PSALM 43 - Winning the Battle, Losing the War

God, You are my strength.  Why have You rejected me?  Why am I sad and troubled by my enemies?  Send me Your light and truth to guide me. Let them lead me to the holy mountain where You live.   (vs. 3)

"I am the way, the truth and the life.  The only way to the Father is through Me."  Jesus, John 14

Living some of this today with a precious young woman I love.  Either rejection and abandonment, or the threat of it, has left her with not only a broken heart, but also with the nauseating knowledge that everyone is not always as they seem on the surface.  Sad and troubled by the treachery of duplicitous relationships,  this young woman is on a quest for the authentic.  Betrayal or apathy experienced at the hands of those who are supposed to be your most constant advocates is enough to leave one at least sad and troubled.  If not devastated. 

She has a choice to make now.  The threat is to strip her of her education and her transportation - in reality, her place in the family.  And the situation - ridiculous.  She is not flopping in a drug house.  Or riding her Harley with her tattooed honey who wants her to come live in his apartment with him and his fourteen roomies.  Her crime against family is not that she has lived her life in rebellion to their every command.  In fact, the rules she has stubbornly obeyed for her twenty years on earth would make lesser women bail.  No.  She arranged a place for herself to stay for three weeks while she worked on campus.  The home is with trusted friends her father has known for over twenty years.  She called him on Thursday before she moved there to talk with him about where she was going to be short term, but he didn't call her back.  Was not his priority.  In the midst of finishing one on-campus job and beginning another, taking finals and finishing papers, and packing her stuff to move out, she didn't call him again until she had arrived safely at the home of friends.  That failure to have connected with him was enough for him to decide she is a liar and a manipulator.  Trying to make her own plans without the hosts or her communicating with him.  I get that.  She must move or be abandoned, though.  Stripped.  So she hasn't slept much.  Neither have I.  It is our home she has to leave.

Her quest now?  The will of God.  The choice might seem easy from the bones of this story.  But the threat of abandonment and the lack of desire to truly understand what might be best for her has gripped her with sadness and confusion.  No reason for outright rejection.  No good reason to strip her.  Except that fathers make decisions and children obey them.  Not negotiable.  Even at twenty.  Her perceived rebellion is really more about being understood.  She wasn't asked why.  Didn't matter. End of story.

Yesterday she was in the chapel at her school praying for light and truth.  Fiery trials bring us to our true selves.  Cut out the bull crap.  Let us take a deeper look at our own selves as well as revealing the depths of others.   I am so proud of her responses because she is earnestly wanting God to lead her through this mess.  Wanting her heavenly Father, Who will never reject her and longs earnestly to understand her heart, to meet her in His throne room and tell her what to do.  She can go there because Jesus is truth.  He is her way in.  He is light in the darkness of this situation.  He not only knows the way into the throne room but the way through this confusion.  And,  He loves everyone involved in this scenario. 

What I am learning through the miasma of this mess is what I don't want to be.  Duplicitous.  I have been.  I wasn't aware of how disgusting it must look to Christ if I am so troubled by it.  I don't want to become the enemy to the people I love most.  To harbor bitternesses toward them because I can only see their actions and reactions through the lens of my own experiences, biases and opinions or my need for control for control's sake. To win battles but lose the war. That just because I would have done a thing one way, it doesn't mean that is the only way to handle a situation.  To listen before I accuse.  To care about the hearts of my children. To let them be what my husband and I have worked so hard and prayed so long for them to become in Christ.  Because ultimately, what we want for our children is for them to be able to look to Him for themselves.  For Him to be the One Who is their way, truth and life.  For us then to step back, as He increases and we decrease,  and enjoy the reward of their lives in Him. 

PSALM 43 - A Cheap Wedding

Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people, from the deceitful and unjust man deliver me!  ( vs. 1-2)

We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. ( I John)

Jesus is able to save those to the uttermost who draw near to God through Him, for He ever lives to intercede on their behalf. ( Hebrews 7)

Mother was sitting there at her kitchen table.  Her hair was dirty and uncombed.  Knotted in her hand was a tissue.  Always lovely, wearing pink lipstick and a smile when I walked into the room, my Mother had morphed into this wizened bitter lady waiting for my husband and me to pour out our contrition.

What had we done?  We had gotten married.  Big wedding with clinking crystal and hatted guests.  But the cake frosting had been crunchy instead of smooth and buttery.  Bouquets that should have had green sprigs contrasting with the red roses and baby's breath, were ruined for the lack of "sprigging."  On top of that, our photographer, my cousin who was not a professional, had taken our wedding pictures for $100.00.  As if these things were not heinous enough, we drove a little red Mustang Mach I.  Pretty much a two-seater with a 351 engine and hood locks.  There was no negligible back seat.

"What did you think of the wedding pictures?" Mother queried my new husband.  She asked this because Bill also took pictures of other people's weddings.  It was a simple Sunday afternoon that did not hold any threat of the ominous churning in Mother's heart.

"They are good for cheap pictures."   Ew..boy.  Write CHEAP in all caps....Scream the word into my mother's heart.  Out came her reply in a gush of pent up offenses.

"You thought the whole wedding was cheap, cheap, cheap!"  Now tears. 

Incredulity.  What is she thinking?  I could not stuff Bill's words back into his mouth.  Oh, how I wanted to.  Of course, he meant inexpensive.  We all knew the pictures weren't that good. 

"The icing was ruined!  The florist made mistakes with the bouquets!  Not good enough for you two!"  Can't quite synthesize what she means.  I loved my wedding.  Trying to tell her that but she cannot hear it.

"And you bought a car we cannot even ride in!"   Mother is crying.  Hurt to be excluded from our little red car.  "You two are the most selfish people I have ever met and I don't ever want to see you again as long as I live!"  Exeunt.

Leaving us bereft of her.  Confused and dazed.  Sunny Sunday afternoon now black with condemnation.  Off we go in our exclusive little red Mustang to grieve the loss.

No talking to her on Monday.  Won't pick up the phone. 

"Daddy, what do we do?"  Over for baloney and cheese sandwiches at my little apartment on Tuesday. 

"Come over to the house tomorrow night." 

"Okay."

Oh, God, I love my mother.  Please vindicate us.  Please speak to her in ways we cannot!  Not sleeping.  Stomach churning.  A long twenty-four hours until we knock on Mother's front door.

"I have told your mother that no one is to say anything until we have first talked to God."  Stern.  Daddy is determined to go to the Advocate first.  Let Him decided our case in this home that has become our court.  Daddy the bailiff.  We the defendants.  Mother the accuser. 

"Dear God, tell Flossie how much I love her."  My new husband is crying about his new mother.  "I didn't mean to hurt her, Lord!"  And he reaches for the tissued hand, knotted up against his touch.

To her.  "Please forgive me, Flossie."

"Why did you say those things?"  Mother reaching back now.

"I am not especially silver-tongued, Flossie." 

Relief in her eyes.  My man takes a deep breath.  "Just ask me next time what I meant by what I said.  So I can say it better."

What would have happened if we had not gone first to the One Who ever lives to intercede for us?  I don't know.  I understood Mother's bitterness and insecurity better later on, but God knew all about it then, at her home around her maple breakfast table.  He not only vindicated us, but used a horrible circumstance for His greater purposes.  Mother never questioned Bill's words again because she understood from that day forward that he loved her.  That was her real question.  Did he love her?

Even  the heart of the unjust accuser is before a God Who knows all of our "whys."  In His court there is not only justice but reconciliation because that is what Jesus lives for.

