PSALM 67- They Should Scratch Their Heads

God blesses us so that all the ends of the earth may revere Him.   (Verse 7)

You must listen to the voice of the Lord, your God, and diligently obey His commands, then the Lord, your God, will make you greater than any nation on earth.  Obey the Lord so that all these blessings will come your way.
You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.
Your children, crops, herds will be blessed.
Your basket and your kitchen will be blessed.
You will be blessed when you come in and when you go out.
The Lord will help you defeat your enemies.
The Lord will bless you with full barns.
He will bless everything you do.
He will bless the land He gives to you.
The Lord will make His people holy.
But you must do what He wants you to do.  Then everyone on earth will see that you are the Lord's people, and they will fear you.
The Lord will make you rich with children, animals and crops.
The Lord will open up His heavenly storehouse so that the skies send rain at the right time.
He will bless everything you do.
You will lend to other nations, but you won't need to borrow.
The Lord will make you the head and not the tail.
You will be on the top and not the bottom.
But you must obey and not follow after other gods.
Deuteronomy 28

Our lives should run counter intuitive to the world.  When things are bad, we should be see good.  When life makes lemons, we should be sipping heavenly wine.  If we sit in the middle of a dead economy, we should be trusting for provision, smiling in the knowledge that we know our God.  If we are ill, dying, even, we are not without hope.  If we are hated, we don't hate in return.  We give when it doesn't make sense to share.  God's children bless when we are cursed.  We touch the leper, help the widow, take in the orphan and visit those in prison.  Joy should be our hallmark.  Faith pervade our lives.  Peace should be our gift.  Favor clothe us.  The blessings of our God in our lives are promised us when we listen to Him and obey. 

I know these verses in Deuteronomy sound legalistic to some.  If you do everything right, then you will get God's blessings.  I don't think that is what He is saying.  It's a matter of listening to Him.  That is what the word obey means in the Hebrew.  Literally:  listen to the voice of.   That makes perfect sense.  God knows everything.  If we want to live in such a way that we are blessed, we have to be in relationship with the Blesser.  He is doing all He can to get us blessed!  The Father knows what it takes for us to have a life here on earth that transcends the ordinary.  Why, then, would we balk at His words and do otherwise than what He asks?  Again with the heart.  Will you listen to the One Who can bring great blessing in your life, knowing His love for you is never-ending and His plans for you include great favor?  Or, in your hubris, will you thumb your nose at Him so you can say you control your own destiny?  That is our choice.  One way brings blessing and relationship with the Lord of all.  The other?  Less than....

Our lives should really be somewhat inexplicable.  But for God, we should be like everyone else.  Gain for loss.  Hope for despair.  The presence of Abba in our lives and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our jars of clay should make those without Him scratch their heads.  The closer we are to Him, the more aware we are of the voice of the Good Shepherd, the more our lives take on the aroma of Christ.  Blessed are we in everything by the grace of our Father.
 

PSALM 67 - Do You Really Need Bigger Barns?

The land has given its crops.  God, our God, blesses us.  (Verse 6)

Fig trees may not grow figs, and there may be no grapes on the vines.  There may be no olives growing and no food growing in the fields.  There may be no sheep in the pens and no cattle in the barns.  But I will still be glad in the Lord.  I will rejoice in God my Savior.  The Lord God is my strength.  He makes me like a deer that does not stumble so I can walk on steep mountains.
Habakkuk 3

Every day I walk through my house and thank God I live in it.  When I open my refrigerator and see food there, I am truly thankful.  My car is ten years old and still running.  I don't take that for granted.  I am sixty-four years old and still running, too.  That is miraculous.  God, my God, blesses me.  My children are healthy, beautiful and productive, and they love their Father.   No one  has more amazing grandsons than I.  Though my country is in the throes of disheartening change, I still live in the best nation on earth.  I am so very thankful for God's blessings!

But I ask myself the question:  Is my love for God tied up in what I have?  Do I measure His pleasure with me based on whether this year I had a bumper crop of blessing?  I took a walk on the beach to think about this. To pray over what my Father wanted me to learn from this part of the psalm.  Here is what He showed me.  Jesus.

Born in a barn to a very young girl who had traveled to Bethlehem on the back of a donkey.  No room for Him.  He was placed next to the other lambs that night.  Wealth certainly didn't define his childhood or early adult life though it seems He had enough.  The Son of God learned a simple trade, lived in a small one-horse town from which "nothing good" sprouts, and started His itinerant ministry by walking around asking random people to follow Him.  Never did Jesus own a home or even have a garden from which to glean a good crop of wheat.  The Christ wandered from place to place dependent upon the benevolence of God as provided through the people He met.  Death was His destiny.  Outside of the city walls, with criminals, bleeding instead of blessing as the Messiah was supposed to do.  No kingly coronation at which He mounted the temple steps and took over Rome.  Not even a tomb in which to put the dead body of God.  They borrowed one. Yet.....yet....

Five loaves and two fish feed over five thousand people.  Water in ceremonial washing jars becomes the best wine at a wedding.  A boat cast about in treacherous seas carries God asleep in the bow.  Daunted disciples awaken Him only to see Jesus calm the water and speak to their fears.  A widow has lost her only son.  Too late for doctors, but not too late for God.  Ten lepers languish outside the gates of the city picking their sores and cowering.  Money cannot fix them.  Doctors will not touch them.  Jesus does not call an ambulance but calls on His Father.  A woman has been bleeding for so many years she's lost count.  Spent all her blessed money on doctors and still she hemorrhages.  Just a touch of His robe and all she has hoped for is hers...and more.  Peter cannot pay his taxes.  Christ doesn't reach into His back pocket, because it's filled with air.  Instead He knows a fish, out there close to shore, who has swallowed just enough for this one who follows the Messiah.  Jesus is glorious but poor.  His account at Wells Fargo has little in it and Judas Iscariot has pilfered much of that.  God didn't decided to come to earth as abundantly ostentatious.  The Father loves the Son as He loves Himself.  They are One.  Why would He come to earth to look so "unblessed?"  Death was His destiny.  Looked like it couldn't get worse for the promised Messiah.  But the Father always has a plan.  The best crops in the world could not buy a resurrected King.  There was not enough bounty to purchase an emptied tomb and a Spirit let loose upon the world.  Rich.  Rich is our God.  Sovereign and benevolent.  Yahweh is enough!

Jesus had the right to tell us not to worry about what we will eat or what we will wear.   Our Father knows what we have need of.  That is how the Son lived before us.  Without fear of lack of provision and without attachment to the stuff we think makes us blessed.  Taxes, meals, madness and death -- Jesus came to show us our God is more than enough.  He is our blessing.  Stuff comes and goes.  Our God remains forever.  It's from God all blessings flow. 

That is why Habakkuk finally says, it doesn't matter if it looks like it's all falling apart.  If I know God is still sovereign over my history and the larger scope of worldwide justice, I can rejoice.  Because....I am glad not in the bigger barns I build, but I am happy in the Lord Who is my provision and my strength.
 

PSALM 67 - The Subverted Nation

Let the nations rejoice and shout for joy, for You judge the peoples with fairness and lead the nations on earth.   (verse 4)

Then I saw anther angel flying directly overhead with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people.  And he said with a loud voice:  "Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come, and worship Him Who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water."  Revelation 14

Bad news.  Every day.  All day.  I just read about a bombing in Iraq.  Thirty people going about their day were blown up in an instant.  Aids is on the rise in young males between the ages of thirteen and twenty-four.  War is everywhere.  The holocaust that kills the children in our wombs continues.  Chaos reigns in weather beaten islands and on our own east coast.  Tribal warfare is forcing millions from their homes on the other side of our globe.  We eat and drink too much, fattening our bodies and numbing our wills.  Darkness ever endeavoring to squeeze out the light.  And God is watching it all, waiting for the time of His judgment.  Giving us time to get it right before the Lamb's foot touches earth and He deals.

Even those who don't believe He made heaven and earth will, on that day, have to bow down.  It turns out He did, and they will be without answer.  Crying out over even those people right now is the voice of the Lamb yearning for those of every tribe and nation to know Him.  To see the One Who created streams and oceans, heaven and earth, and acknowledge the God of it all.  Good news!  Here is the gospel:  The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love...He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities....for He knows our frame.  He remembers we are dust.  Psalm 103

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him.  He came to His own, but His own did not receive Him.  But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.  (John 1)  Let the nations rejoice!  Christ came to save us all.  Everyone.  God stepped to earth in the flesh and walked among the flesh He framed.  Mingled glory with dust on the soil of the nations.  Let God-blood drop onto the dirt of His creation so a kingdom not of this world could arise, phoenix-like, from the sacrifice.  One nation drawn from people of every language and tribe.  Our raison d'etre?  Him.  The Light of heaven.   The joy of the whole earth.  The King of kings.  Lord of lords.  The Alpha and Omega.  The revelation of our Father's plan through the ages, from the beginning, to bring us into His family by the sacrifice of His Son so all would be one in Him.  No Turks, Arabs, or Europeans - just family.  One nation over which our God is the benevolent sovereign.

