PSALM 79 - The Death Sentence

God, our Savior, help us so people will praise You.  Save us and forgive our sins so people will honor You.  Why should the nations say, "Where is your God?" Tell the nations in our presence that You punish those who kill Your servants.  Hear the moans of the prisoners.  Use Your great power to save those sentenced to die.   (Verses 9-11)

Hungry, weary and in need of a good shower, Jesus walked out of the wilderness and His encounter with Satan.  Forty days alone and with no food should've left Him vulnerable to the temptations of the enemy -- make a rock into bread, worship me and jump from this precipice to show everyone the antics of the Son of God.  "Don't test the Lord your God."  Interview done.  The enemy slithered away and the Lord, his God, headed to His hometown.  Nazareth.  In the power of the Holy Spirit.

The townspeople had heard all about the miracles Jesus was doing and about His great teachings.  Hometown boy made good.  Let's hear what He has to say.  On the Sabbath, Jesus was in the synagogue.  The priests handed Him a book to read from.  Isaiah.  Jesus knew exactly the passage He'd read.  The Lord has put His Spirit in Me, because He appointed me to tell the good news to the poor.  He has sent Me to tell the captives they are free and to tell the blind they can see again.  God sent me to free those who have been treated unfairly and to announce the time when the Lord will show us His kindness. (61)  Jesus closed the book and sat down.  All eyes were on Him.  What would He do next?

"While you heard these words just now, they were coming true," Jesus declared. 

Hmmm.  What could He mean?  Isn't He just the son of Joseph?  The illegitimate son of Mary?  But what if He's the Messiah?  What if Messiah is our local boy?  Let's see Him do some miracles here.

"I know what you want to say to me," Jesus said, understanding what they were all thinking.  " 'We heard what you did in Capernaum.  Do those things in Your own home town.'  But a prophet isn't accepted in his home town."  He knew these people.  Grew up with them.  Made them.  Jesus reminded the church goers of two stories they would've known well.  During a great drought, Elijah brought water to a heathen widow, not to the dying widows of Israel.  Elisha ignored Jewish lepers and healed Naaman, a Syrian, instead. 

What was He talking about?  Claiming on one hand to be the Messianic hope of Israel and on the other slapping them in the face with stories of God's mercy toward, instead of judgment of, those who weren't Jewish.  This boy of Joseph's, who claims to be the fulfillment of their hopes for liberation, insinuates instead their judgment.  Blasphemy!  Neighbors and priests rushed Him.  Ready to throw Him over the nearest cliff.  When they looked around to grab Him,  He was gone.  Eluded them somehow.

For the whole world to know unequivocally that the prayers of centuries, including the one made by Asaph in this psalm, were answered in Jesus, He began His ministry with the declaration that He'd come to be Messiah.  That meant healing the sick, binding up broken hearts, setting Satan's prisoners free and announcing a new way God would deal with sin.  And it wouldn't be just for the Jews.  It was breathtaking and awful for the Jews to realize salvation was for everyone.  That wasn't fair.  God was their God. 

But all along the Lord showed He loved all of us.  Hagar, thrown with her son into the desert by the jealous Sarah, was visited by the angel of the Lord because He saw her desperation.  Provided for her and Ishmael, her boy.  Rahab, the harlot, a great grandmother of Messiah.  On and on it goes.  God seeing hearts He loves and drawing near.  Jesus came because God so loved the world He gave His Only Son.  And He didn't come to condemn the world, but so the world through Him might be saved. John 3.  By His great love, God answered Asaph's prayer:  Use Your great power to save those sentenced to die.  Because we all are.  No one is righteous, no not one.  All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  Caught in Satan's traps.  Even if it means, like these folks in the synagogue, we miss God because we are so religious we tell God what to do.  Even if we have ruined our lives and think there is no way out of the prisons we have built around ourselves.  We all are sentenced to die for our sins. 

Jesus could've done it some other way.  Satan knew He could call the angels...all of them...to save Him if He jumped off the cliff to show how great He is.  Knew He could turn stones into bread.  It wasn't a matter of mighty power.  It was a matter of our need for salvation.  Save us!  We are helpless!  Still our cry.  Help didn't look like they thought it should.  Jesus wasn't a national Messiah so they could say, "Look, here's our God!"  Instead, Jesus showed us He loves us all.  No nation can brag about Him being just their God anymore, because He so loves the world, He came.

Asaph, God heard you.  A new nation has been created by God Himself.  It is all inclusive.  Lepers, the lame and blind, the pariah and the prince, Irish, Muslim, Jewish and Arab, American and Spanish, smart and challenged, successful and struggling and righteous and sinner.  These make up the holy nation of those who understand what Jesus meant when He said He's the fulfillment of God showing His kindness to the world.  Jesus was raised up in their presence, on a cross outside the city gates, to tell the nations He punishes those who kill His servants.  Then Jesus took that punishment upon Himself.  What kind of God is this?

But you are a chosen people, royal priests, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession.  You were chosen to tell about the wonderful acts of God, Who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.  At one time you were not a people, but now you are God's people.  In the past you had never received mercy, but now you have received God's mercy.  I Peter 2

 

PSALM 79 - Is He Mad At Us?

Be angry with the nations that do not know You and with the kingdoms that do not honor You.  They have gobbled up the people of Jacob and destroyed their land.  Don't punish us for our past sins.  Show Your mercy to us soon, because we are helpless!  (Verses 6-8)

There is a young man who lives down the street from us who is bipolar.  Occasionally he yells obscenties at his mother.  The outbursts come suddenly and are very loud.  Call the police loud.  A couple we have known for a long time has two children who are completely out of control, telling their parents what to do instead of the other way around.  I don't interfere in their lives because they are not my family.  I have no control over the lives of  those who don't belong to me.  I pray for these people because I love them, but they aren't mine.

When I read these verses this morning, I heard whining.  Why are You so mad at us?  What about them?  They don't belong to Him.  The standard by which they are judged is completely different from ours, as Christians.  As a mother, I can't expect the next door neighbor's kids to follow all of my rules.  As our Father, God doesn't exact obedience from those who don't care about Him and don't belong to Him.  But, God won't let the godless go on hurting His dear children.  There is a cap on His patience with the "neighbor kids."

I know our God has an agenda for this earth.  He knows how it all plays out in the end, and He's told us the story in advance.  It involves some of us being martyred and beheaded.  We will need to know about the rise in earthquakes, wars and famines.  His children need to acquaint themselves with the signs of the times.  Heads up about events in the Middle East.  My point is we live on this earth in times that may require our lives.  They conquered by the blood of Jesus, the word of their own testimony and they didn't love their lives so much they were afraid of death.  Revelation 12.  We can't misunderstand our need to trust Jesus when it looks like all is lost because we think God is displeased with us.  I don't know that that's what is happening to Asaph as he writes this psalm, but I know it could happen to us in these times we live in.  They are hard to navigate and we must have a compass.  We will perish along with our faith if we don't know who we are in Christ.  If we can't say, "My Father told me this would happen" instead of "Why is God doing this to me?"

I know God punishes sin, past and present.  What Asaph didn't have, though, was the blood of Jesus covering his sin.  We do.  God has already paid the price for our foolish rebellion with His Only Son.  We don't have to cry out to God to forgive our past sin if we have already confessed it.  It has been removed from us as far as the east is from the west and He forgot it!  So if we are living our lives based on what we think is His great anger toward us over forgiven sins, we will do the stupidest things.  It is our high privilege as children of our Father to live like beloved children who are loved because we are His very own not because we are always such great kids.  We mess up.  We get it right.  Neither of these things makes our God love us more or less.  We are loved.  Period.  Because He decided to love us.

I know God will see us through.  But we can't distrust His motives in these times.  We can't think He is punishing us for something we've done when we watch our world deteriorate.  That destroys faith.  And faith is what we will need in abundance as the end times play out.  We must know Him so well that when fire comes from weapons of war or out of the sky, our faith in His love for us doesn't waver.  We don't feel punished.  Because God will be dealing with the nations that don't know or honor Him.  The whole earth will feel the effects of it, including His children.  We are not and won't be helpless, though.  The same Spirit Who raised Christ from the dead lives in us to power us through to the end.  To give us the courage to speak the word of our testimony, covered by the blood, knowing that death is gain.  Our hearts must be so glued to His that we get it.  We aren't crying out, "Why do you hate us, God?"  Instead we will raise our hands and say, "Maranatha!  Come Lord Jesus, come!"