PSALM 42 - A Barbeque Gone Wrong

I will say to God, my Rock, "Why have You forgotten me? Why must I go about in sorrow because of the enemy's oppression?  My adversaries taunt me, as if crushing my bones while all day long they say to me:  'Where is your God?' "

Why am I so depressed?  Why this turmoil within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him, my Savior and my God.  (vs. 9-11)

We sometimes have our own doubts about where God is when things go horribly wrong.  It feels like He has "left the building" while we struggle on our own to survive the oppression of disease, heartbreak, failure or loss.  Our own hearts struggle not to accuse God and ask why He has forgotten us.  In order to keep perspective, we must focus on the conversation we have with our inner woman or man in order to sustain hope.  That is one thing.

The other thing is when those who do not know our God or the very circumstances themselves echo what the enemy is already trying to persuade us to believe.  Our God has forgotten us.  Where is He?  I thought you had all this faith and look at you!  Depressed.  Crushed.  Give it up.  There isn't any God concerned about your day to day.

What happens when the world agrees with what the enemy is saying in your ear?  Do you listen?  I have.  It leads down a pretty gnarly road.  My daughter reminded me the other day that we really have two choices when we don't know what is going on and things look really bleak.  We can lose hope and quit.  We can trust God.  I would add to that a third.  We can do the expedient thing.  What we think is best. 

Saul was the king of Israel.  Their first.  Led in his spiritual walk by Samuel, the prophet.  It was Samuel's job to perform the priestly duties and ask for God's favor and direction in wars fought by Israel.  In 1 Samuel 13, Saul is at war with the Philistines because his son, Jonathan, had attacked one of their garrisons.  Saul then declared battle against the Philistines and gathered his army at Gilgal.  Ooops!  The Philistines had 3000 chariots, 6000 horsemen and as many troops "as the sand on the seashore." 

The men of Israel, being the staunch fighters they were, hid - in wells, in caves, thickets, holes and under rocks.  But Saul stood his ground.  Apparently he was to wait seven days for Samuel to come and give him God's guidance and pray for favor.  But Saul has trembling troops and wavering warriors and the Philistines tasting Jewish blood all around him.  Samuel was late.  Missed the appointment by a few hours.  So, like the Israelites in the desert when Moses failed to show, Saul did the expedient thing. 

"Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offering," Saul ordered.  "I will just have to offer these sacrifices myself!"  Well, someone has to do something!

Samuel shows up just in time to smell the barbeque and see the blood. 

"What have you done?"  cries Samuel.

"Well, you were late, Sam, so what did you expect me to do?  These guys are cowards and we cannot fight because my army bailed.  I had to do what I had to do!"

"What were you thinking, Saul?"  Samuel is beyond appalled.

"The Philistines will descend on us from Gilgal and you didn't show up and I needed the Lord's favor so I forced myself to offer the burnt sacrifices."  Answering all in one breath.  Ew, boy.

"Because you have done your own thing and disobeyed what the Lord told you, your reign will not endure.  God has found a man who will obey Him.  You should have waited and done what the Lord commanded you, Saul.  Not what you thought was the right thing to do."  Samuel left the building.

Trying to make your misery into marginal victory might just cause more mayhem....or worse.  It might lead you down a path that cannot be reversed.  Wait on God.  If you are in doubt about what to do, do nothing.  That is better than taking God's place in your life and deciding the right thing to do because you are desperate and think He has forgotten you, like Samuel "forgot" Saul.  The Lord is always on His way.  He never fails.  He may seem too late, but He always has His glory and our best interest at heart.  I think perhaps I could even say, the bigger the army against us, the more we should trust our God, for we don't have His resources for the battle.  The worse the situation looks, the more important to look to Him.  Do not force yourself to take things into your own hands.  That didn't work for Saul or for the children of Israel when they built the golden calf (remember Aaron saying: "We threw in our gold and out popped this golden calf"?).  They couldn't wait for what God wanted.  Can we?

PSALM 42 - Deep Calls to Deep

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God.

My soul is cast down within me; therefore, I remember You from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

Deep calls to deep at the roar of Your waterfalls.  All Your breakers and waves have gone over me.  By day the Lord commands His steadfast love, and at night His song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. (vs. 5-8)

Ever encourage yourself?  Have one of those interior pep talks?  I do this all the time.  I absolutely love closure and when I cannot get it in the moment, I talk it in my head.  Or when I don't understand what God is doing?  I go over all the positive (and sometimes negative) things that He might be up to.  Then I rehearse His character and His promises so my heart and mind remember He is always good.

I had a conversation with one of my daughters yesterday about a disappointment in her life.  It was interesting and rewarding to me to realize as we spoke that she had spent the previous twenty-four hours and a good long bike ride having just such an interior dialogue.  Remembering the goodness of God and His provision at a time when it seemed He had taken from her an answered prayer within her grasp. That is spiritual maturity.  To say yes to God's no.

The psalmist is far away from home - Jerusalem.  He is north of the Sea of Galilee in the land of Jordan and Hermon.  Don't know why he is there, but he misses going to the temple to meet his God.  Life has dealt him some pretty deep waters. They have roared over him in noisy collision as they rushed over falls. They have buried him in the breakers of ocean waves.  Overwhelmed and depressed, he longs to join his brothers and sisters in the praise processional at the Temple.  First he compares himself to a deer panting for streams and now one having a hard time catching his breath in the smothering cascades of his life.  So he has an inner discussion about his depression. 

Soul, what is wrong with you?  Why can't you get it together?  I am sick at my stomach because I don't know how all of this will turn out.  I wish I knew that God heard me......

Soul.  Soul!  What are you saying?  Trust in God!!  He has never failed you and He never will!  He knows things you do not know.  You will praise Him again when you see the outcome of all of this. 

I am about to lose hope.  I have no idea what God is doing here and it looks like He doesn't even care about me.  How long am I going to feel so overwhelmed and desperate?

Remember!!  Remember, Soul!  Hope in God.  He is your salvation!  Remember the verse in I John 3?  "He is greater than our hearts and He knows everything."

Self-encouragement.  When we went to the beach with the we kids, we taught them to sit down in the waves if they looked too big for them.  The waves roll over them instead of the kids rolling around in the waves.  It works.  And that is what the psalmist ultimately tells himself to do.  He pauses and calms down to think the truth - that God's steadfast love has him covered.  Day and night the Lord is with him, even singing to him.  But he has to be still to hear it.  Deep calling to deep.  I know that is about roaring calling to roaring as the water below is hit with the water above - but that is a picture of us. 

Past self-talk is God speaking to us in our situation as well as His ability to speak to our circumstance.  The waves and breakers have gone over him, not taken him away in their swirling.  In our most desperate hour, we might just have our most important opportunity to understand the depths of His love.  To remind ourselves Who God is in the tabernacle and in the deep waters.

PSALM 42 - I'm Satisfied!

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be satisfied." Jesus

I was really thirsty yesterday afternoon. I sat in a vacant home I am in the process of helping a client purchase while waiting for a handyman to install a new thermostat.  He didn't have the right tools, so had to go home for more.  I didn't know it needed batteries, so I had to go purchase them.  It was the neverending day that did not go my way.  But, I had not thought to bring water with me as I was not planning on being there for very long.  The first thing I did when I got home was gulp a very cold Fresca.  Man!  It tasted so good.  I couldn't help but think about this psalm in relation to my thirst.  My body needs fluid.  It is made up of 90% water, so it needs to be irrigated often.

Hunger and thirst are natural to us.  They trigger our bodies to eat and drink. Lack makes us yearn for food and water.  Take them away from us for very long and we waste away.  Our bodies shrivel and ultimately stop functioning altogether.  If we are not sustained, we finally die.  So it is interesting that Jesus compares our spiritual needs to these physical needs without which we cannot sustain life.  Blessed in the Greek is makarioi.  It means fully satisfied.  Satisfied are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they will be satisfied. Interesting, huh? 