Though the nations don't acknowledge Yahweh yet, that doesn't mean He isn't in control.  From before the before,  I AM was and is the Sovereign Lord.  Morsi and Mubarak, Obama and Chavez, Castro and Cameron, all are subject to His will.   The nations, a drop in the bucket (Isaiah 40) to the One Who is over all.  Lest we rejoice in thinking we run the world or fear because we don't, make no mistake, the Sovereign Judge is watching His plan play out.  Within those nations is a different one, drawn together with a common bloodline, created for God's pleasure and protected by His hand.  The salt of the earth.  The light of the world.  And, when on the day we are taken by our Savior into the sky, the reason for God's benevolent hesitation will be swept away.  Judgement will be swift and severe for those Who refuse Him now.  Look at the world and honestly aver He doesn't have the right to punish our impunity.  I will escape only because I know Him, not because I am good enough.  That is the universal offer to every person walking the earth today.  Open-handed, Jesus offers a way out of the hell that will burn here and eternally.  What a magnificent offer.  His life for mine.  My guilt removed.  My eternity secured.  Refusing the death of Jesus is accepting the wrath of God.  Already atoned for is my guilt.  Choosing to reject God's gift to the nations makes men and women responsible for their own guilt - guilt that will be judged.  Oh, fear God and give Him glory, for His judgement is coming, but His grace is here.

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him Who called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.   I Peter 2
 

PSALM 67 - Highway Signs

...that Your way may be known on the earth, Your saving power among all nations.  Let the peoples praise you, O God.  Let all the peoples praise you!   (Verses 2-3)

He is your Teacher.  He will not continue to hide from you, but you will see your Teacher with your own eyes.  If you go the wrong way -- to the right or to the left -- you will hear a voice from behind you saying, "This is the right way.  You should go this way."  Isaiah 30

"I am the Way, the Truth and the Life."  Jesus  (John 14)

I was young.  That is my excuse every time I am reminded of the story of getting lost on my way home from school.  Married only a few months, I was driving our hot little red Mustang Mach 1 to Denton, Texas, to finish my last year of college.  I must admit I still am easily turned around.  GPS has saved my day on many occasions.  But this particular day I turned in the completely opposite direction from home and blasted down the highway going the wrong way.  Now you might ask why I didn't think sooner about the passing landscape not being the same, but it's Texas.  Prairie is prairie to me.  I was supposed to be heading toward Grapevine, so imagine my surprise when an hour into my drive I was in McKinney.  Hmm.  That didn't sound right.  My awakening a bit too late.  So, I turned my horse around and went galloping back toward Grapevine, now over an hour late for home.  Two steps forward and three steps back.  Argh!

Bill was worried.  Wife and car disappeared over the horizon hours before and he was ready for dinner.  Since there were no cell phones way back then, my young husband just waited.  When I pulled into the parking lot of our apartments, I was embarrassed.  I toyed with the idea of not telling Bill how stupid I'd been.  He would've believed I had to stay late for class.  Going the wrong way, even when the landscape should've been an obvious giveaway, is just not smart.

I wish I could say I'd never gone awry in my spiritual life.  Alas, I cannot.  Barreled down life in the completely opposite direction just to see what was the other way.  Where this highway takes me. Warning signs posted everywhere.  Dead end street.  Warning: No Shoulder Ahead.  Construction zone.  I have a recurring dream that I drive right into the ocean.  Why would we go east when we should go west?  Why don't we stop for the map or ask the gas station attendant for directions?  Maybe there are a plethora reasons, but they all come back to this.  We have lost our way.  Or in our pride we take a way we know is dangerous -- the way that seems right to us even though it is wrong.  Then, like Thelma and Louise, we plunge over a cliff rather than turn around and face the music.

The Way has manifested for us, though.  We have seen our Teacher.  He is not hiding.  His pupils know His voice.  When He says, "No, not that way," we stop and listen.  I have argued before with my Teacher.  Trotted on down the path I was on.  Not a good idea.  He knows my way, too.  My Map for the future and the present belongs to the One who drew it.  Very silly of me to go forward without asking for directions.  Then I get lost and have to turn around, recover the lost time, deal with the shame of my ignorance and do the two steps forward thing until I am safely on the correct road again.  Some paths we Christians already know are right.  There is no guessing.  Some days, though, we need personal guidance for whether we turn left or right.  Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit as a guide. Christ tells the Holy Spirit what to tell us.  But when the Spirit of Truth comes, He will lead you into all truth.  He will not speak His own words, but He will speak only what He hears....He will take what I say and tell it to you.  John 16

This roadmap is available to everyone in every nation.  Our God wants His saving power--His Way--
to be known everywhere so even nations won't stumble around fumbling for the path.  To live one's entire life going nowhere is the saddest life of all.  We who know our Father have our steps ordered by Him in great purpose even if we are not kings and presidents, great singers or poets, or even when the mundane seems to overpower the marvelous.  That the Spirit of God lives in us to tell us the personal will of the Way, the Truth and the Life should thrill our every waking moment and cause us to listen with the utmost care to the whispers of Jesus to our path.

PSALM 67 - Making His Face Shine

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face to shine upon us.  (vs. 1)

The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you.
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.  Numbers 6

I'm thinking this morning that nothing should really matter to me as much as making my Father proud of me.  Happy He has adopted me into His family.  Of course I know I won't ever perfectly navigate all that Abba would like, but I'm certain He dreamed a dream for me before I ever manifested on August 3, 1948, round, red and screaming.  I was created with purpose, designed to play my part in the scheme of things that make up God's larger plan.  Born to earthly parents, yet belonging to my Father all along.  They were imperfect in their parenting, as I have been, but God's eye was on me from the moment I was conceived.  He knew I was His even then...and before.  (Psalm 139)

It's distressing to think there are children of God who think the way to please Him is to just try to be better than the rest.  Do all the right things, but maybe for the wrong reasons.  Like Jauver in Les Miserables, being right trumps mercy.  If that is also the way we see our relationship with God, we live far beneath God's sweet design of fellowship with Christ.  For it seems when we have no grace for ourselves, we often have little for anyone else either.  After all, we are working so hard for God's approval and they think they can slide by on grace.  And so the heart gets hard.  Being a Christian really is too difficult if you are trying your best to make God smile because you are just so darn good.

So what does make His face shine on us?  For certainly we are to be obedient.  We don't just take God's grace and smear it about in order to cover our profligacy.  Motive.  That's what Abba eyes.  Why are we doing what we do?  If the catalyst for our obedience is anything less than love for our Father and gratitude for His amazing grace, we stumble down a very hard road.  It is a trickier journey, though.  Rules are easier to follow than the path of which we cannot be sure.  Walking hand in hand with an untamed and powerful Father Who might ask us to allow Him to take us....well, anywhere.  Our feet are not so sure in relationship as in rules.  One is active, fluid and challenging.  The other is rote, safe and literally impossible.  That is why we need our God to be gracious to us. We must have His mercy and understand the love behind it.  Know that no matter how good we look to the outside world, if we are white-washed caskets filled with dead men's bones, we have missed the entire lovely plan of God.  He wants children, not robots.

I know as a mom what makes me smile.  Seeing my children when they first wake up in the morning because I missed them all night.  Knowing they want to spend time with me talking and walking.  Hearing them tell me what a great mom I am (even when I fall so short).  Having the confidence that when I ask them to do something, I can count it done.  I don't have to keep checking up on them to see if they got to that thing yet.  Observing their contentment.  Watching them set their own good boundaries.  Joying in their hearts when they reach out to others who hurt.  Hearing their needs, hopes, desires and dreams.  Crying when they cry.  Laughing when they laugh.  Praying for blessing and direction in their lives.  When they walk into a room, whether I have seen them recently or they just happen back to the kitchen from the living room, I want to burst at the wonder of their beauty, intelligence and depth.  I love my children more than I could ever, ever really say.  And that is how my God loves me.

