent?  Who may live on  your holy mountain?
Only those who are innocent and who do what is right. Such people speak the truth from their hearts and do not tell lies about others.  (vs. 1-2)

God wants honesty.  He hates pretense.  Take off the mask.  It makes Him sick to see you with it on your hypocritical face.  Who are you really?  He would rather see that.  Don't lie about yourself, first of all.  Are you living a lie right now?  Do you really think you are smart enough to fool God with your whining about being someone's victim?  Here's the thing.  He knows your heart.  And that is all He cares about.  You can actually be doing all the right things for the wrong reasons, and He will look the other way.  Even if you are not pathological about what you have to say about others, if you are lying about your own stuff, He is tapping His foot and waiting until you get real.

I recently tried to speak with a man who is throwing his life away because he wants to be with a woman who is not his wife.....and, of course, it is his wife's fault.  His heart has changed.  That is the problem.  And from it "flow the streams of life."  Guard it! 

What is this truth that the innocent speak?  Where does it come from? Especially when the Lord says: "The heart is deceitful above all things and cannot be tamed.  No one truly understands it." (Jeremiah 17) That sounds like we need a new heart, since the old one cannot be fixed.

  "I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord.  They will be my people and I will be their God because they will return to me with their whole heart."  God is the only one Who can heal the heart.  We want what we want.  We love our sin.   And we will make up any excuse possible to keep doing the thing we love no matter who it  hurts.

Sound awful?  It is.  And God is jealous over the center of our lives.  You and I both know that the heart tells the mind and body what to do.  It drives our lives.  If we live constantly doing what our hearts want, we bypass two-thirds of our own personal trinity.  Sometimes we actually need to think or understand.  All the time we need to listen to the One Who created us.  A heart that is deceived is the most dangerous thing on earth.  It is capable of the most heinous crimes known to man.  But it can be living in the most unlikely looking person.  However, God knows the heart and is interested in motive.  The why's of your life and actions.

 David strolled his rooftop in the months when the other kings went to war and kept looking at the woman across the way bathing.  Go get her.  Sleep with her.  Bored.  Alone.  He got his way.  Uh-oh.  She is pregnant.  Bring her husband home to sleep with her.  He is too honorable.  So have him killed at the front of the battle. And this, a "man after God's own heart."  Marry the widow.  No one will know.  David might have been able to pull it off except God knew...and God was broken-hearted.  Nathan, the prophet, comes before the king and declares:  "Thou art the man!"   The one who took a precious lamb and stole it.  David, on his knees now praying for the salvation of the baby.  And we all know the story of his most shameful actions.  But the moment his heart turned back, God forgave.  Consequences, yes.  The baby died.  Yes.  But for the sweet Bathsheba that the Lord also loved, her son, Solomon became the king after David....because, God sees hearts.  More important to Him than actions....no matter how bad.  If the heart is finally right, God notices and forgives.

"I will give them a desire to respect Me completely, and I will put inside of them a new way of thinking.  I will take out the stubborn heart of stone from their bodies and I will give them an obedient heart of flesh...And I will be their God and they will be my people."  (Ezekiel 11)

Isn't it amazing that the Lord is primarily concerned with our hearts?  At the same time it is horrifying because I know my motives are not always pure.  He sorts that out for me and I am beginning to know more and more when the things I do are all about me and not really about Him.  But my thinking is directly associated with what my heart is telling me and I am thankful He has given me a new one.  I am an "innocent" because He shared His innocence with me.  I will see Him one day because He provided me with a new heart.  It is a heart I give back every morning because I know it needs to be tamed and taught to love the way He does.  It is prone to straying - to wanting what it wants.  But I established a while back that I love Him more than what I want...sometimes only a little bit more...but that is enough to keep my heart in His hands.

Psalm 15 - Where Are You Going?