Jesus, the One Who says these things are true, says, "Yes, I am coming soon.
Amen, Come, Lord Jesus!   Revelation 22


 

PSALM 79 - Tough Love Might Just Mean A Ring In The Nose

We are a joke to other nations.  They laugh and make fun of us.  Lord, how long will this last?  Will You be angry forever?  How long will Your jealousy burn like a fire?  (Verses 4-5)

He was only twenty-two years old when his father, Hezekiah the king, died.  Hezekiah loved God.  Made it a point to serve Him.  Manasseh grew up in a God-fearing home.  So what happened when he succeeded his father as king?  Where did he go wrong?  The litany of his sins against God is really long.  He set up an idol to the sex god, Asherah, in the holy Temple, built altars to Baal, sacrificed his son on the fiery altar of Molek, chose fortune tellers and mediums to run his country and he took Israel with him into sin.  The young king killed many innocent people, filling Jerusalem from one end to the other with their blood.  "Manasseh has become more evil than the nations I cast out before him," declared the Lord God.  "I will bring so much trouble on Jerusalem and Judah that all who hear about it will be shocked.  I will wipe out Jerusalem as a person wipes a dish and turns it upside down."  The Lord was seriously angry.  But in their complacency over His seeming lack of interest in their rebellion against their God, the people continued in idolatry.  They needed some tough love.

God tried to speak to Manasseh.  Tried to chip away at the hardness of his heart.  But the king refused to listen.  Pushed the Lord's gentle reminders out of the way and led the people into ever more riotous sin.  Setting up pagan idols in the Temple of God and worshipping them there.  God had every right to be jealous.  Manasseh didn't grow up that way.  He knew better.  Maybe the constraints of being a follower of God were too much for him.  Manasseh wanted to taste the world...all of it, apparently.  But God...loved Manasseh.   How do we know?  God brought the army of Assyria to attack Judah.  Yep.  That's how we know.  The army captured, but didn't kill, Manasseh.  Two guards held the kings arms behind his back while another forced a huge metal ring through his nose then chained his arms behind him.  On the king's feet were placed more chains so that he was thoroughly bound and bloody when the Assyrian army dragged him by the ring in his nose through the streets of Babylon.  There he was thrown in prison, humiliated and defeated.

The Bible doesn't say how long Manasseh sat in jail before he remembered "the Lord his God." Hmm.  So...all along Yahweh was Manasseh's God?  The other stuff was simply fun...or interesting...?  Seeing what it's like to have a relationship with a sex god and the god of fire.  Wasting years of his young life and killing even his own children in search of the ultimate religious thrill.  How long did the young king marinate in his own stupidity before he looked up?  Don't know.  The point is, Manasseh knew who the real God was.  The only God Who could deliver him.  Who could take the barbaric ring from his nose and trade it once again for the signet ring of a king.  One day he swallowed his pride.  On his face in the filthy prison cell, Manasseh begged the God of his father to help him.  "Oh, God of my ancestors, the only true God, I was wrong.  Help me."

How long until God did anything about it?  The Bible doesn't say.  But what it does say is, "The Lord heard him and had pity on him."  Really?  That is the God I love.  For all my Manasseh moments.  However, it doesn't seem God rushed in right away and cleared up the mess.  Gave Manasseh a get-out-of-jail-free card just yet.  Because God loved him enough to teach him a lesson.  When the kingdom was restored to Manasseh, he wasn't the same profligate son of a gun he'd been.  Nope.  He ripped down all those idols with a vengeance.  Reestablished God as the One True God.  And all the people said, "Amen."

God is more concerned sometimes about our individual faith than what people say about us...or Him.  So the Assyrians laugh at God and mock Him under their breath as Manasseh is dragged like a pig to slaughter down the Babylonian streets.  God knows Who He is.  Isn't as worried about what the godless think of Him as He is about what is going on with his boy, Manasseh.  So, let the king feel the repercussions of life without the favor of the Most High God.  Let the boy call out to Baal or Asherah.  Can sex save Manasseh now?  Will the empty gods of fire bring him good fortune because Manasseh burned his child alive to please them?  He will find out.  Because I will wait until He cries out to Me.  God there until the perfect time.

It is love that allows our predicaments at times.  It is the paradigm of life without His hand that reveals the hand was there.  How long will we wait?  Until we turn our hearts back to Him.  Fester in the messy detritus of our own diseased hearts long enough to hate the stench.  To remember, like the prodigal son, that we were once loved magnificently by God, our Father.  To want with all our hearts to go home again.  To run into the open arms of the One Who should've let us rot there, but Who loved us enough to let us take the consequences of our sins just long enough to get enough.  The entire Assyrian army was assembled for an attack because God loved one very sinful, very rebellious, very wayward child of His enough to be tough with his mutiny.  May God love us all that way.  Because nothing is as important to Him or us as having our hearts and minds knit together with His.

 

PSALM 78 - He Wasn't Asleep After All

Then the Lord got up as if He had been asleep.  He awoke like a man who had been drunk with wine.  He struck down His enemies and disgraced them forever.  (Verses 65-66)

 In the wake of the disobedience of His people toward Him, God took away His presence from their midst.  Trouble befell them.  The favor the Israelites took for granted suddenly lifted and it wasn't pretty.  The shakina, God's glory, disappeared from their lives.  It seemed He went to sleep on them.

Eli and his sons, Hophni and Phineas were priests at Shiloh.  All three of them were fat, which in and of itself isn't a sin, but how they gained those unwanted pounds is what's important.  They ate the choicest parts of every offering together.  Lots of filet mignon.  The process for the portion of meat that goes to the priests was that when a man offered a sacrifice, he would boil the meat.  The priest's servant would then come by with a long fork and plunge it into the boiling pot.  Whatever the fork had attached to the tines was what the priest would eat.  The sons of Eli didn't appreciate their meat boiled.  Their servant would demand, "Give the priests raw meat.  They won't accept it boiled."  If the sacrificer balked, the servant said, "No, you must give it now or I will take it by force."  Both the priest and the one sacrificing were forced this way to disobey God.  And that made God mad.  He said they were worthless men who didn't know Him.  Worse yet, the boys were sleeping with the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting.  Right in front of God. 

He'd watched it for years.  The priests and the people taking His presence for granted.  So God got up from what seemed to be His indifferent sleep and let Israel go out to battle with the Philistines.  Let them be slaughtered by the enemy.  Four thousand Israelites in one day.  Routed and bewildered, the army sent for the ark of the covenant which housed the presence of God in the shakinah glory.  His very presence is what they wanted.  Guess who carried it from Shiloh to the battlefield.  Hophni and Phineas.  Ew, boy.  The army gave a mighty shout.  God with them! 

The Philistines, it seems, had more reverence for the Presence than the people of God because they were afraid.  "Isn't this the God who saved these people from Egypt?  Woe to us!  Woe to us!  Who can deliver us from the power of this God?" But they took courage.  Acted like the real men they were.  Went out and defeated Israel and stole the ark of the covenant with the Presence.  The Philistines returned it to Israel after seven months because it turns out God didn't like living with them.  But that's another story. 

Hophni and Phineas were killed in the battle.  Eli heard about it and "fell over backward from his seat by the side of the gate, and his neck was broken and he died, for the man was old and heavy."  The wife of Phineas was pregnant and went into labor early when she heard the news about the men in the family.   Her dying words were, "name the child Ichabod, for the glory has departed from Israel."

That's when it seemed God went to sleep.  Favor gone.  Had he forgotten His dear children?  God did let them have their own way for a while.  Let them understand their victories weren't because they were so darned smart, but because He fought for them.  Let them drink the cup of their own making for a while.  All the time God knew, though, what He was going to do when He came near again.  Samuel was already being groomed in Shiloh.  This priest would anoint David as king.  The shepherd kid from the tribe of Judah.  A great-grandfather of Jesus, King of Kings. 

I don't want to lose His favor.  I am quite sure I have no idea all the benefits I enjoy simply because God loves me and takes care of me.  What I do know blows me away.  To think that I could do things on purpose that fly in the face of His holiness makes me quake.  No wonder God moves away from such behavior.  Let's us take the consequences for a while.  Hophni and Phineas along with their dad made an entire army face defeat because the boys didn't know God.  And didn't want to. Even though they were the local pastors of the church in Shiloh.  They used the things of God, His holy things, for their own pleasure, discounting His very presence.  Maybe that is why it appears our God is asleep today.  In our society.  May we who know Him stay close and speak up because He won't sleep forever.
 