PSALM 66 - Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen

I will come into Your house with burnt offerings.  I will perform my vows to You, that which my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in trouble.....

Come and hear, all who fear God, and I will tell what He has done for my soul.  I cried to Him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue.  If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.  But truly God has listened.  He has attended to the voice of my prayer.

Blessed be God because He has not rejected my prayer or removed His steadfast love from me.
(Verses 13-14;16-2)

When I was in trouble.  Prayers we pray when we are in the foxhole.  Telling God we will do anything He wants if He just gets us out of the mess we are in.  Perhaps in testing the genuineness of our faith, God also sometimes tests the veracity of our promises to Him.  What we say with our mouths that we will do if He will only come through for us.  Nothing like trouble to bring us to our knees.  But what of our devotion to the God who then rescues us and sets things straight again.

Every time I think of us crying out to the Father when we are in trouble, I see Him looking down on the world and its masses of people in various nations, believing different things about Him, going about their customs and business, unaware of His glance.  Languages of every kind fill the air of the universe -- some loud, some small -- as voices run into each other, babbling, yelling, crying, extolling or cursing.  Cacophony.  Warring nations and tribes pursue each other.  It is night one place and day in another.  People are crowded together so closely it's hard to see the individual....or someone is alone in the dark and afraid.  Angry mobs wave flags of rebellion.  A group of Christians gather in a small house church with the lights off as they quietly read the Bible and pray.  Women are bearing children.  People are dying.  Rats race through filthy streets where beggars live and millionaires take a dip in their heated rooftop pools.  All going on at once.  Loud and colorful.  Millions and millions of people living out the drama of their lives.  How on earth does God hear me when I call for help?  My one little voice ringing out in the din of chaos that is the world?

When my babies were little, I knew which cry in the nursery belonged to my child.  I was familiar with it.  So our Father knows our cry.  Responds to it with His heart.  Above the fray, our voices are special to Him.  He hears it!  Our prayer of need.  Because He loves us, He will not reject us in our trouble.  I am too finite to understand His amazing reach.  To fathom how the Spirit still hovers over the face of the waters that threaten to engulf me.  But I know He hears because my God has rescued me out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, has set my foot upon a Rock and put a new song in my mouth.  A song of praise to Him!  I can't hide from Him.  Get far enough away even in my own rebellion that He will not hear me when I am done with sin, caught in the web of the enemy, and, from the foxhole of fear, cry: "Abba!  Jesus!" 

Blessed be God who heard my prayer!  Dance little feet!  Clap happy hands!  Shout to the Awesome One!  Then live a life of reciprocating love to the Father Who sees our need, hears our cry and works His wonders on our behalf!  He sees not only our need but also our thankful, willing hearts.  If we have only said with our mouths that we will praise Him when we become untangled and set free, but don't live it out once the ground is solid again, we hurt the heart of the Father Who ever watches over our lives.  Thumb our noses at His mercy.  Forget how precious is His watch care over our little lives in this twisted, complicated world.  May we look up at Him looking down to us and smile, for we have an Abba Who hears our cries.

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayer.  1 Peter 3

 

PSALM 66 - Polishing The Stars

Bless our God, O peoples!  Let the sound of His praise be heard, Who has kept our souls among the living and has not let our feet slip.  For You, O God, have tested us. You have tried us as silver is tried.  You brought us into the net.  You laid a crushing burden on our backs.  You let men ride over our heads.  We went through fire and through water, yet You have brought us out to a place of abundance.    (Verses 8-12)

Today is Thanksgiving, 2012.  And I can say with the psalmist who penned this paean to my God, I am thankful that He has kept my soul among the living and my feet from slipping off the edge!  I know there are many whose year has been fraught with great struggle.  They have felt tested and tried, weighed down by financial burdens, failing health or the untimely death of loved ones.  Faith has been, like silver, refined in a fire.  God's testing can still be a thing for which we are thankful today.  The refining of our character as He endeavors to make us more like Him -- lighting up the darkness.  Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world......Philippians 2. 

Polished silver, I think.  That is what He is after.  This world our proving ground...and His.  I remember one day a few years ago when I was in great distress and on my face before God, crying out for His help and discernment.  A ray of light came pouring through a crack in the curtains of the room as the sun rose more fully in the sky.  I was surprised by the warmth of it.  This is what is happening in you.  I heard it clearly.  What I saw during that time of prayer was the inner room of my temple sanctuary...my heart.  It was lighted for sure, but  the corners were dim. I noticed cobwebs there and a need for some dusting.  My sanctuary needed to be exposed to enough light that it could be thoroughly cleaned.  I understood this immediately.  An immaculate room in which my God can dwell.  Full of light.  All the drapes opened on a place where the Spirit of God lives fully exposed.  Cleaning house.  I wouldn't have looked at the disarray had I not gone through some fire and water that made me seek God for more of Him.

Everyone goes through stuff.  Christians are not exempt from a bad year or two.  What we have is the assurance that what happens is not useless grinding out of our lives here on earth, but purposeful to us and to the Lord.  The whole bitter or better scenario is really true for us.  Trials can actually be a gift.  An opportunity to work together with God to get through the seemingly impossible.  God does His amazing deeds, we see them, and we are better able to trust the next time (and there probably will be a next time) we are put through the smelting process.  Peter challenged us to rejoice over the various trials that have tested the genuineness of our faith because that faith is more precious than gold, which is also tested by fire.  I would be very thankful for a heap of gold today!  Much more so should I applaud the God of heaven for the sparkling faith He is creating in the tabernacle of my heart in which He now dwells.

I know the heat of refinement hurts.  I have been in the smelting process before and I will again.  But I am thankful my God wants to purify and prepare me for life in this twisted world.  Thankful that He doesn't let me go my own way and end up destroyed.  Thankful He let me live out His will for me this year without my foot slipping.  My abundance may not be in massive wealth, but I have flowing into my life gifts unfathomable from the throne of God, imperishable, never-ending, rare and profound.  I am the apple of His eye, His Bride, the Beloved of my God, a little sheep, a mighty princess warrior, a daughter of the Most High God, a joint heir with the Lord Jesus Christ and my
Father's little girl.  Imperfect, but highly esteemed....deeply loved.  My deepening relationship with Christ brings understanding of things into which even the angels long to look. 

If today is rough, remember the goal is to bring us out into abundance.  We can be thankful that our God never leaves us melting and smelting forever.  We will shine again....brighter and brighter..until we forever reflect the brilliance of the Bright and Morning Star.
 

PSALM 66 - Five A.M. Theology

Come and see what God has done.  He is awesome in His deeds toward the children of man.  He turned the sea into dry land. They passed through the river on foot.  There did we rejoice in Him, Who rules by His might forever, Whose eyes keep watch on the nations --let not the rebellious exalt themselves.    (Verses 5-7)

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all  your might.  And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.  You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up."   Jahweh.      Deuteronomy 6

Vanessa and I used to get up very early in the morning and run together before school.  High school was a struggle for her, as it is for most kids.  She is a thinker.  Has to get things worked out in her mind in order for them to transfer effectively to her heart.  Many questions about life and faith bothered Vanessa, and I often closed my closet door and prayed on my face for her heart and her understanding of God's love for her.  Running together was the time we talked about all of this.  Five-thirty in the morning was definitely a challenging time for me to come up with the answer to: "How can you have free will and still have God be sovereign over everything?"  God chose the time when I "rise up" to be important to His beloved Vanessa.  Our conversations through the sweat of the run were rich.  Though I didn't have all the answers, still don't, she revealed her deep longing to know the truth. 

One of the wonderful things about having physical and spiritual children is that they make us remember our God and His awesomeness!  Recounting to our kids how God came through for us financially, spiritually and physically gives them a pattern for living their own lives.  Even our struggles can be instructive to our children.  If we are honest about them.  Because we aren't perfect.  Because we will fail God and them sometimes.  Our amazing Father, however, never fails us and the generations of lives we touch need to know that. 

I don't know what is in the political future for our progeny these days.  At first glance, it could be devastatingly different from our past.  But to teach them fear, to encourage them to feel defeated, is to fall prey to the enemy.  It is our sovereign God Whose eyes keep watch on the nations.  It is He Who will judge the rebellious, and He is never wrong.  Egypt was a pretty politically toxic place for God's children when God had enough of their captivity and led them out.  Miracle after miracle wore down the Pharoah until he ordered them to leave his country.  Jahweh was not under the control of the government of man.  He does what He wants.  Period.  And this mighty God is our Father, loving us and covering us in the midst of chaos.  We must teach our children this.  We must live this ourselves.  Because we belong to a different kingdom with a different government.  While we are here we render unto Caesar, but we rely on and trust in the King of Kings.  What a relief for us and our kids to know that His love guides our lives and His words are on our hearts. 