Who gets to live with God?  Isn't that the question all seekers ask?  Not just those who are Christians, but everyone wants to know who goes to eternal bliss.  We are especially cognizant of the afterlife when we are dangerously close to it.  Our brother-in-law died of pancreatic cancer two years ago in December.  His wife, my husband's sister, died suddenly ten days prior to Tom's death when she collapsed with a massive stroke.  While Bill ferried Tom back and forth from the hospital and the funeral home, Bill talked to Tom about his death.  Where did Tom think he would be?  Didn't know.  Hadn't given it much real thought.  Had heard that there is a land "in the sweet by 'n by" but did not believe in it.  Then he looked Bill in the eye and said: "But I'm about to find out, aren't I?" 

At Pati's funeral, Tom did not want any religious stuff read.  Didn't want a bunch of Bible verses.  They had not lived that way.  In his home later, though, he said he was ready to die because Pati was on the other side waiting for him.  Hmm.  Wondered then as I do now about what she would have said to him could she have reached him before he died.  Would she have said to him what the rich man wanted Lazarus to say to his brothers?

There was a rich man who always dressed in the finest clothes.  The jeweled rings on his over-fattened fingers bulged with the flesh surrounding them.  Costly nard dripped like treacle from his beard and hair as the scent of him filled the air wherever he walked.  Each evening he drank the best wine and ate the fattest lambs.  He lacked for nothing.

Lazarus was sick, covered with sores, the pus oozing from his body and crusting on his beard.  Left to beg, he was a pariah on the streets.  So, some townspeople picked up his blanket by its four corners and dumped Lazarus at the entrance to the rich man's door.  Dogs came to lick his sores as he lay there famished, wanting only the scraps that fell to the floor from the rich man's table.

Lazarus died there.  No one mourned him in an impressive funeral.  He was a filthy beggar.

The rich man died and with great fanfare was buried.

Lazarus was carried to Abraham's bosom.  The rich man found himself in the place of the dead, Hades.  In this lower part of Hades, the rich man experienced the torment of flaming fires that whipped around him and scorched his body.  He was thirsty and destitute.  When he looked up, the rich man could see Lazarus safely with Abraham and he cried out:  "Send him down here with some water because I am thirsty!" 

Abraham answered him.  "In your life you received good things and Lazarus bad things.  And besides, there is a great chasm fixed between you and us.  I cannot send Lazarus to you and you cannot come here."

"Send Lazarus then to my five brothers to warn them lest they come here to this place of torment also!  I'm begging you!"  Even in hell the rich man saw Lazarus as beneath him..as a servant to his whims.

"They have the Word of God," cried Abraham in reply.

"No, Abraham!  They won't listen to that.  But if someone came to them from the dead, then they would listen!"

"If they do not believe the words of the prophets, neither will they believe even if someone rises from the dead."  And Abraham was done talking.

If at death we go somewhere, shouldn't we be spending at least part of our lives in the quest for where we are going and what the journey is about?  Most of us put off the thought because in our minds death is a long way off.  Or, we don't think there is anything we can do about it anyway.  It is inevitable.  But Pati and Tom are somewhere at this moment, and one of them ran out of time before she was perhaps even able to consider it once more.

Psalm 15 - Home

I have spent the weekend thinking about the joys of living with Christ one day in His kingdom.  A Christian sister of mine died briefly following a horrific traffic accident that left her pinned under a semi for two hours.  In the ambulance and then through surgery and on life support to keep her body functioning, she was "somewhere else."  Her visions of heaven and our Christ took my breath away.  He is real.  Our home awaits.  And it is far beyond what mere words can describe.  In tears, she spoke of having to leave His presence to come thudding back into her own shattered body once more.  But, of course, she is different.  Her heart left in another realm where her Lord abides.  She is homesick.

O Lord, who may abide in Your tent?  Who may dwell on Your holy hill?    Psalm 15:1

David's song begins with two questions.  Christ came to give us the answer. 

"Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.  In My Father's house are many dwelling places.  If it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you."

Thomas said to Him,  "Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?"