PSALM 78 - Flying Stupid

God led His people out like sheep and He guided them like a flock through the desert.  He led them to safety so they had nothing to fear, but their enemies drowned in the sea.  So God brought them to His holy land, to the mountain country He took with His own power.  He forced out the other nations, and He had His people inherit the land.  He let the tribes of Israel settle there in tents.  But they tested God.  Turned against God Most High.  They did not keep His rules.  They turned away and were disloyal just like their ancestors.  They were like a crooked bow that does not shoot straight.  They made God angry by building places to worship gods.  They made Him jealous with their idols.   (Verses 52-58)

Becky and Shawn fell in love during their junior year in college.  Since he was a kid, Shawn dreamed of being a doctor, planned for it, kept his grades on the dean's list, ate, drank and slept being a physician.  All her life, Becky loved to read.  Wanted to write children's books.  Maybe even screenplays for kid-friendly movies.  Several magazines already carried her stories.  She was well on her way to realizing her dreams when she married Shawn a week after they graduated from Stanford.  Medical school was next for Shawn.  They both knew the schedule would be grueling and the money tight.  Becky got a teaching job at a local Christian school, but it didn't pay enough.  She moonlighted with her writing and took a weekend job selling cosmetics at a kiosk in the local mall.  Two years into their marriage, Becky really wanted to start a family.  There was no way they could afford children, so she kept quiet about her desires, not wanting to overburden Shawn.  He had so much pressure from school.  And, besides, there wasn't any time for each other much less a baby.  When her husband was in residency, then she could let up.  Get some sleep.  Relax into a better life.  

There was a nursing student at the hospital.  Shawn thought she was cute, at first.  Nothing more until they began eating lunch together.  Then he would stay late to take her home.  Then he wasn't coming home.  Becky hardly noticed at first.  Her life was so busy making his life work.  That's why it was a surprise when he told her he was leaving her so soon after he started his residency.  Everything she thought they were working toward was sucked into a vacuum.  Vaporized.  Four years of her life, all that work for nothing.  She'd been thrown away.  All she'd aimed for gone crooked.

I feel outrage for Becky when I hear her story.  And I should.  It was she who made Shawn's schooling possible.  She took care of all his needs while he followed his dream.  Her desires took a backseat to making his come true.  He took it.  Then left.  For someone else to enjoy the fruits of Becky's labors.  But wait.  Before I get too ready to take aim at Shawn, I better look at how straight my own arrow flies. 

It is God Who made everything work out for His children as they left Egypt, crossed over the Red Sea on dry land, and made their way to the land flowing with milk and honey.  Look how many times these verses talk about what God did.  He led them, guided them, kept them safe, defeated their enemies for them, went before them to drive inhabitants out of the land He declared to be theirs and He settled them in the land in homes.  God did all that.  They simple took it from His hand.  Then got all fat and happy.  Great big grapes and abundant flocks.  Life doesn't get any better than this.  And they flew from one addiction to another, built up idols on every corner to worship in their salad days.  God who?  All the things their God made possible for them was taken for granted.  And it made God mad.  Like it makes me mad at Shawn.  Taking and taking.  Then loving someone or something else.

You could say that Becky and God knew what they were in for when they loved that way.  You always take a chance that love won't be reciprocated.  Becky should've made Shawn pull his weight.  But the promise was she'd have her time to pursue writing when he was a physician.  God's children promised to love and obey Him in their new land.  But their collective words were as trustworthy as a warped arrow that will always miss the mark.  They only knew how to take.  Felt entitled by the great love shown to them.  Wanting only more.  And different.  Anything to titillate the boredom of relationship with no thought to the cost of their relative ease.  And I am ashamed as I write that I have hurt my Father in this way before.  Forgetting Him in my need for more.  Wondering where He is in a ridiculous fit of forgetfulness concerning where's He's always been.  Fearing tomorrow though He's always led me just so I wouldn't be afraid.  Touching idols for the thrill of it when my God has parted my Red Seas and wiped my tears.  Tested His love.  Broken my God's heart with my hubris.

This is why I love Jesus.  I was not thrown away, but pursued in spite of the crookedness of my flight through heady air.  He grabbed me as I was shooting past Him.  Noticed all the kinks that made me wander from the mark.  Jesus took a carving knife and smoothed me out.  It hurt a little...okay, a lot.  But I was flying stupid.  My heart seeking the bull's eye but settling for the surrounding woods.  Jesus pursued me, His Beloved, when I simply wasn't worth going after.  Made me His again.  Now I aim only for His heart.

 

PSALM 78 - Dancing In My Dreams

But their words were false and their tongues lied to Him.  Their hearts were not really loyal to God.  They did not keep His agreement.  Still God was merciful.  He forgave their sins and did not destroy them.  Many times He held back His anger and did not stir up all His anger.  He remembered they were dust, like a wind that blows and does not come back. 

They turned against God so often in the desert and grieved Him there.  Again and again they tested God and brought pain to the Holy One of Israel.   (Verses 36-41)

I awoke at three this morning to a song of praise playing in my head.  Louder and louder it became a melody of my heart.  It actually pulsed in me so that I felt I was dancing before the Lord, twirling, jumping and leaping around, filled with the energy of my love for my Father as I performed to the ode to joy.  I have tears in my eyes even now just thinking about it.  I sensed my Father's pleasure with my brimming heart and my dancing feet.  I wanted to keep it up until I couldn't move anymore.  It was a scene playing out in my heart, but I believe my spirit was truly there because God's pleasure lingers even now.  It made Him happy.  It made me want to know Him more deeply.  In fact, my prayer was:  "I want to know You in a deeper way.  I want to know what makes You laugh."

Then the words of the psalmist this morning.  Reminding me that God feels.  I know this may seem weird to some, but when I asked that question, I felt very sure the voice of Jesus said:  "The same things that make you laugh."  Made in His image, indwelt by His Holy Presence, that makes sense.  Then I thought of all the things that make me laugh out loud.  My children at the dinner table...okay, sometimes they fight there...but mostly it's hilarious.  Or when we all play games together.  The antics of my grandchildren.  A really funny joke.  Irony.  Self-deprecating stories that are funny in hindsight.  The things that make me laugh are usually relational in nature.  I know the person so well that there are inside jokes or memories that we only have to say a first few words about before each of us is cracking up.  Like the time when the kids were little and I was trying to get them all ready for church.  I told Bill:  "Let's hurry up so we don't have to rush."  I knew what I meant.  But it was a ridiculous thing to say and it still cracks us up.  Our family has a million of these (most of which are about me) that still bring us to uproarious laughter. 

There are painful things, too.  We don't bring them up at all, if possible.  Better left under the bridge of forgiveness.  And, at all costs, we try not to hurt each other again.  We still stumble on it -- pain -- but it's not intentional.  In the prayer of Jabez, he asked God to keep him from the evil one so that he won't cause pain.  I completely understand that prayer and pray it often.  I don't want to bring pain to those I love, especially my Father.  I think there is the idea out there that God is a meany Who just can't wait to take a stick to our hides as soon as we mess up.  I am so sorry for those who don't know my Father better than that.  We are made like Him...He's not made like us.  God feels like we feel because He took us from the dust to form us into beings with whom He could relate.  Though God remembers we are dust, He didn't make us to act like it.  We were created to be His dear children.  And, He, our dearest Father.  Beloved and enjoyed.  To laugh with, cry with, walk with, eat with, joy with. 

I cannot imagine how I would feel if one of my kids shook his or her fist in my face and accused me of the dismal stuff we attribute to God.  I love my children.  Would give my life for them.  Just like He did.  Gave His life.  For us.  How could we forget that in our day to day, like the children of Israel whose hearts weren't loyal to the One Who'd worked miracle after miracle on their behalf?  I have grieved my God.  I know it.  Just like He feels what I feel, I felt His mourning over my sin.  I knew I'd grieved the Holy Spirit in me (Ephesians 4).  Like the perfect Father He is, He forgave me.  Disciplined me, too.  But He still wraps His arms around me because I am His.  Oh, the joy of that embrace.  Oh, the freedom of forgiveness.  It makes me love my heavenly Abba, sing praises to His matchless name and dance and dance and dance!