Just like my morning runs with Vanessa helped us focus on who God is and what He does, our daily conversations and thoughts should look to how mighty our Jahweh has already been toward us.  He never changes.  His love endures forever.  May that be our message when we lie down, when we get up and when walk in the way of our daily lives.  If we love our God with all our heart, mind and soul, how could His name and His awesome deeds toward us not be ever on our lips?
 

PSALM 66 - A Pat On The Head

Shout with joy to God, all the earth!  Sing the glory of His name!  Make His name glorious!
Say to God:  "How awesome are Your deeds!  So great is Your power that Your enemies cringe before You.  All the earth bows down to You.  They sing praise to You.  They sing praise to Your name!"    (Verses 1-4)

The Superintendent of Schools came into the library on an ordinary day near the end of the school year.  I was there with my high school students helping them prepare for debate speeches I was teaching them how to write.  The year before I taught in the middle school.  It was an interesting year for me.  Because I was hired to teach speech and debate as a quarterly elective class for these students, I met everyone in seventh and eighth grades.  What came with the job was teaching, listening to teenage angst, breaking up fights in the hallways and endeavoring to motivate several Fonzies into learning lines from a play.  Daunting, but rewarding.  I was asked by the eighth graders to give the speech at the graduation ceremonies that year.  As I looked out over the crowd of students who had captured my heart, I told them they must have a higher motivation for their success than just getting out of school alive.  I took the chance and told them they need God.  Thought I might be fired, but I knew these students.  They, like I, weren't going anywhere positive without Him.  I got a standing ovation, though, because the kids knew me, too.  It wasn't the first time I talked with them about my God.  The Superintendent of Schools was there that night. 

I moved to the high school on the other side of town to create a competitive speech team the next year, so I didn't really know why the head of the schools was approaching me in the library. 

"Kay," he began,  "I came over to present you with this myself."  In his hand was a formal looking certificate.  "Congratulations!  You have been named a distinguished teacher!"

Really?  I was a little dumbfounded.  So were my students whose ears were quite large by then.

"Thank you so much," I choked out.  "Oh, my gosh!"

I asked around about who might've recommended me for the award.  Turns out, the Superintendent was mainly responsible.  He heard the speech the year before and was impressed with it and the student reaction to it.  A good friend, a fellow teacher, put her two cents worth in, too.  But it made me want to be a better teacher.  The award ceremony was humbling because I was surrounded by other great educators who had never been given this honor.  I spent the next four years working really, really hard on creating a winning team.

Positive reinforcement is so motivating.  Great job!  You were awesome!  That pat on the head that stirs the heart to action.  To be better than I was before.  Knowing someone saw what I did.  Understood the hours I put in.  Acknowledged my gifting.

Say to God:  "How awesome are Your deeds!"  How He must lift His shoulders when He hears us acknowledge His greatness!  My Father waits to hear me say how much I admire His amazing deeds performed on my behalf.  When I look out over the ocean on my beach walks and sing "This is my Father's world," He must burst with pride that I noticed and understood that He made it all.  Amar is the Hebrew word for say in this psalm.  It means to speak and do. Not only to speak our pride in our Father, but to live it.  Our lives a reciprocation of His love.  Can't you just hear God say:  "I love that she praises me for my awesome deeds, but even more, I love that she lives like she loves Me."

His awesomeness should be obvious to others not just because they see and hear us worshipping on Sundays, but because our lives are completely motivated by our amazement over His awesome deeds for us.  When we focus on all He can and will do, we forget that we are small and troubled.  In giving back to Him the glory that is due Him, we shine in the reflection of it.

So brothers and sisters, since God has shown us great mercy, I beg you to offer your lives as a living sacrifice to Him.  Your offering must be only for God and pleasing to Him, which is your reasonable service to Him.  Romans 12

PSALM 65 - Flowers, Hummingbirds and Me

The pastures of the wilderness overflow.  The hills gird themselves with joy.  The meadows clothe themselves with flocks.  The valleys deck themselves with grain.  They shout and sing together with joy.   (Verses 12-13)

"And why are you anxious about clothing?  Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.  They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these.  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith......Seek first the kingdom of God and all these other things will be added to you."  Jesus  (Matthew 6)

I am up in the middle of the night.  Happens to me quite often.  Much of the time I like it because I get to spend time with my Father that is lost to me during the hectic hours of the day.  But I must admit to being too filled with thoughts tonight....what if's.  Many things to think about.  My business, which always has its challenges.  My writing -- turned in a manuscript but not happy with the letter I attached to it.  A friend who has lost another loved one.  A young woman at odds with her family.  All I have to do on this Friday (that I can't do until daylight, anyway!).  My brain churning on this stuff.  So first to the Psalms where I start my days, and look at what my Father tells me.  This is why I love Him so.

It occurs to me that the ocean isn't worried about whether it will ebb and flow today, nor is the hummingbird who flits about the plants on my back porch worried where it will find a flower.  Life for the squirrel that Bill feeds occasionally (against my better judgment) is not fraught with concern about where it will get its sustenance.  The stars aren't fearful of not shining nor is the sun thinking about whether it should rise today.  And the roses, designed by God, don't fret about how pretty they are.  Hillsides are covered with wildflowers, cows moo in the fields as they chew their cud and whisk the flies away with their tails.  Nature moves in concert with God's will. 

We, however, have been given the privilege of choice, the joy of language and appreciation of beauty.  Above all other creation, we have been made like Him.  Flowers don't know they are beautiful.  Squirrels don't talk about God.  But creation is still the masterpiece of the artist Who designed its fields, streams, mountains, and stars to make us wonder at His brilliance.  He takes care of a very big yard!  And I?  I am small.  Responsible for very little, especially in comparison.  Since my Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills and all that moves in the fields are His (Psalm 50), then He owns me, too.  I want Him to because God takes very good care of what belongs to Him.

O me of little faith!  I wish I always wanted only Him.  That all the things that crowd out thoughts of my greatest love were in their rightful place.  I know my Father tends to me with much more loving care than to the lilies and the birds, but that He also cares for them encourages my way.  Nothing God has made escapes His tender watch care.  So even the little sparrow in flight, though unconscious of God's presence, is ever in His sight.  How much more should I, this one who knows His name and understands to some degree my Father's heart of love, trust Him for the things that stretch my faith and bring me to my knees.
 

PSALM 65 - Come For A Swim

You visit the earth and water it.  You greatly enrich it.  The river of God is full of water.  You provide their grain, for so You have prepared it. You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening its showers, and blessing its growth.  You crown the year with Your bounty.  Your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.  (Verses 9-11)

And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food.  Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fall, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary.  Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.  Ezekiel 47

Ezekiel had a vision of the heavenly Tabernacle.  A man appeared to him, shining like bronze.  In the man's hand was a cord and a stick for measuring.  The prophet was shown the temple as the bronze being measured its rooms.  Their ultimate destination was the east-facing door of the temple.  Water trickled from beneath the threshold there.  Ezekiel was then led down the stairs and outside to the place where the water began to flow in a larger stream from the east gate.  They stepped into it and the man measured eighteen inches between himself and Ezekiel. Water flowed about Ezekiel's ankles.  The prophet followed as the man led him another eighteen inches where the water was up to their ankles. Again the measuring.  Again the stepping forward.  Now the water was up to Ezekiel's waist.  At last Ezekiel was afloat in a river too deep to walk through.  Swimming in water now abundantly flowing from the Tabernacle of God.  Splashing about in living water.

"Son of man, have you seen this?" A question from the bronze one.  "Everything will live where this water flows."

Jesus at the well with the Samaritan woman tells her about this water.  An outcast because of her promiscuity, she must come to the well at noon when the cleaner women are not there.  Jesus wants a drink. 

"Why are you, a Jew, asking me, a Samaritan, to get you a drink?"  She is honest.

"If you knew who I am, you would as me for living water," He replied.  "Then you would never be thirsty again."

"Give me some of that water!"  Never have to come to this dumb well again.

Jesus, I think, picks up a clay cup and looks at it.  "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.  My water satisfies so much you won't want any other.  It comes from a spring welling up and giving eternal life."  He shows her the cup. "This water comes from an earthly well.  They dry up."