When our spiritual stomachs growl, it is for the food from heaven.  The Bread of Life.  When we thirst for something to quench the emptiness, it is for living water.  What makes us hungry and thirsty for God?  It should be our natural state.  Think of yourself on a day when you were famished.  Truly hungry, not just craving In 'n' Out.  What about a time when your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth because you were so thirsty.  What made you so needy?   Lack of food.  A dearth of water.

Jesus commends us when we want Him like that.  When He is our necessary food and our bodies are secondary to that.  Like being in love.  All the lovers think about is the other person.  Being near.  Getting to know the heart and mind of the other person.  Hungry....sometimes even aching ...to be with the one you love.  Can't get enough of him.  Can't wait to see her again.  Do we love Christ that way?  Yearn for Him because without His presence we are empty?  It is satisfying even to hunger and thirst for Him to satisfy us.  It is a blessing to want Him so much.  To not be able to breathe without Him.  Blessed are you if you want Christ with all your heart, soul, strength and mind.

He wants to bless us.  So, sometimes we need a push.  A reminder of our own dissatisfaction.  It is when I have been facedown with a soul depleted and confused that I have learned to be hungry and thirsty for God.  When I have realized that there is no lasting joy in the things I push down into my soul to fill a need that God alone can meet.  It is like eating too many cupcakes then feeling sick.  Too much soda, so I throw up.  Overeating the food the world sells - you know what I mean. 

The disciples brought Jesus some food back from the city on the day he spoke to the woman at the well of Sychar.  "Rabbi, eat," they said as they handed him the In'n'Out. 

He wasn't hungry.  "I have food to eat that you don't know about."  Full from His conversation with the woman.  Knowing He had found one He had been looking for and given her a drink.  Satisfied with having done the will of the Father.  Not thinking about a hamburger just then.

"Did someone bring Him something to eat?"  The disciples incredulous that He wasn't carried away with the greasy goodness of the food they had brought Him.  Must've already eaten.  That was what He was trying to tell them.

"My food is to do the will of Him Who sent Me, and to accomplish His work."  Plain enough.  I want to be hungrier for that than I am for the food on my table.  I want to be so famished for Him that His Word consumes me.  Really hungry for Him!  Really thirsty for the living waters of the Holy Spirit!  That the most satisfying thing I will ever do is His will in my life.  That I will stay so nourished by His Presence He no longer has to give me reasons to thirst and pant for Him because it is the natural state of my spiritual walk.  He wants me hungry.  He wants me thirsty.  Why?  So He can fully satisfy me with satisfaction.

PSALM 42 - Dying of Thirst

As the deer pants for flowing streams, so my soul pants for You, O Lord.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living god.  When shall I come and appear before God?  (vs. 1-2)

"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.  Whoever believes in Me, as Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.' "  Jesus

It is a searing summer season.  Rain has not fallen in the forested area for several months, leaving crispy leaves and dying plants under the feet of the doe and her fawn as they wander the woods looking for water.  A stream.  The ones she has relied on in the past have dried up.  Her fawn is parched and scrawny.  The doe is fainting for lack of water.  Daily she wanders the familiar parts of the forest in search of a new watering place.  But her energy for the journey is waning.  She has thought of just lying down with her baby and dying.  Without water they cannot go on.

She came to the well at noon when the sun was shining down with its summer intensity.  Because she was an immoral woman, she could not draw water with the "other" women in the early and late hours of the day.  No.  She was unclean and was treated like a dog by the righteous women of Sychar.  At home, she left the man she slept with.  Not her husband, but what did that matter any more?  Men did not seem to be the answer to her ever deepening emptiness.  She had been married so many times she had almost lost count.  Needy men who always left her.  Sweat poured down her back as she carried her water jar to the well.  There was a man sitting nearby.  A minor irritation.

"Give me a drink."

Really?   "Why are you asking me for a drink?  You are a Jew.  Too good for us Samaritans!" 

"If you knew the gift of God and Who I am asking you for a drink, you would ask Me for living water."   The man was looking at her so intently that it made her nervous.  She always talked too much when she was uncomfortable.

"Sir,"  she replied all in one breath.  "You don't have anything to draw water with, the well is deep, where are you going to get living water?  Are you greater than Jacob who dug the well and drank from it himself?  His sons and his livestock drank here, too."  Honestly, who did he think he was?  Men!

"When you drink this water, you will become thirsty again.  Once you taste the water I am offering you, you will never be thirsty again.  It is a spring of eternal water that wells up in you."  Jesus knew her panting heart - her deeper thirst.  Her desperate need for quenching.

"So give me this water so that I never have to come to this darn well again!"  Sheesh!

"Okay.  Go get your husband and I will give you both some!"

"Uh.  I don't have a husband."  Dont' want another one.

"I know.  You are an honest woman.  You have had five husbands already and this man you live with is not your husband.  I know your life."  Jesus, matter of fact.

Nervous again the Samaritan woman goes off on religion.  Hurt by it.  Wounded by the self-righteous women who have refused to speak to or acknowledge her at the well or in the city.  They don't know her life.  Her aching need for significance.

"Ma'am, the hour is coming when all these religious questions you have bombarded me with won't matter at all because people will be worshipping God the way He has always wanted - by the Holy Spirit and in honest devotion.  God is right now looking for just such people."  A divine appointment with a woman of mixed race.  God incarnate looking her in the eye.  No wonder she was nervous.

"I know the Messiah is coming.  He will be like You, telling people all things."  Could this man be the Messiah?  He seems to know all about me....things I have done he couldn't possibly know.  She was suddenly very thirsty.

"I Who speak to you Am He."  This to an unclean woman who came to the unwelcome well.

Of course, she ran to her town to tell everyone that this man at the well could be the Christ!  Knew her life and the reasons for it.  God, come in the flesh to look for a thirsty woman who did not know it took more than water to quench her parched and dessicated soul.  Drinking in dead end relationships with marginal men to slack her thirst for love. 

"If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink!"  With arms spread wide, Jesus would declare this openly at feasts and before crowds large and small.  But never smaller than His personal revelation to the adultress in Sychar.  The God of the universe sought her out.  Looking for those who are long for a draft of living water.

In her journey with the fawn, the doe, weakened by her thirst, turns a new direction.  The old paths lead to dry river beds.  Her need pushes her further into the forest than she has ever dared to go.  Finally her heart quickens for she smells water up ahead and goads her baby forward with this one last hope of life.  The earth beneath her feet feels damp.  She places her nose to the ground and cannot believe her luck.  A few more feet.  Steps away.  Water.  Life.  Then she hears it.  The stream lapping over rocks making joyful music as it spews its foam onto her face.  With her nose she guides her baby to the edge of the stream.  They wade in and let the water course around their legs as they drink deeply until their bellies are filled and their bodies drenched.  They will live.  They are saved!

The Father is looking for you, if you are thirsty.  If you need Him like a dying woman needs water.  If you are panting for significance and all other streams have dried up.

When shall I appear before His throne?  One day.  Who will be there?  The One Who offered an outcast a drink of water.

Therefore they are before the throne of God...and He Who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence...For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.  Revelation 7.

PSALM 41 - Moving Heaven and Earth

By this I know that You are pleased with me:  My enemy does not shout in triumph over me.

As for me, You uphold me in my integrity, and You set me in Your presence forever. 

 Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.  Amen.  (vs. 12-13)

It matters who wins the battle more than who fights it.  Or even who starts it.  The thing is, if you are in a battle, you must get out of it some way.  Triumph is at least a matter of saving face and at best a matter of preserving your life.  So, how do I know God is on my side?  I win.  I might be quite bloodied up....have been...but I come out in tact.  I am speaking of spiritual warfare this morning.  Felt pretty knocked around yesterday by the enemy of my soul.  Things in my spirit that lie there dormant for a while were touched in a way that made me have to do some battle over my hope and the hopes of others last night.  Yearnings of my heart that I present to the Lord in an ongoing basis that seem to languish in their waiting for Him to answer.  New passions for His immediate attention - needing an answer before it seems too late.  Warring against doubt, fear, and depression.  Real enemies.

I don't know what the neighbors thought of me last evening for they heard me crying out to Abba in a way that is new to me.  When He says to seek Him with all your heart, all your strength, all your soul, and all mind,  He means all.  I just let it all out before Him.  It took a while.  I felt emptied and tired when I went to bed...and again this morning.  Like I had waged war.  But here is what I know on this new day.  I was heard.  Listened to.  Some of what I said was not even in words.  I don't know how to pray for some of what concerns my soul.  With my spirit.  Yes.  But beyond that, with the giving of it to God as a whole package.  This heartfelt weight on my soul.  Crying out....literally...gutterally.  Able only to articulate "Abba!" at times. 

I know today, though, the enemy does not shout in triumph over me.  In the presence of my Father last night there was palpable glory.  I did not want to leave my place of prayer because He was there.  In it. 

And today, I am still there.  Before Him.  I know I do not look like it because here I sit at my desk typing this into my computer like I do most mornings after my cup of coffee.  I am wearing slippers, not a coat of armor.  I will do the ordinary things of my day...if any day is ordinary around here. But I will do all of this in His presence, conscious that He is my defender and shield.  Knowing that His eyes are on me to keep me from the evil one.  A tenderness that brings tears to my eyes even now makes my heart a little achey today because God has touched a place in me that He could only reach when I cried out with everything in me. 

It remains to be seen what God will do with all I laid before Him last night.  I don't know.  But when God, our Father, hears our prayers, we have the assurance that He Who allows us into His presence will act on our behalf if He has to move heaven and earth to do it.

PSALM 41 - We All Fall Short

All who hate me whisper together about me.  They imagine the worst for me.  They say:  "A deadly thing is poured out on him.  He will not rise again from where he lies."  Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heal against me. 

But You, O Lord, be gracious to me and raise me up!     (vs. 7-10)

Losing a friend.  Because you misjudged her loyalty.  Shared your deepest longings and greatest joys with this person.  Held hands in prayer over her needs and yours.  Sat down to meals with wine and laughter.  And now you languish in a pit so deep it looks like you will never get out.  Sickness or catastrophe has taken away your energy.  No shopping or vacationing.  Taken out of the stream of things, you are alone and your friend has gone on to greener pastures because it doesn't look like you are going to "rise again" from this thing.  Wonder what she did that made God so mad at her?  She is really a downer to be around now!  Where is all that faith that God will heal her?  Wanna go to lunch?

And the beat goes on.  If the life of our Lord is any example to us, even those closest to us cannot be counted upon to be there when the going gets too rough.  On the night He was betrayed, Jesus actually quoted this psalm:  "I am not speaking of all of you.  I know whom I have chosen.  But the scripture will be fulfilled, 'He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against Me.' "  It was Judas who would betray Jesus to the Pharisees, but all of them except John ran away when the going got too tough.  Even Peter, who had only hours before sworn to die for Him, ran in disgrace from the face of Jesus after denying three times he even knew Him.  Only one remained at the foot of the cross.  John.  Out of twelve.  One dead from hanging the next day.  The others huddled in some coward's den tsk-tsking the fate of the One Who had such promise.

Where does that leave us?  Do we not share our lives with each other?  Do we close off our hearts to the convent of privacy instead of risk hurt from a friend?  Jesus didn't.  And He is God. But if we have as our expectation that our friends can do what only God can do, then we will surely and often be disappointed.  He is our closest friend - closer than a brother.  He lives inside of us and knows us better than we know ourselves.  Though we don't always understand what our Father is accomplishing in and through us by His Holy Spirit, like David we can still look to Him and say, "But You, O Lord...."  Only He knows His plans for us and only He can raise us up.  If that same power that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, He Who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit Who dwells in you. (Romans 8)  What other friend can do that?

Put not trust in a neighbor.  Have no confidence in a friend.  Guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms.....But as for me, I will look to the Lord.  I will wait for the God of my salvation.  My God will hear me.  (Micah 7)  Be careful that you trust no one the way you trust in your God. We will all fall short.  We cannot help it.  But He will never fail.

PSALM 41 - What Does God Want, Anyway?

You will not give them over to the desires of their enemies. The Lord will sustain him on his sickbed.  You will heal him on the bed where he lies.  (vs. 2-3)

What is it that God wants from us?  Perfection? Absolute Righteousness? Regular fasting?  Piety?  Being a Christian can really sound like hard work.  Some would say it is an overbearing religion based on archaic rules and needless asceticism regulated by an angry God Who is ever vigilant to crack a holy whip when we fail.  Many live like that is the truth.  The person who understands the Lord that way has missed His character when reading the Bible.  Yes, He was angry sometimes.  The rightful Judge sees absolute justice and meets it with its punishment, especially under the old covenant of Moses.  Christ came as the exact representation of God....what did He want?  What was He like?

Ready?  Here is what God wants:  Mankind.  He has told you what is good and what it is the Lord requires of you - to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. That's it.  So go do it today.....

Oops!  You can't.  Not if you don't know Him first.  In this case, the last thing on the list is the first thing we need.  To walk humbly with our God.  To dwell among us has always been our Father's greatest desire.  To talk with Him in the cool of the day, as Adam and Eve did before the fall.  The entire purpose of the tabernacle in the wilderness was to give the Lord a place to dwell with us.  And now, since Christ came and actually lived with us and died for us, God can dwell in these tabernacles made of dust....jars of clay.  We can know His heart in a way that was impossible before the Holy Spirit came to indwell us.  The Father can tell us what He is thinking.  For who has known the Lord's mind, that he may instruct Him?  But we have the mind of Christ.  (1Corinthians 2)  We aren't left here to figure this out by ourselves.  Walk humbly and listen.  His Word is His conversation with us activated and made alive by the Spirit.  We can really, actually, verifiably know the heart and mind of God.  We are truly equipped to do what He wants us to not by our own energy, but by His power living within us.....therefore, humility.  When I am weak, then I am strong.  When I know what I cannot do without Him, I am awed by what He can do with me.

God is love.  He is just.  He loves mercy. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy.  Mercy triumphs over judgment.( James 2).  He expects our hearts to care for what He cares for. He wants to live large in us.  So if our lives are only a reflection of adhering to, without the help of the Holy Spirit, what we see the rules to be, we might be doing good works but doing them because we think they make us good.  We don't need God if we are good enough without Him.  If we give to the poor without God, do His promises to sustain and keep us hold true?  Yes.  He says so.  They will be happy - blessed for their giving. The good Samaritan was not a "righteous" man as were the others who passed by the bleeding, beaten man on the highway.  But he was the only one Christ commended as having a heart like His Father's.  Because all good things come down from the Father above whether we acknowledge that or not.  Are these things of eternal good without faith?  Probably not.

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?  Can a faith that does not express itself in works be a saving faith?  If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, keep warm and eat well," but don't give them what the body needs, what good is it? 

But someone will say, "You have your faith and I have my works."  Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith from my works.  You believe that God is one, you do well. The demons also believe this...and they shudder.

If we love God we know what He asks of us not just because it is written in a book of laws but because it is encrypted on our hearts.  Taking what He has given to us and sharing it with those in need will be our joy, not our duty.