 

PSALM 78 - The Bread Of Angels

But the people continued to sin against Him.  In the desert they turned against God Most High.  They decided to test God by asking for the food they wanted.  Then they spoke against God, saying, "Can God prepare food in the desert?  When He hit the rock, water poured out and rivers flowed down.  But can He also give us bread?  Will He provide His people with meat?" When the Lord heard them, He was very angry.  His anger was like fire to the people of Jacob.  His anger grew against the people of Israel.  They had not believed God and had not trusted Him to save them.  But He gave a command to the clouds above and opened the doors of heaven.  He rained manna down on them to eat.  He gave them grain from heaven.  So they ate the bread of angels.  (Verses 17-25)

Can God even do what we ask?  I mean, we want some pretty big stuff.  That's a funny question when I think about it.  Of course He can do anything.  As He said in Jeremiah 32:  Behold, I am the God of all flesh.  Is there anything too hard for Me?  The question isn't can He do anything.  That is a huge insult to the God of all.  Will He?  Another question altogether.

It's in the desert they turned against God.  There was such a litany of miracles that got the children of Israel out of bondage that I wonder how they could've forgotten.  What was it about the desert that made them forget?  It's hot.  Very hot.  Sweaty and tired, caked with sand in their teeth and armpits, walking miles every day, the children of Israel got sick of it.  The grinding routine of the pilgrimage grated their sensibilities.  Most had only the clothing and shoes they were wearing when they escaped with no Macy's nearby to buy the necessities much less the latest fashions.  They had gold they could've used for that but it's useless in the wilderness where you can only rely on God.  They were thirsty.  There are no streams in the desert.  The refreshing of water is a luxury there.  But, most importantly, I think, is that they didn't know where it all led.  Began to doubt if this promised land Moses spoke of even existed.  The children of the twelve tribes listened to each other and to their own self-talk. 

I have to say, there's a really good chance I would've gone around Mt.Sinai as many times as they were forced to.  The walk to the promised land was actually short.  A matter of a few days.  It took this wilderness group forty years.  The fathers and mothers who remembered the leeks and onions in Egypt had to die off, though they ate the bread of angels and didn't know what they had.  But the wilderness is tough.  If you've been in it, you know what I mean.  Things that once prospered in life dry up.  When God was working miracles, everything seemed clear -- your faith and His power.  But then things got hard...for some of us, really hard.  No refreshing of great spiritual thirst.  Just walking in and out of days that make it nearly impossible to get up in the morning.  And worst of all, we don't know how it's going to end.  Where are we going?

Apparently, that is the perfect time to have faith.  To trust against all the odds that the God Who loves you can provide the bread of angels to sustain you in the wilderness you trudge through.  Don't say, "Can God even get me out of this mess?"  Your Father doesn't like that kind of talk.  If we have walked with Him for very long at all we have wondrous things to share about all He's done for us.  Stop and think about that.  If we are in the desert, He knows that.  Why?  Because He's there too, this God Who will never leave us or forsake us.  So we are to sit down in the hot sand and think for a minute about Him.  All He's done.  All He's promised.  All He's capable of.  Stir up our most holy faith and believe God for...anything.  God loves that!  His weary children asking for a drink and knowing His Father's heart will not deny us one.  Handing Him our hunger so He can provide in such a new way that we must ask as the Jewish tribes of old, "What is this?"  Manna.  They put the "what is this" up to their mouths and munched the bread from heaven. 

I remember in 2006-2007 my life hit a substantial wilderness when my constant question of God was:  "What is this all about?  Where are we going?"  In answer, my Father told me to trust His love for me.  In response, I daily said hundreds of times:  "I will be all right because my Father loves me." Many days I didn't feel that so much as I declared it.  Knew it was true, but didn't feel all warm inside with it.  Trusting Him who can do anything.  Though I didn't see a victorious way out, He did.  And amazed me, as He always does.  He showed me that I need to trust His love for me in the wilderness just as surely as I do in the good times.  And it's harder in the wilderness.  He knows that.  Perhaps He's watching to see if we will decide to trust Him to save us.  In the sweat and work of it, will we look to Him to lead us on?  Because when things are good it's hard to see His power...or even look for it.  But in the desert, where there is no water, He might just strike a bone dry rock and bring enough water to quench your thirsty soul. 

PSALM 78 - Wanna Know A Secret?

My people, listen to my teaching.  Listen to what I say.  I will speak using stories.  I will tell secret things from long ago...We will not keep them from our children.  We will tell those who come later about the praises of the Lord.  We will tell about His power and the miracles He has done.  (Verses 1-4)

This secret was the message that was hidden from everyone since the beginning of time, but now it is made known to God's holy people.  God decided to let His people know this rich and glorious secret which He has for all people.  This secret is Christ Himself, who is in you.  Colossians 1

Got any family secrets?  Shameful things hidden in the back of the family closet that if anyone knew it would ruin the sterling reputations of generations?  Or just some you hide from everyone because you are ashamed of yourself?  Or maybe you are holding on to a great secret that you can't tell yet...and can't wait to.  I knew what was going to happen in the last episode of Downton Abbey last night and kept the secret for two weeks.  But, I digress.  (What was the writer thinking, though?   Really.)

The Godhead kept a secret for thousands of years.  Hinted at it.  The Three-In-One knew the plan all along.  From the beginning.  The Father wanted to adopt children.  From the likes of mankind.  Wanted to make them literally His.  With His DNA.  After the last Old Testament writer, Malachi, dotted the last i and crossed the last t, God didn't speak directly to Israel for four hundred years.  Nothing.  One of the last things God said was:  The names of those who honored the Lord and respected Him were written in His presence in a book to be remembered.  The Lord All-Powerful says,  "They belong to Me.  On that day they will be My very own.  As a parent shows mercy to a child who serves him, I will show mercy to My people."  Malachi 3:16.   Then silence.

One day a star arose in the night sky.  Unbelievably large and eye-catching in its brilliance.  God winking.  It's time.  The baby cooing in the night air of a manger -- He's the secret.  Lamb of God, the sacrifice to end all sacrifices.  The first piece of the heavenly puzzle.  Why this day above others?  Why now after all the years of silence?  Shhh....that's a secret.  The Father wants to surprise us.  And He does.  Jesus wasn't a king...not here.  Slaughtered as a perfect offering.  Outside the city.  What is going on?  Disciples scratching their heads while they hide as cowards from the law.  "When I go away I will send the Helper to you.  If I do not go away the Helper will not come." John 17.

Up from the grave came Jesus.  On His own.  The Helper, the Spirit, there just like they planned to power a dusty body back to life.  Mary can't believe it.  Neither can Peter and John.  Where did He go?  Then Jesus is there.  With them.  Touching them.  Eating with them.  He has risen to the Father and come back to have a talk with the men about the rest of the secret.  About the kingdom of God.  "Wait for the Holy Spirit, Who I told you about.  When He comes to you, you will receive power.  They couldn't think what that would look like.  Sitting in an upper room in a Jerusalem building, over a hundred of His disciples, friends and family anticipating...something.

Whoosh!  A mighty wind!  Doors rattled.  Shutters flapped.  The day of Pentecost had come.  The Feast of Weeks.  Fifty days after Passover.  Fifty days after the death of Christ.  It celebrated first fruits of the harvest.  And the Trinity smiled...or maybe celebrated with raucous laughter, clapping hands, jumping up and down.  The secret fully revealed.  The joy for which they planned before planet Earth began to spin.  The Holy Spirit's turn.  Rushing into men and women, firing their lives with intention and power.  Raising them from their chairs to go out into a world that needs to see what it looks like when humans get the DNA of God.  Indwelt by the Helper.  Pregnant with the power of the Most High God.  Who is now their Father.  The true children of God are those who let His Spirit lead them.  The Spirit we received does not make us slaves again to fear.  It makes us children of God!!!  With that Spirit we cry out "Father!" And the Spirit Himself joins with our spirits to say we are God's children...God knew them before He made the world, and He decided that they would be like His Son so that Jesus would be the firstborn of many children.  Romans 8.  Jesus the first fruit of Pentecost.

And there it is.  The secret this psalmist didn't know yet.  The big plan.  God would sow His Spirit in man.  How it must have thrilled the Godhead to see those first disciples as they healed the sick, cast out demons and proclaimed the secret to the whole wide world!  From the inside out, the children of God move in concert with the risen Lord Who guides them by the power of His Spirit.  Are you dancing yet?  But for those who honor Me, goodness will shine on you like the sun, with healing in its rays. You will jump around, like well-fed calves...on the day I do this.  Malachi.

Christ in us, the hope of glory.  And Jesus said:  "It is finished."