Dry?  Are cracks appearing in the soil around you?  The river of God is full of water.  Literally, He sends the rains and the sunshine to plump and grow the harvest.  If our wagons are so full they make ruts in the earth as we take them to market, He is responsible for the abundance.  But all of that flows from a stream that surges from the power center of the universe.  None of that matters if we miss that our lives are parched and withered without our stepping fully into the joys of the spewing river of life.  Put your ankle in lately?  Trust a little more.  Get knee-deep in the rising tide.  Jesus would take your hand and lead you fully into the swim, for these waters replenish, nourish and wash us clean.  Splash!  Drink big, heaving gulps!  Because in this stream is joy, joy, joy!

Then the angel showed me the river of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.....  Revelation 22
 

PSALM 65 - Sailing Against A Headwind?

O God of our salvation.  The hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas; the One who by His strength established the mountains, being girded with might; Who stills the roaring seas, the roaring of the waves, the tumult of the peoples, so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at Your signs.  You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy!  (Verses 5b-8)

Immediately He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side...And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea and He was alone on the land.  And He saw they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them.  Between 3 AM and 6 AM He came to them, walking on the sea.  He meant to pass by them, but when they all saw Him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost, and cried out, for they all saw Him and were terrified..."Take heart.  It is I.  Do not be afraid."  And He got into the boat with them and the winds ceased.     Mark 6

Anything rocked your boat lately?  Having trouble making headway?  A little tumult to calm?  I love this picture of Jesus watching those who belong to Him struggling to move forward against the strength of the gale.  Jesus had sent the disciples ahead hours before while He dismissed the crowds.  Their boat should've docked in Bethsaida long before three o'clock in the morning.  Off schedule and churning in a rocky sea, the men pushed forward on their own strength.  Doing what was before them.  Their job.  Get to the other side of the lake and meet Jesus there.  They'd just watched Jesus feed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two little fish.  It had been a long day for all of them.  The fishermen were as tired as we would be if we'd had a very long day at work then had to sail all night against a headwind.

I think it's telling that the disciples had just witnessed a massive miracle.  The multiplication of food from enough for one person to plenty and then some for over five thousand men, women and children.  Provision.  Given what we need when we need it.  Daily bread.  Manna, maybe.  Still a "what is it" moment for God's people. The Bread of Life giving bread for life.  It's what He does.  The way He rolls.  Jesus could've done nothing less because He saw their need.  Thrilled and confused, the disciples were probably talking about the miracle when they began the journey in the boat late in the afternoon.  But as the wind picked up and the waves beat against the vessel, slapping them in the face with their spewing, work was all they could think about.  Sweating and worried, the gale engulfed them and they forgot about bread and fish.

Unaccustomed to the fact that Christ is God in the flesh, His unexpected appearance on the waves beside them scared them to death!  "All we need now is a ghost!" 

Jesus was intending to pass by them. To look on, maybe?  Make sure they were unharmed?  But they freaked out.  Could only make out in the darkness a shape moving toward them walking on top of the waves.  No judgment here for the disciples.  I would've been freaked out, too.  But God can do that sort of thing. And He was near.

"Don't be afraid.  It's me, guys!"  Jesus stepped into the boat and the wind died down.

Pretty awesome!  Jesus stilled not only the wind and waves, but also the tumult of the struggle.  But not before He let his disciples work it through a bit.  The miracle of multiplied food and His saving them once before in a storm hadn't registered with them.  Always faith versus fear.  Never truly understanding what it all meant.  Jesus is the God of the storm....and the calm.  Fear has no place in love.  Fear is the opposite of faith.  If Jesus is Lord over nature, He is Lord of all.  The One Who spoke the universe and our earth into being can walk on its waters and provide for its creatures.  He was going to pass them by because they still didn't get it.  They were utterly astounded that the wind ceased.  Really?  They had just witnessed a huge miracle.  The right reaction?  Jesus will take care of this.  And He did.  But not without a certain sadness that their hearts didn't know Who He is.  This worrying thing.  Being scared even though He has shown us a million times that He is faithful....even in the headwind.

Jesus is our hope.  He stills the tumult of the people and calms the raging seas.  Why?  So that all people everywhere will be in awe of Him, and so that we will shout for joy at the beginning and the end of every day.

 

PSALM 65 - An Evening On The Beach

You answer us in amazing ways, God our Savior.  People everywhere on earth and beyond the sea trust You.   (Verse 5)

You have done amazing things we did not expect.  You came down and the moutain trembled before You.    Isaiah 64:3

2006 was a trying year for me.  We had purchased a home near the beach the year before that wasn't a stretch at the time.  However, our finances changed dramatically over that year so that we had to make some choices about what we would do with our business.  Gut-wrenching ones.  Also, personally I was coming to grips with mistakes I had made.  Working my way back to a more intimate relationship with Jesus.  Desiring Him more than anything else in the world.

Daily I was prostate before my God.  Pleading for guidance and peace.  Needing direction and wisdom like never before.  I knew I had wandered off the path and He was setting my feet right.  And I knew He was stripping me in order to reclothe me.  I took three days in September of that year to fast and pray.  Wisdom and assurance were the things for which I cried out.  Please show me what to do!

I made dinner for my family then headed to the beach with my Bible, a folding chair and my I-pod loaded with worship music.  The evening was still warm, not yet cooling down from the night breeze off the water.  Pink rays of sun glistened on the waves turning them into shiny silver.  I took deep breaths as I unfolded my chair and put my earpieces in.  I couldn't wait to hear from God.  Anticipated my Father reaching out to me.  Knew He would talk to me while I sat close to Him in the sand.  Not sure what to do first, I turned up the praise music really loud and sang (off-key, I'm sure since I had headphones on).  Fortunately, there were few people out at the time to hear my cacophony.  Then I picked up my Bible.  I had been living in Psalms.  David's up and downs suddenly relevant to my situation in ways I hadn't experienced before. 

"Lord, please speak to me from Your Word," I prayed.  "I need so desperately to know You will help me now."  Tears appeared suddenly, unexpectedly.  Thankful my Father was hearing me.

Psalm 65 was my destination.  Verse 5, my rhema from God.  His very personal message to me.  Just wait and see.  I am going to do amazing things for you.  A surprising way.  Just trust.

It was a roller coaster of decisions and painful loss after that evening with my Father on the beach.  But we walked into His solutions with confidence and saw our God be amazing for us.  We sold our business and our home, but in retrospect, both choices turned out to be great decisions.  And neither would've happened without God's intervention and power. 

We are so tiny in this universe and He, so enormous.  He "sits above the circle of the earth" yet stoops to meet us at the beach to hear our praise and understand our need.  I love our God.  He indeed does amazing things that we could not expect.

PSALM 65 - Come, Now. Let's Talk.

God, You will be praised in Jerusalem.  We will keep our promises to You.  You hear our prayers.  All people will come to You.  Our guilt overwhelms us, but You forgive our sins.  Happy are the people You choose and invite to stay in Your court. We are filled with good things in Your house, Your holy temple.  (Verses 1-4)

"Wash yourselves.  Make yourselves clean.  Remove the evil of your deeds from before My eyes.  Cease to do evil.  Learn to do good.  Seek justice.  Correct oppression.  Bring justice to the fatherless.  Plead the widow's cause."

"Come now, let us reason together," says the Lord. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow;  though they are red like crimson, they shall become as wool.  If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land."  Isaiah 1

In the court of the Tabernacle of God were two things.  The bronze altar of sacrifice and the bronze basin for ceremonial washings.  The picture the Lord wanted his people to understand was that before they could meet with  Him in the Holy of Holies, or go into the inner court, their sins had to be atoned and their hearts made clean, washed.  We can't present ourselves before a holy God in our filthy state.  Guilt-ridden and in need of forgiveness, we come to the outer courts of the Lord's temple needing grace and restoration.  This is something we aren't even capable of doing for ourselves.  Only God can pronounce us right with Him.  Only the Lord understands true righteousness.  He is the ultimate judge.

Ironically, He is also the ultimate sacrifice.  Our temple now isn't in Jerusalem.  Our bodies are the temple of God in these days.  The dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.  Christ was offered up on the brazen altar, once for all.  We are washed in the cleansing blood of His holy veins, dipped in the baptismal waters of His grace.  Sins covered and forgiven, we have become children of our God.  Invited to stay in the courts of the Lord.  Allowed behind the veil that kept the Presence from our corruption.  We are accepted by the Father because of the Son.  We can live differently!  Able to keep those promises we made to our Father, knowing He hears our prayers.  Confident of His love that endures forever.  Overflowing with the joy of all the good things He does in us and for us.  Anticipating an eternity with our Lord.  Happy now?  I am!