PSALM 41 - Outside of the Pink Brothel

Blessed is the one who considers the poor!  In the day of trouble the Lord delivers him. The Lord protects him and keeps him alive. He is called blessed in the land.  (vs. 1-2)

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this:  to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.  James 1

We got there on a "bonky truck."  Often the potholes were as deep as the middle of the truck doors.  The rainy season had just passed so the rice marshes were filled with water.  Little naked children splashed in the lily-covered reservoirs of water along with the local scrawny cow and some stray dogs.  The trip would have taken us fifteen minutes at home.  But we arrived there an hour and a half after we left the pink Cambodian brothel where we had to spend the night.  Battambang, Cambodia, is one of the larger cities in that country, and when we visited there the brothel was the only "nice" hotel....meaning it had beds and questionable air conditioning.   Sitting around the lobby when we entered the evening before were prostitutes chatting with each other in Khmer.  I introduced myself, in English, of course, and handed them the Christian tract I had in my pocket. It felt like a raindrop poured into an ocean.  A poor response to such overwhelming need. 

Our destination was far outside of Battambang, though.  It was an orphanage in the jungles where destitute children had been rescued from the streets of Cambodia.  The sex trafficking business in Cambodia feeds Thailand with vulnerable street children who have no place to run.  Foursquare Children of Promise has been building orphanages there for many years with the model James created a couple thousand years ago - take care of widows and orphans.  AIDS, malaria and land mines left over from the 1970's have taken many of that country's men and women.  When we traveled there,  about half the population was under thirty years of age.  Our church had bought land and FCOP made a rice mill pm it that is run by its people down the road from the new orphanage.  Widows live with the children - one widow for every five orphans.  They become the mothers.  A man and wife, who are Christians and trained pastors, are the overseers of the homes which serve also as a local church.  The families learn to grow their own food as each center is set up like a little farm. 

On the porch when we pulled up, were several children waiting for our arrival.  Because they had only were new to the house themselves, none of us knew what to expect of each other.  Still in the clothes they were wearing when taken off  the streets and smelling of their experiences there,  the children watched us warily as we approached them from the truck.  My heart was particularly struck by two young girls, probably ten years old at the time, standing in their inherent beauty watching me walk up to them.  I couldn't help but think of my own daughters as I opened my arms to these girls.  They fell into mine.  We held each other for a bit.  Like they had known me forever.  One had learned on the streets to say "I love you" in English.  I loved her, too.  I braided their filthy black hair, polished their cracked and broken nails, and felt their joy as they showed me their new home.  Also on the porch was a child of about two who was being intravenously fed.  She was near death when found.  Holding her was a bald woman with a huge smile that revealed badly infected, bleeding gums.  Alone on the streets, this widow had no one until she came to this orphanage outside of Battambang. 

The next day we arrived with school uniforms, towels, blankets, toiletries, clothing donated from a clothing store in the states, and, of course, toys.  Since we had been with them the day before, they had all been bathed, their hair washed and were dressed in newer clothes.  We spent the day with these children as we had done with other orphanages in the days previous.  That evening we stayed for their devotionals.  The children have been told that their heavenly Father rescued them from the streets.  Even though they had been in their current shelter for fewer than three days, they closed their eyes and sang a song they had learned in praise of Him.  He showed up, palpably, to receive their love.

We went back the next year.  With bikes for the kids and motorcycles for the pastors so they could be better equipped to help their community.  But what struck me was how these children had grown, not simply physically, but in their understanding of God's love for them.  When they worshipped, they knew to Whom they were lifting their hands. When they prayed, He answered.  With healings, deliverance and miracles we don't even ask for!  The widow's gums no longer bled, and the daughters of my heart were lovely, gracious young women who took care of the smaller orphans. 

So, each time I come back to my own home and my wealth, I cannot put my money in my bank account without sending some of it there to my family in Cambodia.  I don't say this to build myself up.  I proclaim it humbly.  Because my Father has shown me that He has given to me as one hand in the chain of things.  Money is placed in our hands so that we can put it in the hands of the poor - to widows and orphans.  Because that is His heart.....and, now, it my heart, too. 

PSALM 40 - A Short Man, Perfume, And a Stoning

But let those who follow You be happy and glad.  They love you for saving them.  May they always say:  "Praise the Lord!"

Lord, because I am poor and helpless, please remember me.  You are my helper and savior.  My God, do not wait.  (vs. 16-17)

"Come, follow Me."  Disciples going about their daily lives, fishing or collecting tax money.  Being normal.  Fish scales stuck in the hair on their chests.  Burly men.  Some were accountants, so to speak, with pencils behind their ears.  Members of the local synagogue.  Bachelors and fathers.  "Come, follow Me."  Just like that.  If you have not heard Him call you out, you will wonder why these men left life as they knew it and followed the young rabbi all over Israel.  I know why.  I left my nets, too.

Zacchaeus was a little man with a big appetite for money.  Not the favorite son of Jericho.  For all his riches, he could not buy what he needed most - respect.  Jesus came to town and such a crowd gathered that this little guy had to climb a tree just to catch a glimpse of the miracle-working teacher from Nazareth.  Everyone in a dither.  The poor, blind and wretched brought to the rabbi for healing and deliverance.  Important work.  Way more weighty than the heart of a little Jewish tax collector. 

Pushed forward by the throng, Jesus seems too preoccupied to notice details.  Like a man in a tree.  But something stops Him.  He looks up.  "Zacchaeus, come down from that tree.  I must stay at your house today!"

What?  Nobody can believe it.  The last man in town who deserved the privilege of hosting Jesus.  A sinner, for Pete's sake!  A big one!  He has stolen money from everyone in Jericho.  Jesus must not know......except, He knew Zacchaeus's name.  And saw his needy heart. 

Zacchaeus, down from the tree, straightening his tunic and adjusting his hat, wipes the sweat from his cheeks and declares:  "I will give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone, I will repay them four times what I took!"

What?  Just like that?  Jesus did not say he must do this thing.  Jesus only said:  "I see you in that tree."

"Salvation has come to your house today, Zacchaeus," said Jesus.  "The Son of Man came to find lost people and save them."

The little man with all his wealth was smart enough to know that he could not buy what Jesus had to offer.  Significance. 

We love Him for saving us.  For seeing us that day when we were going about our business as usual and He walked by to say,  "Follow Me."  Like the woman who poured an entire bottle of expensive perfume on the feet of Jesus then wiped the residue off with her hair, we who have been forgiven much, love much.  The fragrant nard she poured on Him cost a year's wages.  Nothing too extravagant to match His inestimable love.  Significance. 

She was in love with a married man who came to her on rare occasions.  It was wrong.  But she was caught up in the adultery....as was he.  The leaders of the synagogue got wind of the affair and trapped the two having an afternoon tryst.  Naked and exposed, she is dragged from her bed with only enough time to throw a blanket around herself before the rulers of the temple dumped her into the street at the feet of Jesus. 

"Look what we found!" they sneered into Jesus's face.  "We found her in the very act of adultery!  What are you gonna do about this?"  They had Him.  The law said stoning.  He had to uphold that.

"Hmmm."  Jesus bends down to write something in the sand.  Don't know what.  But maybe He just penciled with the finger of God the sins of the men glaring at Him as they waited for justice to be done.  Couldn't wait to get those stones in their hands and pummel the sin out of this whore!

Standing.  "Which one of you have never sinned?"  Good question.  They are caught in their own trap.  Walking away is the only way to save face.

"You, dear woman....where are your accusers?"  Jesus asked.

"They are gone."  Saved from death.  Absolved of shame as they are put on the same level as she.  Significance.

"Don't sin anymore."  That is all.

And she loved Him for saving her.  With her lover's arms around her, she thought she was someone special.  Someone loved and precious. She was wrong.  Where was this man when she about to be stoned to death?  He did not care about her heart, only her body.  This new kind of love....the love that saves....would change her forever. 