PSALM 77 - It's Really Not So Baaaad To Be A Sheep

You led Your people like a flock.  (Verse 20)

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

Why is it that sheep need a shepherd?  Cats, dogs, rats, gorillas, horses, penguins and most of the other animals I can name don't need a shepherd.  So what's with sheep?  Is it that they're dumb?  I don't think so.  It seems to be that they follow the crowd.  Their herding instincts are for their protection since they don't have natural built-in defenses.  If a wolf attacks one of them, they all run.  Don't even know why.  Just that Flo is running so let's run.  Long after Flo is dinner for the wolf, the others are still high-tailing it to...to...?

It's been discovered that sheep have great recall for faces, however.  Each others and humans.  When taken to the fair, for instance, the sheep knows its shepherd.  Ewes have a preference for handsome rams over the less square-jawed ones.  They can actually be taught to navigate pretty serious mazes.  So let's give sheep some credit.

The Bible can't help but call us sheep.  Maybe it's because our natural defenses aren't that great, either.  We don't roar, run fast, use our enormous teeth or climb trees.  And we roll in packs.  We tend to jump over the same cliffs our friends do regardless of the fact that our moms have warned us not to.  It seems to me, however, that what makes us need shepherding is our hearts.  They can be taken captive by the wolves that prey on us and sometimes we never get them back.  I know God leads our physical path.  Like a shepherd.  Day by day through all kinds of terrain.  But if we don't trust Him, we don't go anywhere He goes.  We wander into the brambles or get stuck in ravines because our desire is to be our own shepherd.  Only we are sheep.  That's a big problem.  Since sheep need a shepherd for all the obvious reasons.

If God is our Shepherd, we need to recognize His face.  Come to Him when we are hungry.  Let Him find the quiet stream (because sheep are afraid of running water) where we can get a drink when we're thirsty.  Trust Him to keep us from the wolves.  Lie down when He says lie down.  Move when He says move.  And try to walk as an orderly flock without constantly bumping into each other.  That's a whole lot of trust.  And the alternative is the brambles...or worse.  That is why looking at Him is important.  Sheep don't forget a face.  And God's face is Jesus.  The Good Shepherd Who gave His life for the sheep. 

Let's look at Him.  Born in a manger as a Lamb.  He must understand what it means to be a sheep then.  The frustration of our natural state -- He learned obedience by the things He suffered (Hebrew 5).  Our Shepherd fought off our enemy.  Gathered us to Himself and healed our wounds with His own.  Loved even the most unlovely and unlikely of us.  Forgave us when we went astray, every one to our own way (Isaiah 53).  Took our place in the brambles and bled His way out.  Held us when our hearts were breaking, cried with us, because He knew our sorrows -- was acquainted with grief.  His face didn't turn away from prostitutes or lepers, adulteresses or cheats, the blind or the deaf.  Willing to shepherd all the sheep, so that none need go astray again.  Then taken as the sacrificial scapegoat outside the city to die as a Lamb so the sheep could live forever. 

I may be a sheep but I'm not so dumb as to follow another shepherd.  If this One loves His little ewe that much, I'm smart enough to climb into His arms and let Him take me anywhere.  Nestle my head up under His chin and feel His heartbeat against mine.  My Shepherd has stolen my heart.  He has a face I can never forget.

 

PSALM 77 - Footprints And Footstools

God, the waters saw You.  They saw You and became afraid.  The deep waters shook with fear.  The clouds poured down their rain.  The sky thundered.  Your lightning flashed back and forth like arrows.  Your thunder sounded in the whirlwind.  Lightning lit up the world.  The earth trembled and shook.  You made a way through the sea and paths through the deep waters, but Your footprints were not seen.   (Verses 16-19)

...and they saw Jesus walking on the water, coming toward the boat.  John 6

Ever wonder why God doesn't always leave footprints where He's been?  There's certainly the hint of Who did the undoable.  Like creation.  It smacks of design.  It is well ordered and complex, defying those who say it's random.  But God leaves the possibility of something else for those who won't believe.

Today there was a basket of Valentine goodies for me when I came down to the kitchen.  In it were cards, perfume, wine, oranges and limes and an electric juicer.  I think it was from Bill.  I don't know that for sure.  Even if he told me it came from him, I could conjure another story.  After all, I didn't see my husband leave the gift.   Although the person leaving it for me would have to know some things about me, I don't have to assume that person was Bill.  But he is the obvious choice.

I live by the ocean (every day I thank God for this privilege).  I watch the tides ebb and rise.  I have seen the water sparkle at dusk and dawn as dolphins roll and play in the waves.  Whales breach and gulls soar as nature does what nature does.  But God doesn't shout over it for all to hear:  "I did this."  Because...it should be obvious.  Really.

Nature knows what we don't.  It is God Who tells it what to do.  The boat didn't leave the dock until late in the evening.  Jesus and the disciples had a busy day with the hungry crowd on the banks of Lake Galilee.  Five thousand men and their families showed up to hear Jesus speak and they got hungry.  "Where can we buy food for these people?"  Jesus asked Phillip, to test him.  Jesus already knew what He was going to do. 

"We'd have to work for a month to buy enough bread to give every person only a little piece."  Phillip just telling it like it was.

"Tell the people to sit down."  Prepare to be amazed.  Five loaves and two fish fed everyone.  With leftovers.  How did that even look? 

Yet only a few hours later, Phillip and the others are getting seasick from the scary waves that are knocking their boat about.  They left without Jesus.  It was dark and He was nowhere.  They were three or four miles out when they saw Jesus coming toward them.  Walking on the waters He'd made.  Leaving no footprints for them to show all the Galileans later.  Look!  We'll prove to you He strolled out toward us!  See those sandal prints!  And they were afraid.  Then Jesus got into the boat and...suddenly...they were at the other side.  No trail left behind.  Just there.  Obedient and reverent.  Just like the waters are when He says "Stop!"  Just like fig trees are when He commands them to dry up.  Just like demons are when He says "Leave!"  Just like sickness is when He says "Be well."  Jesus came to His creation knowing what He was going to do.  Show us to Whom it belongs.

So should He ask us the rhetorical question "What are you going to do?" our response should be "You already know.  Show me."  Prepare to be amazed.  All of creation does just what He says.  He doesn't have to leave a mark bigger than that.  His footprints are so enormous we couldn't see them if we tried.  The whole earth is His footstool.  He's too big to walk around leaving a print.  The seas, the stars, the mountains and streams, birds, elephants, babies and beauty, flowers and trees, pandas and peacocks are stamped with the wonders of our God's great mind.  He is Spirit -- everywhere, all powerful, all smart.  And we are little.  And shamelessly arrogant.  We look for His foot when He gave us His heart.


 

PSALM 77 - Dorner: His Way Or The Highway

Your way, O God, is holy.  What god is great like our God?  You are the God Who works wonders.  You have made known Your might among the peoples.   You with Your arm redeemed Your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph.  (Verses 13-15)

...your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher.  And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying,  "this is the the way, walk in it," when you turn to the right or to the left.   Isaiah 30

There is a way that seems right to a man but its end is the way of death.  Proverbs 16

"I did it my way."  Christopher Dorner might be singing that song somewhere out there today.  It was his way or the highway.  Because evil always has an excuse for why it must brandish the executionary sword.  It's quite a step up from the kid who throws a fit because there are brussel sprouts instead of mac and cheese for dinner so he won't even eat.  Life isn't fair.  At least not in our rule books.  Everyone's path is dotted (or smeared) with occasional "I didn't ask for this" stuff.  It's a darn good thing we don't all settle it with a gun.  Killing innocents.  Because "that's just the way I am."  Ewww, boy.  Seemed right to Dorner, though.  Now he's dead. 

I guess sometimes doing it our way works.  There are plenty of rich and famous people who claim they are self-made and don't need God.   Plenty of homeless would say the same thing.  And a gob of us in the middle.  So, "at this point, what difference does it make?" (Hillary Clinton, 2013)  I would say, all the difference in the world, this one and the next.

Vanessa and I had an experience with the question last week.  Struggling with what to do next in her life, she was having a particularly bad day.   As Christians, we understand we are put on this earth with purposes God can reveal to us.  Created, God says, before the foundations of the earth were set to be His children and fulfill a destiny.  Unfortunately, we are human and our paths get mucked up with dead leaves and weeds sometimes and we stop and wait for direction.   Which is what Vanessa was doing when she became frustrated.  On February 6, I texted her this verse:  He will turn your cursing into blessing because He loves you.  Deuteronomy 23:5.   Trying to understand why she was let go from her job and feeling like we all feel when that happens, Vanessa she said:  "I will fight to believe that, Mom."