Jesus said to him, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.  No one comes to the Father but through Me."  (John 14)

How do we get to the dwelling place of God?  Through Jesus. No other way.  It is a love gift from God to  man.  We open our hands to receive it or walk away.  It may seem narrow, but that view is false.  Open to everyone who will come.  Free and plentiful as ocean water or the air we breathe.  Ubiquitous, His grace is everywhere available.  The confining thing about it is that it gives no other options.  Because there is no need for other options.  There is no other proffered redemption by the gods worshipped on this earth that can in any way match the grace of God.  He wants us to live with Him for all eternity and we don't need 70 virgins to draw us in or an early morning mantra to numb the pain of our lives.  We have a Father.  And He has a home.  And we are going to live there because He calls us there through His Son.

Our Father has a throne room where we can go in and out.  Before Christ, God visited His people once a year in a ball of glorious light in the traveling tabernacle and then in the temple Solomon built for His presence.  Only the high priest could go into the holy of holies once a year and he had to go through many cleansing exercises before he was allowed entrance into the presence of God.  That holy place was separated from the most holy place by a very thick veil.  That temple veil tore in two from top to bottom at the death of Christ allowing us access to the holy of holies and thus to God Himself. 

Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to hope us at the proper time. (Hebrews 4)

We do not have to wait for heaven to live in God's holy dwelling or to climb to the holy hill.  Physically we are stuck for now in this fleshly tent, but we all know we are made for more.  We all yearn for the knowledge of our significance, the place of our origin, and the eventual abode of that which is really us.  Our souls - spirits.  While we long for the other home, the one where Jesus waits and prepares a place for us eternally, we can enjoy the first fruits of our salvation here.  We were made for relationship with Him now...not just at some future date.  He is surely with us and longs for conversation and fellowship with His children.  So come with confidence as beloved children into the "office" of your Father and be loved.

Psalm 14 - Deer in the headlights

There is a generation that curses its father and does not bless its mother.
There is a generation that is pure in its own eyes yet is not washed from its own excrement.
There is a generation - how haughty its eyes and pretentious its looks.
There is a generation whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives, devouring the oppressed from the land and the needy from mankind.   (Proverbs 30: 11-14)

A generation without a heart.  Clambering for their own rights.  Devouring the poor and wretched.  These people are animals seeking what is good only for themselves.  These are the people David is talking about.  And they are not just in Darfur or Somalia.  They are our neighbors and acquaintances.  Without natural affection.  Narcissistic and vacuous. I just read the newspaper this morning.  Not much good news there because a generation has some big problems.  A mass murderer's words appear across the headlines: "I know what I did."

What they have forgotten is that God sees.  He saw Saddam Hussein beneath the manhole cover and Muammar Gaddafi in his drainage pipe.  Retribution might not be as swift as we want, but our God is the defender of the afflicted. Terror for terror is what David is requesting:

Then they will be filled with terror, for God is with those who do what is right.  You sinners upset the plans of the poor, but the Lord will protect them. (vs. 5-6)

Why does God allow such an evil generation to exist in the first place?  He could annihilate it from the planet swiftly.  Ironically, it is the people most upset by the injustices of the world that are most critical of the God of the Bible when He actually does strike down the wicked.  Can't have it both ways.  We have choices.  I know I cannot solve this age-old issue in this short space, but the comfort of these verses and of the record of God's dealing with evil throughout time is that He always has a future grace for those experiencing current affliction.  He is our champion. 

I will say to my Lord, "My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."
He Himself will deliver you from the hunter's net, from the destructive plague.
He will cover you with His feathers; you will take refuge under His wings.  Psalm 91

Prey, as a rule, is at the mercy of the predator.  Those whose teeth are swords and devour the weak.  With pride, they think themselves to be above reproach when they stink of their own excrement.  What must God think if even we know them to be vile?  He will not allow it forever. He will stomp His foot and declare that He has had enough.  He sees our position and calls to us to come running like little chicks under His mighty wing for protection.  Scurry there.  For our enemy is not always flesh and blood, but he is surely just as real and he is the energy that drives the generation of predators.  His plans are to steal, kill and destroy us (John 10).  On the other hand, our God wants us to have life and to have it in abundance. (John 10) 

So, don't go out there fighting the enemy in your own strength.  Deer don't march out of hiding to tell the hunter off.  Unprotected, warring our own way with our puny weapons, we will surely lose.  Take out your bow and arrow from the shelter of a feathery haven and then shoot with confidence, for the Lord is your refuge.