We love You for saving us.  May we always say, "Praise the Lord!"

PSALM 40 - Ah, Perfection

Now God, don't hold out on me, don't hold back Your passion.  Your love and truth are all that keeps me together.  When troubles ganged up on me, a mob of sins past counting, I was so swamped by guilt I couldn't see my way clear.  More guilt in my heart than hair on my head, so heavy the guilt that my heart gave out.

Soften up, Lord, and intervene; hurry and get me some help.  (The Message, vs. 11-13)

I don't know how the world does it.  Walks around with their guilt strapped around their necks like albatrosses.  It is a heavy burden - the point of Pilgrim's Progress. It feeds entire industries - drugs, alcohol, pornography.  Because if we don't deal with our sinful nature, we medicate it.  Things eventually catch up to us.  What goes around comes around.  Money cannot fix it.  Power cannot dissuade it. We are all affected by the choices we make.

I remember an older neighbor lady who lived across the street from us when the kids were little.  I worked out in our yard every day then and she would come over to talk with me. Evelyn. Stout and cocky, she laughed when I spoke about my love for God.  I used to believe in Him, but then I just started doing what I wanted to do, and He didn't kill me or anything.  I'm no better off, nor worse, for  having given up on Him.  Hmmm.  Hard to argue with that.  I'm sure she wasn't going about murdering or pilfering.  Her sins were probably pretty mundane.  Not the sort of thing that fills the front page of the newspaper or would ever even be mentioned toward the back, with the obituaries.  The obits.  That is the real test, I guess.  Where are we when our picture (taken when we were twenty instead of when we are eighty-two), black and white, looks out at the early morning crowd reading through the Press Enterprise on their way to work on the Metro?   Even if our day of reckoning doesn't come until then, it comes.  It matters what happens to our guilt.

I was talking with a friend yesterday.  Her religious views inform her that she must try to be perfect....as perfect as possible.  Talk about creating guilt.  In this scenario, we are set up for immense failure.  If my goal is to try to be perfect, I might as well quit before I get started.  That was the whole trouble with the old covenant, the law of Moses.  We just couldn't do it!  If we fail in one point, we fail in all of it.  So, what do we do?

The answer is simple.  Too simple for some.  We offer a sacrifice.  We trust in the blood of a Lamb killed on a gruesome altar.  The message that points to Christ on the cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense.  This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out.  It's written:  I'll turn conventional wisdom on its head, I'll expose so-called experts as crackpots.  (I Corinthians 1 - The Message)

Jesus is the Truth that holds us together.  God, the Father, has intervened once and for all to rid us of our shame and guilt.  For God so loved the world....He came.  To our heavy burdened hearts He said:  Throw all your cares on Me because My burden is light.  To our lives weighed down by our own choices, He declares:  I did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Me might be saved.  When we are pressed in, cornered and perplexed, He says:  Do not lose heart, for I have overcome the world. 

If we are trying to live the Christian life without Him, we lose.  If we are trying to live any life without Him, we will be burdened down by many of our choices.  We ain't perfect!  Ain't never gonna be!  But He is sheer perfection and it is His design to live in us - throwing out the old self and building His life in our fragile tents.  He Who began a good work in us is faithful to complete it in us!!!! Not only are we forgiven today, we are empowered to live a new life because of the great compassion of a God Who does hear and move quickly on our behalf, even if we are in a mess we created with our own hands.

PSALM 40 - I Can't Keep My Mouth Shut

I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly.  See, I do not keep my mouth closed - as You know, Lord.  I did not hide Your righteousness in my heart.  I spoke about Your faithfulness and salvation.  I did not conceal Your constant truth from the great assembly.

Lord, do not withhold Your compassion from me.  Your constant love and truth will always guide me.  (vs. 9-11)

I was sitting in the high school library at my first teaching job when a trucker delivering food to the cafeteria came in to speak with me.  The man was a Christian and had heard from someone locally that I was, too.  He knew of a young man, saved by Christ out of drug addiction, who was traveling locally to school assemblies with a "get off drugs" message.  The young man would then speak at a local church later in the day for those who wanted to know how he became drug free.  Would I be the teacher who got this assembly together for my school?  Sure.

After having spoken with the principal and the superintendent of schools, the assembly was arranged with the caveat that the speaker not mention Christ - only drugs.  That was the promise. 

All of the high school gathered in the gym for the drug awareness talk.  It was rousing.  The man had been a slave to drugs, as some of the teens listening were, also.  A litany of all the things drugs could do to mess a person up were enumerated and castigated.  Then:  "How can I tell you about drugs without telling you how I got off of them?  Jesus Christ delivered me!"  Young preacher preaches on!  Principal yelling to stop the show!  New, young teacher, (me) thinking Uh-oh!!! 

"This is worse than bringing drugs into the school!" my principal is screaming at me for tricking him into this assembly.  "You can't talk about Jesus in the school!"

"I didn't know the young man was going to do that!" I avowed.

Teen aged students are hearing me being scorned and watching the preacher leave in a rush.  But here is the thing.  They wanted to know how this young firebrand got off drugs!  They saw his courage...and mine, I later discovered...and, since it was the early 1970's, they wanted to stick it to the man.  The local Baptist minister allowed us to use his church that night and it was filled with kids from the assembly.  The young preacher told the rest of his story.  There was an altar call.  And Bill and I had close to fifty new Christians to mentor.  Because some guy got up in the assembly...maybe not a great assembly...and did not keep his mouth shut.

The principal never did like me after that.  Many of those teenagers couldn't stop talking about Jesus, either.  Still can't.  Some are now preachers giving their time to their brothers and sisters here and overseas.  Some are teachers, school superintendents, missionaries and business men and women.  Some are even retired and riding around on motorcycles with their wives.  Jealous.

When Jesus changes a life, it is really hard to keep it quiet.  If I were walking around with the cure for cancer in my back pocket and did not want to share it with a stage 4 cancer victim, that would be cruel of me.  Oh, I don't want to offend her.  What if she doesn't want to hear about the cure?  What?  At least give the afflicted a chance to swallow the pill or not. 

You know me, Lord...says the psalmist.  I can't keep my mouth shut about You.  Me, either.  He provides for my needs, forgives my sins, leads my path, protects my way, stands between me and the devil, strengthens my heart when I am discouraged, assures my future with Him and heals my body.  This is not an exhaustive list, because I cannot live without Him.  I breathe Him in and exhale the wonders of His grace.  If His love and truth guide me, you better believe that if you are around me for even a few minutes, I won't be able to keep my mouth shut.  You know that about me, Lord.

PSALM 40 - Red Oak and More

Happy is the person who trusts the Lord, who doesn't turn to those who are proud or to those who worship false gods.

Lord, my God, You have done many miracles.  Your plans for us are many.  If I tried to tell them all, there would be too many to count.  (vs. 4-5)

"I know what I am planning for you,"  says the Lord.  "I have good plans for you, not plans to hurt you.  I will give you hope and a good future.  Then you will call My name.  You will come to Me and pray to Me,  and I will listen to you.  You will search for Me.  And when you search for Me with all your heart,  you will find Me!  I will let you find Me."  God  (Jeremiah 9)

If  you have lived long enough as a Christian, you know the difference between trusting in Him and in looking elsewhere for help.  You have seen the Lord do miracles that only He could have done, and usually they are accomplished in a counterintuitive way you could not have imagined.  Learning to trust the Lord is like learning to walk.  One step at a time.  Do you remember how lovingly the Lord answered your prayers when you were a baby Christian?  When everything was new and you were learning your way in your relationship with Him?  I do.