 On February 7, I was dutifully sweating and panting on my exercise bike when I felt compelled to get off the bike and down on my face in prayer for Vanessa's way.  Her path.   As I cried and prayed, I saw it...the path.  It was well lit but there was someone standing in the way.  I understood the black shadow to be the enemy of our souls.  "In the name of Jesus," I said, "you remove yourself from this way.  You've been stripped of all your authority by the cross.  You must give way."  He did, in my vision.  But the Lord made it clear that Vanessa would have to fight this enemy also because it's her path he was in.

"What should I say?"

"In the name of Jesus, get your filthy self out of my path.  You have no authority over me!"

A few minutes later.  "I saw him, felt him in my way.  He is still crouching at the side of my path, but he casts no shadow anymore.  The path is filled with light.  I don't know what he's waiting for, but I have let him be larger and more powerful than God.  He had to stand down like a disciplined dog."

"Exactly what I saw," I proclaimed.  "God told me your path is well lit and He will lead you down it but you will need to fight.  I'm telling the enemy that beside the road is still too close.  He MUST move his filthy self completely away from you NOW!"

It was several minutes before I heard from Vanessa again.  Then,  "He's gone.  That was some powerful stuff that just happened in this room.  I've never really experienced anything like that.  Hallelujah!  Something broke."

Sound crazy?  I loved Vanessa's synthesis of this incident when talked about it while walking the beach on Monday morning.  The path isn't here.  It's there.  We expect to see our way spread out before us.  A path to whatever our particular desires are.  But the path is before God so that He, our Teacher, can say, "Go to the right or to the left.  This is your path, walk in it."  And that is a daily thing because, evidently there are things to learn along the way.  We think our path leads to just one goal.  We are created for just one thing.   But what our Father knows is that the journey is as important as the end result.   Yes, we were created with destiny, but more importantly, we are created for His joy.  For relationship on the path. 

It is naive to think the enemy isn't going to try to step in the path.  He was there trying his same old tricks with our Lord Himself.  "Turn these stones into bread."  That, before the nails ripped the flesh of Jesus in what Satan mistook for victory.  But Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.  No one's road leads to the Father except by that one path.  It's His way or the way to destruction.  Both paths are strewn with confusing piles of leaves and various twists and turns.  But only one path is sure.


 

PSALM 77 - Don't Forget Who Loves You

Then I said, "I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High."
I will remember the deeds of the Lord.  Yes, I will remember Your wonders of old.  I will ponder all Your work and meditate on Your mighty deeds.  (Verses 10-12)

Remember not to forget.  That is what the Lord wants from us.  Remember our first love and get back to it.  I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for My name's sake, and you have not grown weary.  But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.  Jesus.  Remember we have an enemy.  Be watchful.  Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he might devour. (1 Peter)  Remember we are powerful.  That same Spirit Who raised Christ from the dead lives in you. (Romans  8)

It's easy to forget in the turmoil.  When Bill and I were first married we were all we thought about.  Couldn't get enough of each other.  Crazy about him.  Loved his guts.  We were kids.  I, a mere twenty years old....he, much older at twenty-four.  Five years in we had our first child.   Less than two years later, another.  Life became more complicated.  Stuff in between us now.  We had to work harder at the connection.   Baby number three in my mid-thirties.  A father arrested.  A mother dying.  Another mother with Alzheimer's.  We got out of touch with us.  First love spread around.  Faltering.  Almost lost in transition.   Don't forget how you loved this man.

In the middle of the battle for our lives, we can only see what is happening with our own fist-to-fist war for survival.  If we forget there is a war at all, we don't fight.  We give up and are overrun by the enemy.  Taken prisoner, we get comfortable in enemy camp drinking what is served, doing what is commanded, marching around the camp in endless circles.  I know.  I have been a POW.  Kicked in the stomach, beaten about the head and shoulders, lied to, brainwashed and useless.  Because I forgot I was at war.  That the enemy has come to steal, kill and destroy (John 10).  But Jesus found me there in my solitary confinement at the bottom of the hell hole I wandered into.  He whispered my name.  Got my attention.  Reminded me into which army I'd enlisted.  You're at war, Kay.  Get up and fight.

I stood up on wobbly legs.  Hadn't had much food in a very long time.  I picked up the handbook on fighting spiritual warfare.  Dusted off my armor:  helmet of salvation, breastplate of righteousness, belt of truth, shoes of the gospel of peace, the sword of the Spirit and the shield of faith.  It all felt heavy when I put it on.  I'd almost forgotten how to wield the sword.  I almost dropped the shield.  Weak at first.  "Leave me alone.  I belong to Jesus."  In my closet.  On my knees pointing a sword at the devil holding my faith over my heart.  Climbing an inch at a time out of the dungeon of my captivity.  In the name of Jesus, who stripped you of all your authority at the cross of Christ, I come against you and take back all you have stolen from me.

When life becomes all about survival, we often become all about ourselves.  Pain leads us into more pain in the enemy's kingdom.  Then pain is all we can see.  It is then we need the Lifter of our heads.  To look up...not in.  To remember what we already know.  We are loved by the Almighty God of the universe and everything in it.  To remember the day we became His child.  The rush of knowing He came into our hearts and made us new.  To love our God like that again.  Past all that has come between us in the months or years that followed.  Jesus isn't interested in all the religious activities we indulge in in His name so much as that we sit at His feet and be with Him....like we did when we first loved Him.  He knows we're weary, busy, bearing up, but Jesus wants more for us in this life than that.  He wants a romance with us, His Beloved.  Jesus wants us to let Him court us again.  Make a date to be caressed by your first love.  Don't forget how you loved this Jesus.
 

PSALM 77 - Surfing The Mammoth Wave

I cry out to God.  I call to God and He will hear me.  I look for the Lord on the day of trouble.  All night long I reach out my hands, but I cannot be comforted.  When I remember God, I become upset.  When I think, I become afraid.

You keep my eyes from closing.  I am too upset to say anything.  I keep thinking about the old days, the years of long ago.  At night, I remember my songs.  I think and ask myself:  "Will the Lord reject us forever?  Will He never be kind to us again?  Is His love gone forever?  Has He stopped speaking for all time?  Has God forgotten mercy?  Is He too angry to pity us?"  Then I say:  "This is what makes me sad:  For years the power of God Most High was with us." (Verses 1-10)

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  For we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.  And He Who searches hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.   Romans 8

I watched in amazement the forty-six-year-old man surf down the one hundred foot wave toward rocks that would most certainly seal his death if the giant wall of water didn't collapse on him first.  I'm sure he held his breath with both fear and exhilaration.  His wife, however, could only see the rocks into which he would most certainly be catapulted.  But the surfer had committed.  There was no quitting the ride at midpoint.  It was literally, surf or swim....or die.

Before we make it home to be with Jesus, we will all have a wall of water behind us threatening to savage our lives.  We're committed to this ride, but the ominous disaster that could await us is a hundred feet high and in the moment all there is hanging on for dear life.  No singing of the hymns in quiet devotionals or peaceful mornings on the front porch drinking coffee and talking to God while the sun comes up.  No.  Our business is to cry out to God with the seemingly insurmountable mountain of misery taking all of our breath away.  It takes up all our time, day and night.  When we think about all the ways the scenario could play out, we stop thinking.  Just stay on the board.  Keep staying upright.  That's about all we can manage.  "God, help me!" we cry as the curl of the wave looks like it might just take us into a raging undertow.  And we suddenly remember the easy days when it seemed every prayer was answered and the seas were calm.  A faint memory are the contemporary Christian songs we used to sing when life wasn't forced forward by the surge of trouble.  Where is God?  An upsetting question.  Especially if you are wanting salvation from the current ride.  There isn't an explanation for His seeming absence in the struggle.  So. We don't talk if He's not talking.  What's there left to say?

All these questions are really about the goodness of God.  He lacks mercy, goodness and love because He has abandoned and rejected us, deciding to give us the silent treatment for a sin we can't quite pinpoint.  Hmmm.  Here's what happened to the surfer:  He held his breath, rode the gigantic wave into what looked like certain death, then veered at the last minute away from the rocks.  Right into the arms of his very thankful wife.  And...he had the ride of his life. 