So what is our response to such a Father?  How do we live in light of His unfathomable love?  How do we reciprocate such benevolence?  Stay in the court.  Where the sacrifice and the cleansing waters stand as altars and reminders of our sin and His grace.  Stop doing the things that break His heart.  Learn to do good from His Word -- from His personal daily guidance of our lives.  Be willing.  No matter what.  Be willing.  Obey Him.  Do what your Father says even when you don't agree with it or understand His purposes.  Just do it.  Why?  So you can bless Him and He can bless you.  He wants your soul to be fat and your heart to race with the joy of your relationship with Him. Wants your mind to think like His about widows and orphans, about justice and oppression, and about sin and forgiveness.  Our Father wants to allow us the privilege of walking upright and bold into the inner sanctuary where He dwells at any time to converse with Him, reason together, and enjoy Him forever!

PSALM 64 - Dance A Little! Rejoice!

Let the righteous rejoice in the Lord and take refuge in Him.  Let all the upright in heart praise Him!  (Verse 10)

I remember seeing my daughter, Heather, walk down the aisle in her strapless gown carrying an enormous bouquet of multi-colored flowers.  She took my breath away. Literally.  I let out this little involuntary gasp when I saw her.  Then later at the reception with friends and family we rejoiced!  Food and dancing, toasting and laughing, the merriment went on for hours. 

Vanessa's first CD party in our back yard with candles floating in the pool and all our friends around munching appetizers and rejoicing for and with Vanessa is a memory I still thrill to think about.

My son, Will, stood tall (and bald) at his graduation from the police academy.  He looked so handsome, lean and straight.  Our boy worked really hard to gain the privilege of protecting Los Angeles from harm.  We went to a nearby winery for lunch with friends and rejoiced over Will's accomplishments.

Rejoice!  Celebrate!  Have a party!  And we are to feel that way about our relationship with Jesus.  There may be many things in the world right now that make us fear or weep.  But our relationship with Christ is something we can choose to enjoy amidst all that is imperfect in our world.  Celebrate His life.  That God Himself saw us as precious enough that He came to be with us -- Emmanuel.   Honor His death, for it brought our salvation.  Just plain start dancing at His resurrection because it secured our eternal life with Him.  Sing our hearts out because we are now children of the Most High God Who has given us the earnest of His Holy Spirit to assure us we are His forever!   Take delight in the protection of our Father's arms!  Jump for joy over His everlasting love!  Exult in the perfection of God's plans for this universe and for our own little lives!  Revel in forgiveness that makes us clean when we've been soiled!  Happy, happy, happy to be called a child of God!

Look up and know that He is still God.  Nestle close to His heart under the feathered warmth of His wing.  Take the strong right hand by which He leads you and don't fear the way.  When all seems dark and you feel lost, there is light to show the path.  Our God will never leave us or forsake us no matter what may come.  When no one seems safe and all have betrayed us, He is our refuge and sanctuary.  But He is also the One deserving of our praise when things go amazingly right.  When blessings pour over us, undeserved and soul-drenching, we have our God to thank. 

Rejoice in the Lord always!  I will say it again: Rejoice!   Philippians 4:4

PSALM 64 - Gossiping about God

All those who see will shake the head.  Then all men will fear, and they will declare the work of God and consider what He has done.  (Vs. 8-9)

He was rich.  A landowner and rancher with seven sons and three daughters.  His possessions made him one of the richest men in the world.  All in one day, however, the man lost everything.  Thieves took his oxen and donkeys and slew his servants.  The sheep were killed by a fire that raged out of control and their shepherds died trying to save them.  The huge herd of camels was taken in a battle over them that caused their keepers to be slain in the process.  The most devastating message of all was that the man's sons and daughters were crushed when a tornado blew away the house in which they were all eating and drinking.  Poof.  Everything vanished.  And Job tore his robe, shaved his head and fell on his face to declare God had a right to give and take away.

As if that were not enough, Job lost his health.  Covered from head to toe with festering boils, Job sat down in a pile of ashes and scraped the oozing boils with a broken piece of pottery.  His lovely wife was disgusted with his faith and with his festering.  "Curse God.  Then just go ahead and die!"  She had lost everything along with her husband and found his passivity to be groveling and weak.

"We can't accept only the good from God and not accept some adversity as well," he said as he looked into her accusing eyes.

She trounced off.  Job's loss was her loss. Couldn't understand how God could be so mean to them.  Bereft of children and possessions, what good was her life now?

Enter three friends.  Job looked so bad when they first saw him they didn't even recognize their friend.  So burdened were they for Job in his obvious physical pain and overwhelming grief, they sat down with him for seven days without saying a word.  It was Job who spoke first.   "I wish I had died at birth.  Or never even been born."

"You must've done something very wrong to deserve this," said the first friend.

"Your sons probably sinned against God and you didn't know it," suggested another.

"You are too proud of your goodness," cried the third.

Job is sick of hearing from his pals.  Wants instead to have a face to face with God.  An explanation from the only One Who can give him one.  To Job's amazement He received his answer. 

"Where were you when I created the universe?  Can you tell me how it was made?  The lightning and the leviathan, the moon and stars, mountains and beasts or darkness and light?"  God compared His greatness to Job's.  A lesson in His sovereignty -- God must have a purpose much greater than Job could imagine.

Job responded.  "I didn't understand things too wonderful for me.  I have heard of You before, but now I see you with my own eyes.  I retract my accusations against You and repent in dust and ashes."

God wasn't mad at Job.  But He took issue with the friends who had misrepresented Him to Job. They had some big time penance to perform.

Job?  God gave back to him twice what he had before in land and animals.  Gave him seven more sons and three more daughters, more beautiful than before.  He lived a very long life, seeing four generations of children and grandchildren. 

And everyone shook their heads in wonder.  They'd all accused God and Job falsely.  Shot arrows with their mouths at the very reputation of the Lord God.  They only thought they understood the heart and mind of the Almighty.  That adversity comes only from sin.

The Bible doesn't say exactly what the friends had to say when Job was exonerated, but I'm guessing they didn't discuss what God was doing in someone else's life with aplomb thereafter.  Of course, I would never judge Job or his friends (I have been that kind of friend, probably).   The guys just wanted to say the thing that would bring understanding and possibly healing to their friend.  How much better to sit and hear him out as Job sat in misery trying to resolve with his God the affliction poured on him. 

We should be oh, so careful in accusing each other.  Saying hurtful things even with the best of intentions.  God will vindicate us and Himself in due time.  Our reputation is His because we belong to Him.  When He does step in, it will be as obvious to others as it was to Job's friends that our God turned it around for us.  Then we can marvel with Job:

"I know You can do all things and that no purpose of Yours will be thwarted.  Therefore I have declared things I did not understand.  Therefore I retract and repent."  Job

PSALM 64 - The Three of Us The Morning After

But God, will shoot them with arrows.  Suddenly, they will be wounded.  They will be made to stumble.  Their own tongues work against them.  All who see them will shake their heads.  Then everyone will fear and will tell about God's work, for they will understand what He has done.
(Vs. 7-9)

But God.....

This is the morning after the presidential election.  Half the electorate voted one way and half the other.  There are some of us who are feeling kicked in the stomach.  Believing we are on the deck of the Titanic as we sing to our sovereign God.  Others are waving banners, and with quickened step, are joyfully going about this new day.  Regardless of the ideology our vote was cast to ensure, one thing is certain.  God is in control. 

Last night was rough for me and my daughters.  All three of us tossed and turned.  In my night of querying my Heavenly Father, my prayer was that I think like He thinks in our situation.  My own thoughts were jumbled and my stomach rumbled with the chaos.  Before I went to bed, I picked up my Kindle to continue reading the journals and letters of Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light.  I am at the place where she is trying to describe to the archbishop God's revealed design for the Sisters of Charity.  The theme throughout her blueprint was the salvation of even one person on the impoverished streets of Calcutta.  Her life pared down to one insignificant person making a difference to another.  Of course, she wasn't insignificant and God's plan made her one of the most famous women in the world.  But that wasn't her heart.  Her Good God told her to be His impoverished arm to a crushed part of the earth.  To lift people up and touch them one at a time.  To make a difference in her microcosm of pain and destitution regardless of what was going on in the larger world around her.  I understood this to be His will for me, also.  That there are things I cannot change.   Things over which I have no control.  I have to trust those things to Him and His wisdom.  Our God still has plans for our country that I cannot fathom.  That is what He is in charge of.