Psalm 14 - Roaches and Pigs

Had my weekly young women's Bible study last night.  Talked about walking in the light from Romans 13.  In John 1, the apostle says that Jesus came to "tabernacle" in us.  It is a significant word because it refers to the tabernacle that was set up in the wilderness in which God dwelt among His people as a ball of light in the holy of holies.  Now His presence is dwelling in our bodies, the temples of God.  So He has made our hearts His holy of holies and our lives lights.  So, Paul says in Romans, we should live as children of the light, not children of the dark.  Live so that at any time the flashlight of man and God can shine on us and we won't be ashamed.  Roaches and rodents who feed off things in the dark are scattered when the lights come on.  Our lives should shine out to dispel the darkness instead of leaving the droppings of sin around after we have done what we do in the dark.

But, as David points out in verses 3-4, some have "turned aside." 

They have all turned aside.  Together they have become corrupt.  There is no one who does good.  Not even one.  Have they no knowledge, all the evil doers who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the name of the Lord?

I was interested in the meaning of turn aside.  The Hebrew word is suwr.  To turn away, to desert, to quit, to keep far away from, or to stop.  You have been going one way and decide to suwr.  In this case, you have been enticed to follow other gods as you turn away from following after Yahweh.  You have turned off the light and gone back into the darkness.  How is that possible?

Remember in Ezekiel when the Lord showed him the hole in the wall and the horrible things the elders were doing in the dark?  God explained that was the reason He had left the tabernacle.  He was no longer in the building with them.  It is, to me, like when you snuff out a candle.  Darkness overcomes the light.  What the ones overcome by the darkness again seem to lack is "knowledge."  Of what?  Yada is the word.  Acknowledge. Be aware of.  Comprehend.  Consider.  Discern.  To know relationally.  In other words, these people cannot empathize.  They don't "get it."  Others are simply prey for them.  Using religion, these evil doers disguise themselves as "children of light" in order to "eat up" the children of God.

At first blush, I would say I don't know anyone like that.  They would seem so obvious.  I know some people covered in pain who have, as Christians, done some pretty rough things.  Have been one of those myself.  But a person who rationally decides to masquerade in order to devour.  Whew!  That is really evil.  But then I know of wives whose husbands have intentionally lied to cover up their dalliances and in so doing have made their wives feel like they are crazy for suspecting some wrongdoing.  Men in the church who have abused children pretending to be a good Christian.  Women who kill each other with words so vicious they might as well have used a knife.  "Chaff among the wheat," they destroy from the inside like a cancer undetected until it has devoured its host.

The apostle Peter speaks about them in 2 Peter 2:

These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm.  For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved.  For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error...For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge (epignosis - the act of coming to full knowledge of something) of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse than the first....What the true proverb says happened to them:  "The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire."

Eh-hem.  That is cringe-worthy.  We get all cleaned up and walk the walk for a while then are enticed by some passion that enslaves us to go back to the "dark side."  It is hard to watch....and do.  Tricked by our own selfishness or by what looks to be a greater enlightenment, we leave our fresh-washed state, having barely escaped the claws of our former addictions and attachments, only to be led back to the pig pen again.  Of course that state is worse than the first, because we now know what it is like to be clean.  And, we know how much face down time that took.  The energy for pursuing that kind of "brightness" is diminished by shame and the fog of the new slavery.  Once a shining star, filled with the tabernacling Christ, we are creeping in the darkness pooping sin and thinking no one sees the mess. 

We could do something, though.  We could call upon the name of the Lord.  David's question:  Don't they know they could call upon the name of the Lord?  They have quit Him.  But they could call out His name from their new sty and He would answer.  Oh, the hubris that keeps us from the safety of refuge beneath His wings.  And the willfulness that defies His mercies with lives we think better lived our way.