But there are times when it doesn't seem to turn out so well.  Lazarus was sick.  Really sick.  Mary and Martha knew if nothing happened, their brother would die.  The three were good friends of Jesus.  They had, no doubt, seen Him heal others.  At one of Martha's dinner parties, I'm sure they heard Jesus and His disciples recount stories of coins found in fishes' mouths and demons rushing a herd of pigs over a cliff.  The Messiah was their good friend.  Yet, He didn't come before Lazarus died.  The sisters buried their brother without Jesus seeming to even care.  Where was He?  Waiting.  For them to ride out this wave.  Because healing Lazarus wasn't nearly as amazing as would be raising him from the dead.  But their brother had been four days in his tomb.  "You can't roll that stone away," cried Mary.  "Lazarus stinks by now!"  That's being overwhelmed by the wave, for sure.  Life did its worst to Lazarus.  Death.  Our final enemy.

Jesus cried with Mary and Martha.  Groaned with their groanings.  In fact, he wailed.  Jesus felt in their moment exactly what they felt.  Even though He absolutely knew what the outcome would be.  An empty tomb.  A reeking former corpse stumbling out of the cave encumbered by his grave clothes.  "Unbind him and set him free!" Jesus ordered.  And the crowd cheered.  Because ultimately we can trust the goodness of His will.  Here or there.

Sliding down a mammoth wave?  Don't have the breath to say anything to your God?  Wondering where He is?  Your Abba is riding with you.  Knows what to tell the Spirit to guide you to do.  And the Spirit joins with our spirit to tell God in a way we can't even imagine what it is we need right now...headed for the rocks, going too fast in what looks like a bad direction.  Hang ten!  It could just be the ride of our lives.



 

PSALM 76 - Promises, Promises

Make your vows to the Lord your God and perform them.  Let all around Him bring gifts to Him who is to be feared, who cuts off the spirits of the princes, who is to be feared by the kings of the earth.  (Verses 11-12)

If you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay in fulfilling it, for the Lord your God will require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin.  But if you refrain from vowing, you will not be guilty of sin.  You shall be careful to do what has passed from your lips, for you have voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God what you have promised with your mouth.  Deuteronomy 23

Amanda and her brother, Shawn, got up on Saturday morning with bubbles in their stomachs.  Couldn't wait to get dressed.  Were downstairs for the pancakes they could smell in the kitchen where their father stood pouring milk into glasses as they rushed to sit down at the table for breakfast.

"What time did she say she'd be here?" Amanda asked her dad as she took a bite of bacon.

"Nine."  Joe, their dad, wanted to sound cheerful about the outing to Disneyland promised to his kids by the woman who'd walked out on all of them two years before.  Wanted to believe she'd keep her promise this time.

"Oh, man," said Shawn, "that's two hours from now!"

"You guys still have to clean up your rooms before you leave.  That'll fill in most of that time," said Dad with a chuckle.

At nine, the kids were sitting anxiously on the sofa in the living room waiting.  Shawn was tapping his feet on the floor and Amanda kept rocking back and forth.

At nine thirty, Amanda began to doubt.  Shawn refused to believe she would forget them.  Dad made a phone call in his bedroom.  No answer.

By eleven, all hope was gone for the day at Disneyland.  Another broken promise had taken the joy from another Saturday.  Mom's phone was off the hook.  Dad took the kids for burgers.  But for the rest of the weekend and into the next week the kids carried a dull ache in their stomachs.  It sat there confirming they weren't worth all that much to their mother.  Not that her word wasn't good...but that they weren't.

"God, get me out of this mess and I'll do whatever you want!"  Foxhole stuff.  Thing is, God heard it.  Probably got us out of the mess.  And maybe we forgot we made a promise to the God of all.  Like Pharoah each time Moses brought a new plague.  Egypt's ruler promised to let the Israelites go if the hail, frogs, gnats or flies would just go away.  But when things returned to normal, not so much.  Just like with the kids whose mother doesn't do what she promised, God understands what we think He's worth by whether or not we keep our word to Him.   Don't promise if you aren't going to deliver.   But if you promise, God will hold you to it.  He keeps His word.  We should keep ours.  And when He keeps His promises it tells us we are loved.  Valuable.  Understood and listened to.  Promise keeping is about the heart.  Just like telling lies is.  And a broken promise is a lie.  As Proverbs 26:28 says,  Liars hate the people they hurt.  And that is exactly what it feels like.

Ever been given flowers the day after someone disappointed you?  I have.  And I pretty much wanted to throw them in the trash for the obvious reason.  I'd much rather not have the flowers and still have my dignity.  A diamond might have fared better, but it's still a bribe.  It's still replacing character with flare.  God isn't interested in our empty promises nor in our flourish toward Him when we screw up.  What do the kids waiting every visitation for their mom want?   Clearly they want her to do what she says she'll do.  Every time she breaks their hearts, they feel hated and completely unimportant.  How much more so God? 

Here's the amazing thing about our Father.  He can fix our hearts.  It is the one gift we give to God that makes up for all the times we have disappointed Him in the past.  Beyond diamonds or pearls...to our Father our hearts are priceless treasures.  Even the darkest of them.   If we come to the Father, heart in hand, we will not be rejected.  He keeps His promises.  

Taking a gift to an important man will get you in to see him.  Proverbs 18:16     Jesus, here's my life.

PSALM 76 - Evil Again Today

From heaven You gave the decision and the earth was afraid and silent.  God, You stood up to judge and to save the needy people of the earth.  People praise You for Your anger against evil.  Those who live through Your anger are stopped from doing more evil.  (Verses 9-10)

There is a madman on the loose today in southern California as I write this.  A former Los Angeles policeman with a vendetta against the department that fired him.  Over the weekend, Christopher Dorner killed the daughter of a former officer and her fiance as they sat in their car.   Last night he shot and killed one local policeman, collateral damage from his beef with L.A.  Another officer is even now in surgery for wounds sustained in that shooting.  Mr. Dorner has an agenda.  Killing the families of those who hurt him.  Blockades have been erected on major arteries and security set up at the homes of those on the killer's hit list.  He is prowling about somewhere, vowing to attack again.  Some deep evil has soiled his soul.  It will not end well.

Mr. Dorner has a mother who told him that sometimes things just aren't fair.  Sometimes good people are treated badly.  But he watered the seed of entitlement, patted the soil around it, nourished it with his constant attention to its survival.  The plant became so big it ate him.  It became him.  And now it can only think of devouring others.  Perhaps that is the definition of evil.  We are consumed with ourselves, our injustices, our plight, our own way.  One way or another we will get what we want.

"Make the best use of your time, because the days are evil," warned Paul in the book of Ephesians.  It rings in my ears this morning.  What are we to do in evil times?  When sitting in my car, going to the bank or the mall, or school, or the shooting range or the bus or even to the doctor could be dangerous uses of my time.  We don't know who is shopping beside us in the grocery store or sitting next to us in the movie theater.  Pedophiles are now claiming to be born that way, deserving equal recognition and affirmation that what they desire is normal.  God help us!  Our world is decaying and the stench from its open mouth makes us shudder in fear.  Are we next?

But God...is still on His throne.  Could He stop all evil?  Yes.  Why doesn't He?  His mercy waits for repentance.  When will He?  On the day He stands up and says, "Enough!"  There are tares among the wheat.  If you burn down all the crops, the wheat is destroyed, also.  Our God waits to burn it all away.  Consume evil in the fires of righteousness.  But in the mix, right now, our Father sees His children.  Many of whom have already found themselves in the path of the evil one.  Though His kids are with Him now, it looks like wrong always wins some kind of victory.  This is something God understands.  Evil seemingly overcoming good.  He had to turn His back on it one Friday afternoon during Passover.  God-blood drenched the enemy, drowning him in defeat.  But it looked like all was lost.  It looked like evil was just going to tramp down God Himself.  But He stood up.  On Sunday.  In a borrowed tomb.  Shook off destruction, walked out into the light, gave Himself away to us then went to rule until it's all over here. 

Satan's days are numbered and he knows it.  We can expect evil to increase as the time runs short.  But there is coming a day when God will pour out His wrath on evil.  Revelation 16 speaks of that terror.  World-wide epidemics, the toxic oceans will kill every living thing in them, and bloody rivers will make pure drinking water impossible.  Angels cry out:  "Just are You, O Holy One, Who is and Who was, for You brought these judgments.  For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve!" Then more.  The sun will become so hot people will be scorched and they will curse God.  But not repent.  People will gnaw their tongues in anguish at the total darkness that will prevail and because of the sores that will not heal.  But not repent.  The Euphrates River will dry up in order to make way for a massive land battle as demonic spirits coerce a huge war at Armageddon.  Finally, "the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying,  "It is done!" And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there has never been since man was on the earth, so great was that earthquake...every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found.  And great hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, fell from heaven on people.  And they cursed God for the plague of the hail because the plague was so severe. 