First thing this morning, I read a blog from Heather who had a three hour jump on the start of the day.  Her musings were exactly what God told me.  Trust Him and do what He has called you to do for Him where you are.  He is sovereign.  She wrote:  I desperately needed to be reminded of the sweet truth that God is always in control in spite of my feelings to the contrary.  As such, there is never a time when I don't have reason to praise Him, and so I do.  I choose to worship my God and Savior right now, this very moment, with the recognition that He is all knowing and I am weak and frail and limited.

 As I was having my morning coffee, I received a text from Vanessa:  I believe God is telling me this morning to "stay in love," meaning keep my thoughts focused on Christ.  The light has come into the world and the darkness has not overcome it.  We are still His light to those in our immediate little worlds and no president has anything to do with that.  And God's love is still at work in us.  Look up, Mommy!  I'm going to force my eyes upon Him today, and not the things of this world.  Satan will not win, now or ever!  This is the day the Lord has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it!

Though we think our boat is listing, the odds are stacked against us, and the truth is obscured in fog, we must always remember........But God.....

PSALM 64 - Whatcha Thinking?

They sharpen their tongues like swords and shoot bitter words like arrows.  From their hiding places they shoot at innocent people.  They shoot suddenly and are not afraid.  They encourage each other to do wrong.  They talk about setting traps, thinking no one will see them.  They plan wicked things and say,  "We have a perfect plan."
The mind of human beings is hard to understand. (italics mine  Vs. 3-6)

A person who does not have the Spirit does not accept the truths that come from the Spirit of God.  That person thinks they are foolish and cannot understand them, because they can only be judged to be true by the Spirit....The Scripture says:  "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has been able to teach Him?"  But we have the mind of Christ.  (I Corinthians 2)

The mind of human beings is indeed hard to understand.  It matters what we think.  It matters what we say.  Our hearts and lives are affected by our minds.  David is describing hunters here.  As if the  people are hiding in a blind and awaiting their next victim, unafraid because the prey is not a lion or a tiger but an innocent.  Toothless and unarmed.  An easy shot.  A fun and relaxing exercise.  Lay out the trap and laugh at the one caught in it.  With absolutely no regard for the hunted.  These sharp-shooters get together to plan their next outing.  How to make it even more productive than the last.  Only it is not wild animals they prey upon.  They don't hunt for sustenance but for the joy of the kill.  Yeah.  That's hard to understand.  And I'm thankful it is.

But I am aware of the words from my own mouth this morning.  I had to talk about it yesterday with the Lord as He made me aware of something I said that was at least unproductive about another person.  My Father kind of slapped my hand over it.  What was so offensive to my God was the heart of it, I know.  I wouldn't have said those things if my heart hadn't been wrong first.  How thankful I am that Abba corrects me.  Doesn't let me get away with setting my tongue on fire. 

So the mind of human beings is difficult because our hearts are warped.  Why would the hunter joy in the kill of innocents if her heart wasn't screwed up?  If she didn't need to even some perceived score?  Driven by a blood-thirst to be the one on top.  Eroded with the need to always be right.  Hating those thought to be less than or more than.  Shoot to kill, silencing the voice of virtue so that she can stand with a smoking gun and feel herself vindicated.  Because that is all she has.  This hunter.  Her own sense of pride.  Her wit and venom squeezed from a shriveled heart.  She needs a Savior.

But I should be different.  I have been found by God.  Because I have asked my Savior to live within me, I have a weapon of defense against the hunters who come after me.  God Himself living in me.  I don't have to think like the world anymore.  I can choose to listen to the Holy Spirit.  To actually think my Father's way.  Living water has been poured over my dehydrated heart and plumped it to near bursting.  Arrows shot my way are deflected by the armor my God has clothed me in.  I have the choice the hunter doesn't.  No need to strap on my quiver and pluck arrows to shoot at the heart of the attacker.  No need for full scale war against one who might try to destroy me with the words from her mouth.  My heart is changed.  So we have no common ground, this gossiper and I.  She will lose her small battle because I have the tactical advantage.  I have the mind of Christ.  May I listen to it.

 

PSALM 64 - Dread And Beehives

Hear my voice, O God, in my complaint.
Preserve my life from dread of the enemy.
Hide me from the secret plots of the wicked,  from the throng of evildoers.  (Vs. 1-2)


Hear my voice.  Even when I complain.  Please, God.  There is so much to talk with my Father about.  Sickness, death, broken homes, finances, loss.....What if He weren't listening?  Of course, there are some who say He isn't, but they don't know our God.  They haven't experienced the joy of answered prayer.  Or when He doesn't answer the way I want, the joy of knowing my Father is always right.  Always looking out for me.  Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. ( I Thessalonians 5)

When we were first married, Bill and I were driving on a busy street when a small white poodle ran out into the pathway before us.  "Oh, Jesus, help it be okay!" I cried.  Alas, it was not okay and was struck by the car ahead of us.  Bill thought it was strange that I subsequently cried over the death of a dog I didn't know.  Or that I prayed for it as it ran to its death.  We had one of those newlywed talks.  You know...this is how I am, live with it kind of thing.  God didn't care that much about the dog, Bill surmised.  I thought He did.  But the dog died.  So, maybe not.  What Bill came to understand, though, in our conversation, was that bringing the peril of the poodle to my Father's attention gave me hope.  Praying about everything...all the time.  This running conversation with Abba.  Okay, so the dog didn't make it.  But I actually ran over a big bull dog some months later who rolled out from under the car and ran home.  See?  We pray about everything because we know He hears -- more importantly, cares.  Doesn't always go our way. 

Preserve my life from dread.  Dread:  To shrink or recoil from, view with horror or alarm, be in great fear.  There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear....we love because He first loved us.  (I John 4)  I think this is a toughie.  Dread pervades our society.  Even today before the presidential election tomorrow.  What will happen to us if our candidate does or doesn't win?  In the financial climate of our world today, we fear there won't be enough for us.  Disease could be treacherously lurking in our bodies.  Those who hate us could lash out.  On and on it goes.  But those who truly  know they are loved by the Father will not fear because we belong to Him.  Abba takes good care of His children in this life and beyond.  God is sovereign in prescience and in power.  So if we know He loved us first, and proved it, we have nothing to fear.  Not even the valley of the shadow of death.  The last great enemy.  I have been praying for this kind of love daily for several years now because I know the hold fear can have on me.  Understand my propensity for looking at the situation and assessing it to be the worst case scenario.  Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abenego, Someone walks around with me even in the fire.  I am deeply loved.  So why then, would I not be as powerfully cared for?

Hide me from the wicked.  From evil and those who would draw me into it.  When I was six I remember playing hide-n-seek with the neighborhood kids one day.  I found the perfect spot underneath the window of our neighbor's house.  The window was nearly obscured by a large bush.  Sweat poured from my little body as I breathlessly pushed the landscaping aside and nestled into my lair.  Only thing is, I awoke a bee hive which had decided to nest there first.  Boy they were mad!  Buzzing and stinging me all over my chest.  I totally blew my cover as I went running from the bushes, screaming my little head off.  My skin was ablaze with burning bumps.  While Mother plastered a baking soda pumice all over my upper torso, all I could think was:  "Boy, I sure found the wrong hiding place."   Oops.  Not the last time I did that, either.....hid in the wrong shelter, I mean.  It matters where we find safety.  Don't want to discover we have gone for refuge to the wicked instead of from them.  It's okay to hide, by the way.  Sometimes we are called to box a few rounds, but there are other times when we know we are not going to win by ourselves.  We need shelter while the Father takes on evil.  We belong to Him.  Christ's prayer for believers before He died was that the Father keep us from the evil one.  (John 17)  Just like the kid who says:  "My daddy is bigger than your daddy!" we know that is true of Abba.  Don't mess with His children.  He is jealous over us.  The enemy will see.  God won then and wins again each time we run under His wing, out of breath and fearful, trusting His love to save us.

Doesn't it all really come down to knowing we are His Beloved?  Free to tell Him anything -- to be our true selves in His presence.  Knowing He isn't listening in order to judge us guilty, but to hear us out.  To guide us into wisdom as gently as we allow Him to.  Free from the fear of what man can do to us, we don't languish in the horrifying scenarios presented to us.  And if we find ourselves trapped in a holocaust, we will not be alone.  Abba walks in the fire with us.  Why?  Love.  I know it's hard sometimes to see how a loving God could allow some of the things we experience here.  How loved ones could die.  How famine, floods and wars never seem to cease.  Our world is definitely fallen.  But this is not our home.  We aren't any more comfortable here than our Savior was.  We were made for more.  And more awaits.....gloriously more.  What we need in the moment, our Father generously provides.  Whether it is some earthly thing like money or a more spiritual thing like the faith to endure another day.  It is today that our God wants us to walk hand in hand with Him, trusting that all we need for tomorrow will come from the One Who loved us first. 