I call this the A-B-C's. ( Because I am so clever.)  God allows a situation, A, in our lives.  It requires either trust or another option of our own choosing.  Like all faith does.  An early A for me was my first teaching job.  My student teaching experience was so successful that I had as my references for a job in the same district the superintendent of schools and the media director.  I did not even apply elsewhere because I knew the job was a shoe-in.  Not so much.  The assistant superintendent of schools was the one doing the hiring, and he had a beef with the teacher who was my mentor.  I was a no-hire.  The superintendent told me this with tears in his eyes.  I went home and fell apart.  Got a job as a secretary and prayed with Bill about what to do next.  Trust.  That there was a job out there for me.  Met a young woman at the office who lived in small town called Red Oak, a suburb of Dallas.  They needed a teacher.  I needed to teach.  And God had so much more for me there than I could have imagined.  An entire high school full of kids who needed Jesus and a new best friend who needed Him, too.  Jesus was not much interested in my innate ability to transfer Shakespeare.  He was thinking bigger.  Plan A.  My God was bigger.

Plan B.  It is somewhat easier to trust because Plan A went so well.  But it is tougher.  My mother has cancer.  In her colon.  It is not healed.  I don't understand.  Trust.

Plan C.  My father is arrested in a park while molesting a child.  I blow Plan C.  That is when I understand we should not turn to those who are proud or to those who become false idols. 

Back to Plan B.  Mother goes home.  She could not have lived in the mess Plan C created.  I see her face from heaven glowing and awash with peace.  It is a good plan for her, though I would have had her near me longer.

Plan C.  I am wiser.  The miracle God works in me is mercy.  Greater grace than I could have ever imagined.  Love that rescues and conquers.  An understanding of why people do what they do in their pain.  A heart that cannot judge because it "gets it." 

These may seem like downers to others.  But in the scheme of things this is how our lives go.  Will we be "steadfast, immovable" when we are given opportunities to trust Him?  First in the small things, then in the challenges in life that would bring us to our end without Him.  Sometimes circumstances make it necessary to "search for Him" in them.  Where is God in this?  Seek with all your heart for His purposes and will in the hard places.  He will let you find Him.

PSALM 40 - Are Your Ears Pierced?

You do not want sacrifices and offerings.  But You have pierced my ear to show that my body and life are Yours.  You do not ask for burnt offerings and sacrifices to take away sins. 

Then I said:  "Look I have come.  It is written about me in the book.  My God, I want to do what You want.  Your teachings are in my heart."  (vs. 6-8)

But if the slave says, "I love my master, my wife and my children, and I don't want to go free, then the slave's master must take him to God.   The master is to take him to a door or doorframe and punch a hole in the slave's ear using a sharp tool.  Then the slave must serve that master all of his life."  God to Moses in Exodus 21

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne.  Then books were opened.  And the Book of Life was opened.  The dead were judged by what they had done.  Rev 20

Now I belong to Jesus.  Jesus belongs to me.  Not for the years of time alone, but for eternity.  Did you sing that in Sunday school?  I did.  The greater impact was lost on me at six years old, but I did get that I belonged to Christ - forever.  "Those who win the victory will be dressed in white clothes..and I will not erase their names from the Book of Life, but I will say they belong to Me before the Father and before His angels.  Jesus  Revelation 3

What does it mean to belong to Him?  There were several ways to become a slave in the Old Testament times.  You could be born into it or be mandated to serve someone to whom you owed a debt.  There were several ways to be freed, also.  Someone could buy you out (sound familiar?) or you could work off the debt.  But, if the slave loved his master and didn't want to leave him, the master brought the slave to God and they made a vow to stay with each other out of love.  The master then pierced the slave's ear to show the world the slave belonged to him.  My ear is pierced.  Pierced by the hand scarred from His purchase of me from the other master. 

What does Jesus want from me now that I am His bondservant?  Everything.  It is not mine.  Nothing I have belongs to me.  I signed it over to Him on that day when His piercing became mine.  He did not take it from me.  But when He gave me a new heart it came with new desires.  I want what He wants.  I am not His puppet, as some have accused.  Nor is He my crutch.  He is my iron lung!  Jesus is not interested in my sacrifices or empty offerings of self-righteousness.  My heart is what He is after. 

Apparently there is a Book of  Life.  My name was inscribed in it before I was even one day old (Psalm 139).  It is God's journal, prewritten, because He foreordains and predestines life on this planet as well as the universe and heaven.  I have seen the cartoons of St. Peter at the door of heaven flipping pages frantically trying to find the name of some wayward saint recently deceased and knocking on the gates of heaven wanting entrance. Oops!  Not here....sorry.  Not funny, really.  To be erased.  To have never understood the import of belonging to Jesus.

What He wants is what the psalmist proclaims.  Now!  Before we get to the pearly gates with excuses instead of a piercing.  Oh, how He wants us to stand in His presence today and announce:  Look, Jesus!!  Here I am...you know, me!  You have my story written in Your book!  I want to do everything You have dreamed for me!  I want to experience every single moment You have plotted and planned for me in the Book!  I don't want to miss a second of my purpose in the Story.  You have my heart.  Pierce my ear!

PSALM 40 - Dancing on the Rim

I waited patiently for the Lord.  He turned to me and heard my cry.  He lifted me out of a  horrible pit, out of the sticky mud.  He stood me on a rock and made my feet steady.  He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.  Many people will see this and worship Him. Then they will trust in the Lord.  (vs 1-3)

Is this your story?  It is mine.  While Psalm 39 speaks of the discipline of the Lord - His heavy hand on us when we sin - this one gives the rest of the story.  What happens when we have learned our lesson.  So, if we are inclined to judge a Father Who would let His child sit in her circumstances for a while - until she gets to the bottom and wants none of her sin any longer - then we should also be in awe of the Father Who comes, Himself, into her shame and rescues her.

I think often of what it is that God sees when He looks to earth.  Created for His pleasure, we actually walked in His presence in Eden.  Took a beach walk, so to speak, with Him in the evenings to talk about the day.   What did you name that creature?  Elephant?  Oh, that fits!  That kind of thing.  Wanting to know our joy with us.  Setting His feet on His creation to throw a little bit of heaven into the physical universe:  The tree of life, the river of life, the Giver of life.  But we listened to a python hissing what we were missing and found ourselves naked in a pit.  A fallen world where God could no longer walk with ease among us.  Now when He peers into our daily doings He cannot but groan along with His universe as we all wait for the restoration of Eden.  Abortion. Murder. Manipulation. Genocide.  Rape.  Lying.  Hate.  Fear. Children as Sex Slaves.  War.  Does He have to look really closely to see anyone trying honestly to walk in the cool of the evening with Him?

I danced on the rim of the pit before I fell in.  Pain takes us places we don't want to go if we don't run like a chick to its mother when disappointment ravages our hearts.  Doubt drives us to the edge of obedience and questions the love of God.  Tantalizes us with another lover.  Makes us reach farther out to grab the painkiller so that before we know it we have fallen headlong into the pit.  No longer dancing on the edge, now stuck in the gunk at the bottom, hopeless.  It takes a while to cry out.  For one thing, shame tells you that you got into this mess yourself, so why would God listen now?  Pride says, This is not so bad.  Ignorance pleads the logic of why this is not really a pit but where you wanted to be all along.  Nights are uncomfortable, though.  It is cold and lonely in the cistern of sin.  Daytime is spent in yelling toward the top where you can see a glint of light - the fun you used to have before you discovered you ultimately end up in mud up to your thighs.  You will get enough after a while.  Recognize that you are thirsty and starving and no one really cares a flip that you are stuck.

"Jesus...."  A whisper at first because you forgot how to pray.

"Jesus..."  Louder now because a tiny part of you remembers the sweetness of His breath.