Light should dispel the darkness and expose the works of the "night."  Light should not be engulfed in the shadows again.  If it is our passions that draw us back to the hell we used to occupy, then we are far short of understanding the gift of the tabernacle our hearts have become.  If something on this earth can captivate our souls' imaginations to such a degree that we would throw away Christ, then the gift of grace for which He died is taken with us to the pit we jump into and besmirched, misused and defiled.  We have become eaten up with our own rebellion and taken the temple of God with us into misery.

Where shall I go from Your Spirit?  Or where shall I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend to heaven,  You are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol,  You are there!
If I say "Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light about me be night,"
Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as day,
For darkness is as light to You.
Search me, Oh God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
See if there is any wicked way in me.
And lead me in the everlasting way.
Psalm 139.

Psalm 14 - Private Parts

Ever think about what the Lord must see as He surveys the earth?  I sometimes wonder why He lets it all keep spinning.  Aside from the heinous acts of violence which are obvious to us all, there are the hearts, black with hate, regret, resentment, lust, and every perversion.  These are not so clearly seen by the naked eye of man. 

The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.  (vs. 2)

What is it that God wants us to understand?  The Hebrew word here is sakal.  To be prudent, to act with insight, to teach, to consider, to ponder, or to act with devotion. Sounds like He wants us to know how to live.  Understanding is active and in this verse it is wrapped up in seeking God.  If one has been foolish enough to reject Him and His wisdom, that life will reflect it.  He has promised that if we seek Him we will find Him.  There are just too few hours in a day for us to be face down, I guess.

The story in Ezekiel 8 shows us a glimpse of what God sees that we do not.  Ezekiel was sitting in his house with the elders of Judah, the righteous men of his day.  In the midst of their conversation, God fell on him there.  A brilliant being that looked like a man, half glowing, half burning, stretched out his hand and grabbed Ezekiel by a lock of hair and suspended him between heaven and earth to show him a vision of the temple in Jerusalem.  God had not dwelt there for many years because He could not abide what was happening in His sanctuary.  In the vision, Ezekiel was shown the idols that had sprung up in the Temple.  "Look, Ezekiel, at what the children of Israel are doing in the temple that keeps me away from it.  But you will see greater sins than these."

The being then brought Ezekiel to the entrance to the court and showed him a hole in the wall there where he told Ezekiel to dig through.  Ezekiel found an entrance on the other side and the glowing being told him to enter. He was told to go in and see what evil the elders were committing there.  What Ezekiel saw stunned him.  The room was literally filled with likenesses of every imaginable detestable idol carved on the walls.  And standing in front of them were the seventy elders of the house of Israel.  The men were burning the holy incense to the forms of creeping things and vile idols. 

The being said:  "Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each man in the room with his carved images?  For they say, 'The Lord does not see us.' "

Sitting in his living room with the mucky-mucks of the church, listening to their pontifications about God and religion, Ezekiel had no idea what their private lives were like.  God had left the building long before and showed Ezekiel why.  He sees what we do in the dark.  He knows what we look at.  What we think.  What we really worship. 

This makes me want to put my face to my carpet and repent because I know that I am not now nor have I been in the past all He deserves me to be.  I need a savior.  Had someone peered into the darkness of my idolatry I would have been scorned and lost forever.  But.....

He took our suffering on Himself and felt our pain for us.  We saw His suffering and thought God was punishing Him.  But He was wounded for the wrong we did; He was crushed for the evil we did.  The punishment, which made us well again, was given to Him and we are healed because of His wounds. Isaiah 53.

What does God see when He looks at me?  Perfection?  Oh, no!  Not in my own self.  But He does see one made whole by His Son.  That death and resurrection allows me to walk away from idols, from burning the holy incense of my praise before something detestable to God.  I am free to call out to Him.  To seek Him.  To run from the dark cave of addictions, agreements and generational curses and careen into the throne of God, desperate to know Him fully.  For He loves me.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord.  "Plans for welfare and not calamity to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.  And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.  And I will be found by you," declares the Lord.