 

PSALM 63 - Cha-Cha And Primordial Ooze

But the king shall rejoice in God.  All who swear by Him shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be stopped.  (Vs 11)

It is the Lord, your God, you should fear.  Him you shall serve and by His name you shall swear.  You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the people around you, for the Lord, your God, in your midst, is a jealous God.   Deuteronomy  6


This was fun.  I looked up the word swear and the word exult in the Hebrew.  To swear:  Shaba - to make an oath as if by repeating a declaration seven times.  To exult(glory): halal - to shine; to make a show.  So, those who swear an oath to our God will shine - be showy.  How does this stop the mouths of liars?  Easy.  It proves God is real and powerful.

We had friends when we were first married who didn't believe in God.  Said He didn't exist.  However, this couple was drawn to us and curious about our faith.  We had many conversations about Christ with them.  Whetted the husband's appetite.  One evening when they were at our home for dinner, Don told us about his ailing grandmother.  She loved to dance but was now wheelchair bound.  It was Don's fond wish that his dear grandmother get up and cha-cha again. 

"What if Jesus could heal her and she danced again?"  I asked.  "Would you believe in Him then?"

Don was astounded at the thought.  Figured it to be a safe bet, for Grandma hadn't gotten out of her chair for months, much less had the strength to dance.  "Sure!"  he answered.  "Sure. Yes, I would believe in Jesus then!"

We prayed with him right then and there.  Asked for a healing for her and thanked God for the answer.  Several days later, Don called to tell us that his grandmother was not only up and walking, but was, indeed, dancing!  Bill, of course, challenged our friend about his promise to receive Christ.

"Well, she was probably going to walk, anyway," he responded.  "The prayer was probably a coincidence."

Don wanted to get into medical school - a particularly difficult one.  He knew he had virtually no chance of it.  Again we prayed with him.  Though very cynical about his chances, there was that grandmother thing still lingering in his mind fueling hope that there is a God who can make our faces shine with answered prayer.  The phone call we received telling us Don had been accepted into his dream university was emotional.  He was crying.  Because he knew.  Only God could've done this.  Don is a believer today because God put on quite a show for him in order to woo him to Himself.

Our faith was in Christ.  He made a commitment to us, sealed with His own blood.  The liar would tell the world God didn't perform that miracle...would've happened anyway.  But lies are proven wrong by truth.  You can't tell Don these days that God doesn't care, that He doesn't work miracles, or that He doesn't even exist.  God made a show of His love and power.  Shut the devil up!  Our lives are the best example yet of a glorious, shining King of kings who could take the dust of the earth and breath His Spirit into it.  Who can give us the power to say:  "I once was lost but now I'm found."  The world can discount the glory of creation, say it all just slapped together somehow out of primordial ooze, but it's hard to explain a life changed by the power of God.

PSALM 63 - Too Big To Hold Your Father's Hand?

I will follow close to You.  Your right hand holds on to me. But those who seek to destroy my life will go into the depths of the earth.  They will be given over to the power of the sword. They will become the jackals' prey.   (Vs. 8-10)

My hand was so much bigger than theirs when my children were little.  I remember each one holding my index finger tightly as we walked together in the neighborhood or around the house.  Still tottering a little on their chubby, unsteady legs, each one had to learn to walk alone.  But I was especially conscious of having their hands more firmly in mine when we were navigating a throng of people.  Disneyland, the zoo or even the mall were unsafe places for my little children to walk alone.  They knew they had to hold my hand.  Follow me.  Stay close.  The dangers, of course, were obvious.  Getting lost.  Wandering off only to discover Mommy was nowhere near.  Or, worse, someone grabbing one of my children. 

Now they are tall and beautiful adults.  And easy to spot even a long way off because they usually are noticed above a crowd.  They don't need my hand anymore.  In fact, it is their hand now guiding others.  But, we never grow big enough to let go the hand of God.  Never wise enough to lead Him around.  We still easily wander off.  Are sometimes even abducted by the charms of the enemy and find ourselves lost and alone, crying for our Father.  Any child who has ever been separated from her parents knows how terrifying it is to discover she is lost in a world of huge people with unfamiliar faces.  When she is found, she sticks closer than before.  Understands what Daddy meant by:  "Hold my hand so you won't get lost."

I remember taking walks with Heather in our neighborhood when she was a pre-teen.  She would always hold my hand as we debriefed about her day.  I remarked on one of these occasions how much I loved walking hand in hand.  "I will always want to hold your hand, Mommy," she cooed. 

"No, I don't think you will, Heather," I answered.  "Someday you will feel too big for that."

"No,  I won't!"  Adamant.

"Okay," I said.  "Let's make a bet.  I bet by the time you are thirteen you will not be walking with me like this.  If you still want to hold my hand by then, you owe me ten dollars."

A few months later we were in the mall together, and I reached for Heather's hand.  She recoiled slightly.  "You want your ten bucks now?"  she asked sheepishly. 

A little heartache.  But I knew the day would come.  I patted her back and we walked on together.  Something had shifted.  A necessary rite of passage. 

"If anyone serves Me, He must follow Me.  And where I am, there will my servant be."  Jesus remarking that to follow means to serve.  To let someone else tell us where we are going and what is best for us. To hold our hand. As adults that seems demeaning.  We are smart enough to make our own decisions.  Navigate our own lives.  We don't need Jesus telling us what to do.  It goes counter to our free will.  Makes us kids again.

Precisely.  Anyone familiar with the territory when you have gone the limit with your own will and find yourself crying in a sea of unfamiliar faces after being abducted by the enemy?  Plopped down in the enemy camp with seemingly no way out?  Wishing you had followed directions?  Ruing the fact that you jerked your hand out of His and ran away into the crowd?  We are never too big to hold our Father's hand.  Never so smart we don't need His guidance.  Never so powerful the enemy doesn't want to destroy us.  The only safe place we have in this difficult world is close to Him.

I will follow close to Him.  My choice.  A smart one.  I love the story in the last chapter of John (21) when Jesus is taking a walk with Peter along the shores of the Sea of Tiberias.  Peter had denied Jesus at His crucifixion and the risen Christ was talking with Peter about it.  Asking Peter if he loved Him.  Heartbroken, Peter affirms his love for Jesus three times.  Then Jesus tells Peter what will happen to him in the future.  How Peter will die for Him.  "Follow Me,"  Christ says.  This is where you are going.  So, if you love Me, you will follow Me even there.

Peter looks behind him then....at John, the one who stayed at the cross.  The one who followed Jesus all the way through, even to His death.  Jesus gave the care of His own mother over to John because John was the only disciple Jesus saw at the foot of the cross.  Peter looks at John. "What about him?"
A strange question maybe.  But it seems like Peter wanted to know if John was going to die a horrible death, too.  Was his own impending death payback for the denial?  Was Peter going to be the only martyr and everyone else was going to get to die a normal death?  "What about John?"

"If it is My will that John should live until I come again, what is that to you?"  I can see them stopped in the road looking together at the other disciple.  Then Jesus turns back to Peter.  Looks him straight in the eyes.  Maybe even gently taps Peter's chest with His index finger.  "You follow Me."

Those are the last recorded words of Jesus in the book of John.  "You follow Me."  Doesn't matter where I take your brother or sister.  Doesn't matter what I call someone else to do or be.  If you love Him, you will choose to follow Him.  Why?  Because He knows your way.  Because you are a sheep and sheep follow the shepherd Who leads them beside the still waters, Who restores their souls, Who brings them to green pastures and walks with them even into death, leading them to the house in which they will dwell with Him forever.  Because without Him we are lost and prey to the jackals.  His rod keeps the wolves at bay -- the enemies who are growling and ready to devour us if they catch us alone without a shepherd.  Our shepherd's staff reaches out and hooks our necks, literally saving them, and as gently as He can, pulls us out of the brier into which we have wandered.  So, we follow if we are smart.  Never getting too far away from the One Who leads us on.  We don't know where the road takes us either way....His or ours.  But He does.  Follow Him.

He will tend His flock like a shepherd.  He will gather the lambs in His arms.  He will carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those who are with young.   Isaiah 40