"Jesus!"  You cry it out, for there is no hope without Him.

"Jesus!  Jesus!  Jesus!"  The mantra of your misery.

And the miracle?  He turned to me and heard my cry.

He looked on the unthinkable.  His child, filthy from her near-fatal jump into destruction, sitting hopeless in the gooey mud of her own addiction.  Jesus zeroed in on sin.  My sin.  Because He heard, it stood out from all the wailing of His created world, my cry. 

I don't know exactly what He thought when He bent over the edge of the well to see me crying and mired.  I don't know why He lifted one leg after the other over the ledge and eased Himself into my pain.  The mud from my feet touched the white of His garment as He lifted me up out the sticky sin that held me.  I hadn't stood in a while nor had my eyes met the glare of daylight straight on, so it was tough to stand on solid ground for the first few minutes.  But Jesus is strong.  He held me up on a rock and did not let go until my feet were steady.  He washed me off, dirt streaming from my body onto His, as He sang a new song to me.  Over me, really.  Joy was its theme.  He was thrilled that we had overcome together.  I sing it still.  In the night.  That song.  I know my Redeemer lives. 

I love Him.  I will never forget His rescue.  I will tell this story until I am with Him in Eden again.  If your are dancing on the rim, move away from the edge.  There is nothing to see there.  If you are in the pit, whisper His name, for I know that is all you can do right now.  But He hears above the din of sinners screeching and demons wailing, the call of His child from her pit.

PSALM 39 - A Scary Prayer

You discipline a man with punishment for sin, consuming like a moth what is precious to him.  Every man is only a vapor.

Hear my prayer, Lord, and listen to my cry for help.  Do not be silent at my tears.  For I am a foreigner residing with You, a temporary resident like my fathers.  (vs. 11-12)

"The land is not to be permanently sold because it is Mine, and you are only foreigners and temporary residents on My land."  God.  Leviticus 25


This world is not my home, I'm just a-travelin' through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.   Used to sing this in church. Then it was a ditty with a catchy tune belted out by a six-year-old who sang the alto part with all her heart.  Of course, I didn't know what it meant until I got old enough to be sick of this world and its stuff.  Until I was stung by the harsh reality that not only are there evil people in the world doing evil things all the time, but that I had also been one of them.  I have since discovered that my Father is much more concerned about what is going on inside of me than what is happening around me.  He will strip away the earthly possessions and concerns that keep me from my holiness - my separation to Him alone - in order to redeem me to Him forever.  My Father, Who owns everything, gives and takes away.  But not arbitrarily.  We need to see our sin....feel its weight...if we want to be free of it.  We are spirit - vapor - not long for this earth in our bodies.  God is so concerned about what lives forever, that He shapes our wills now to save us for then.

Show me my sin.  A prayer we need to pray.  A scary prayer sure to be answered by a God Who wants us to pursue holiness in this temporary land in which we are foreigners.  God doesn't take any more pleasure in punishing us for our waywardness than I did punishing my kids.  But we need boundaries.  And there are natural consequences to behaviors.  If I drive my car off a cliff and on the way down pray for it to stop, that is a presumptuous and stupid prayer.  God will surely save all those who call on His name, but my earthly life will be smashed and somehow changed at the bottom of the abyss into which I have chosen to drive my car.  If I live, I will be hospitalized.  If not, the ramifications of my choice are immediately eternal.  Gravity and caprice will have led to my demise, not the angry God of the universe unfairly punishing me for my choice.  I want to know that I have a propensity for driving over cliffs before I decide to do so.  Show me my sin.

I think about this in this way:  I am standing before God with my skin pealed away and my skeleton vanished.  Vapor and essence showing.  And then there is the wand-like thing used by the TSA at the airport starting at the top of my head and moving slowing downward to my toes.  Beep!  Beep!  What is that?  Ooooo.  Lust.  Beep!  Beep!  That darn pride again!  Beep! Beep!  Judgement.  Me, of all people, judging someone else!  When my Father has scanned my spirit, showing me who I really am, He cleans me up.  No beeping....at least for a few minutes!   Light takes its place.  Saved from what I have done and what I might do by a Holy God who cares enough to enlighten my life.

My son, do not take the Lord's discipline lightly or faint when you are reproved by Him, for the Lord disciplines the one He loves and punishes every son He receives.  Hebrews 12

PSALM 39 - A Whisper Is Enough

I said,  "I will guard my ways so that I may not sin with my tongue.  I will guard my mouth with a muzzle as long as the wicked are in my presence."

I was speechless and quiet.  I kept silent, even from speaking good.  And my pain intensified.  My heart grew hot within me; as I mused, a fire burned.  (vs. 1-3)

What was it David was afraid he might say?  What was it that he wanted to talk to God about but that the wicked around him could not stand to hear?

Things do not always go the way we hoped.  Life sometimes falls apart around us and we have no explanation for it.  Except maybe our expectations were not met.  Elijah stands one moment on Mt. Carmel calling down fire from heaven to consume not only the sacrifices he put there but also the prophets of Baal.  Elijah - my God is Yah - powerful in the ministry of bringing Israel back to the one true God.  But while the smoke of the burning priests and the charred sacrifice were still hanging heavy in the air, Jezebel promises to kill Elijah by sundown the next day.  And Elijah runs away.  Hides and wants to die.  Thinks he is the only one serving God.  Why was he so disappointed?  Why so depressed?  I think it was because he expected the big show to once and for all exhibit so powerfully the preeminence of Yahweh that the people would bow before their God in deep repentance.  Then Elijah would know he had fulfilled God's call on his life!  Bam!  Pow!  God shows up in fury, licks up fire and priests, and leaves a scar on the mountainside as a remembrance of His omnipotence.  And even that was not enough.

Failed calling.  Take me home, Lord.  I am the only one who understands You.  Who wants to know You.  Thank God Elijah does not say these things on the mountain in the presence of the wicked.  They are words only for our God with Whom we have relationship.  But Elijah is fuming.  Like Jonah did.  At the counterintuitive nature of his God.  What should have been the end result was merely signaling the end of Elijah! 

"What are you doing here?"   God wants an answer from His boy. 

"I've done everything You asked....been so zealous for you!  It doesn't do any good!  I am the only one out here trying, and now they want to kill me!"

Wind, earthquake and fire shatter the cave that has become Elijah's temporary home!  God was not in them.  The weird weather settles.  Silence pervades the rock dwelling as Elijah awaits the next great storm.  A whisper floats on the air.  The Bible doesn't say what God whispered, but Elijah knows the voice of his God and slowly comes to the entrance of the cave, face covered against the glory of Yahweh.

"What are you doing here?"  God asks the same question.

Elijah.  Same answer.  He didn't get it.

Elijah was disappointed that God didn't bring about the repentance of the Israelites with the might of His hand.  God was disappointed that Elijah did not understand that His still small voice - His whisper - is enough to change everything.  Elijah was done after that.  Effectively.  Ultimately the mantle of his ministry taken up by Elisha.  The last time Elijah is mentioned in the Bible is when he is taken up by God into the clouds.  Ironically, in a chariot of fire in a whirlwind.  He got his show.  A loving God giving Elijah the theatrics he wanted. 

You would think that Elijah would have stood his ground with Jezebel.  Raised his hands to heaven and said,  "I don't fear anyone but God, Jezzie!  Do your worst!"  On the other hand, Elijah did not scream to the winds in front of doubters and unbelievers how disappointed he was in God.  He saved that for God.  Who can take it.  Who understands it.  Who doesn't want it bottled up inside of us until it explodes like a burst appendix, spewing poison onto the rest of the body. 

In our fuming and festering over our broken hearts and lost destinies, hear God say,  "What are you doing?"  Talk to me.