Evil can become so deeply entrenched that even in the face of judgment, there can be no repentance.  On the day when God unleashes His fury on all He chooses, in His great mercy, to watch today, evil will be done with.  Until then, we trust that retribution, to the degree He chooses to deal with it here, will be His.  Vengeance is His.  But His eyes are on those who love Him, today, tomorrow and forever.



 

PSALM 76 - Heroes

You are resplendent with light,  more majestic than mountains rich with game.  Valiant men  lie plundered, they sleep their last sleep; not one of the warriors can lift his hands.  At Your rebuke, O God of Jacob, both horse and rider lie still.  You alone are to be feared.  Who can stand before You when you are angry?    (Verses 4-7)

William Wallace faced down the English after they killed his new wife.  Slit her throat and left her body as a spectacle.  He'd married her in secret to keep her from being raped by an English nobleman who was to steal her virginity on her wedding night before she could be with Wallace.  Enraged by her death and wanting to avenge it, Wallace becomes Braveheart, commands an army of rebels and attacks the soldiers of the English army.  With spear uplifted he shouts, "Freedom!" as he rides into the bloody battles that ensue.  And.....we cheer him on!  We who watch are appalled at the death of the young bride.  At the outrageous evil of the crown's intentions.  A clear line of right and wrong is drawn for us.  And Braveheart is our hero.

General Maximus has won the heart of the Roman Emperor who has chosen Maximus over his own son, Commodus.  Angered by this, Commodus kills his father and takes the throne for himself.  As revenge, Commodus orders the deaths of Maximus, his wife and child.  The general escapes, but his wife and son are slaughtered.  After having buried his family, Maximus is found unconscious by slave traders from North Africa and bought by Proximus.  Because of the general's massive size and battle prowess, Proximus makes him fight in the arenas.   The great anger over the murders of his wife and child leaves Maximus with  nothing to lose.  His fighting is fierce.  His name becomes so famous that he finally goes to the Roman arena where he disguises himself before the fight in order to reveal his true identity to Commodus who attends the gladiator fights in the Colosseum.  Maximus and his band of gladiators defeat their foes to the delight of the crowd.  When he shows himself to Commodus, the crowd spares his life because Maximus was such a great fighter.   Ultimately, in a final duel, the emperor stabs Maximus before the fight so he will have the advantage.  But, Maximus is able to kill the emperor, name the throne's successor and then die, walking into the arms of his family in the afterlife.  "What we do in life echoes in eternity."   And the gladiator is our hero.

Jesus Christ came into the world born of God, the Spirit, and a young Jewish virgin.  He came a warrior wrapped in carpenter's clothing.  King Herod killed all the children in Bethlehem in order to purge the earth of its Savior and the Jews of their King.  But Jesus was safe in Egypt until the old king died.  A wedding in Cana when Jesus was barely thirty began the formal work of His warfare.  To defeat the prince of this world.  To bruise the head of the serpent, rendering him useless in his fight against us.  The fight?   Healing the sick, raising the dead, forgiving the sinner and teaching the teachers.   For this Christ was hung on a cross after having been beaten almost to death.  Taken down from the bloody post and buried in a borrowed tomb.  A tomb that was empty three days later because a risen Christ stepped out, on His own power, and unleashed the Spirit of God in us.  Jesus Christ, our hero.

So why is it then that the world can applaud Braveheart and Maximus, see how finely drawn the lines of right and wrong are, but be angry with God for judging the acts of man as deserving of His wrath?  On what large scale does the God of heaven and earth see evil!  Is it those who would deserve His judgment and justice in their lives who rail against a wrathful God?  There is right and wrong.  We know it.   So the question,  "Who can stand before You when You are angry?" is a good one.  And a right one.  For those who judge God for His silencing of the horse and rider who have wounded the weak and slaughtered the innocent, I would question their right to shake a fist at Him.  It is Braveheart and Maximus who are pictures of the hero we have found in Christ.   It is His life given in place of ours that makes us stand and cheer in the arena of our lives where heroes are so rare.

PSALM 76 - The Beach Hostel

In Judah God is known.  His name is great in Israel.  His abode has been established in Salem, His dwelling place in Zion.  (Verses 1-2)

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  A I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,  "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.  He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.  He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."  Revelation 21

"Let not your hearts be troubled.  Believe in God; believe also in Me.  In my Father's house are many rooms.  If it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you so that where I am there you may be also." Jesus

The two girls from Holland were looking for the youth hostel in Huntington Beach when they pulled up in front of our house on a Tuesday afternoon.   I noticed them as I was pulling weeds from the planter adjacent to the sidewalk. 

"Do you know where the hostel is?" the redhead asked.

I pointed to an enormous green structure that listed a little to the left on the street behind our house.  "That used to be it," I said.  "I think it's now a halfway house."

The girls were very much in need of a bath.  "Where are you from?" I asked.

"Holland," they chirped in unison.  "We have been touring the U.S. in this rental car, staying in parks and hostels when we can." They looked down at themselves.  "The last couple of nights we've been in a camp ground.  We were hoping for a shower."

"Why don't you stay here tonight," I offered.  "We have an extra bedroom and a bath!" 

"Really?"

"Really."

As the girls unloaded their gear and marveled at their accommodations, I was struck by how we are all sojourners lighting for a moment on this earth, hopeful for a safe harbor.  I was happy to hear them sing as the hot water poured over them in the shower.  To see them giddy over a big, warm meal.  To watch them look at their freshly laundered clothes as if they were new. 

They wanted to go to Disneyland.  Could they stay a second night? 

"Sure," I answered.  "I have a Bible study tomorrow evening with young women about your ages.  They would enjoy meeting you so much."

"We'll try to be there." No pressure. 

Half-way through the study, the Dutch girls joined us.  Not Christians, each had much to share about why they weren't interested in the God of the Bible.  However, they were challenged by the lives of the girls in the study.  Scratching their heads as to why I would offer them not only a room, but such hospitality.  As if they were my own daughters.  Why would I do that?

I know it's cliche..."this world is not my home, I'm just a-passin' through"...but that's about the size of it.  And when we traverse the planet, it matters where we light.  If we stay a night or two in the presence of God.  Are challenged to know Him more deeply and then get in our car and drive away because we have places to see and things to do. The fragrance of His cleansing still clinging to us.  It matters that we know where God dwells and that we get there.  We are invited, as the Dutch girls were, to come in.  To see the wonders of His dwelling place in us.  Always God's desire has been to live with us.  The Lord walked in the garden of Eden in the cool of the day.  Adam was accustomed to His physical presence.  It's what God wants. 

It's different when my own children come home.  Each invited from my womb into a cradle gently rocking in a safe bedroom full of stuffed animals and diapers.  They belong to me and live in my house.  A picture of our relationship with a God, who has adopted us as newborns by His grace to be a part of His family forever.  To live in His house in the New Jerusalem where once again our God will, Himself, walk daily in our presence.  We get to go home!  Where we are welcomed as family, not as aimless trekkers. 

God doesn't want us to just pass through.  He wants us to get somewhere.  If in life we only touch the joy of His presence without deciding to live in it, we miss out forever.  Where we stop our car, get out and clean up will make all the difference in this world and the next.

PSALM 75 - Ode To Red Oak, Texas

No one from the east or the west or the desert can judge you.   God is the judge.  He judges one person as guilty and another as innocent.  The Lord holds a cup of anger in His hand.  It is full of wine mixed with spices.  He pours it out even to the last drop, and the wicked shall drink it all.  (Verses 6-8)

For His anger is but for a moment, and His favor is for a lifetime.  Psalm 30: 5a

I was sitting in the office of the Superintendent of Schools in Arlington, Texas, one morning in 1971.  I'd just finished my student teaching in that district at a local middle school and was applying for a job within that system.  Ann, my mentor teacher, was instrumental in my getting this coveted interview as was the language arts director of the Arlington schools.  I left the office that day with an actual reference from the superintendent.  He'd already heard how effective a teacher I was.  Couldn't wait to have me on the team.  I was elated!  I didn't even apply to any other school districts so sure was I that my job in Arlington was secure.

I was sitting in the office of the Superintendent of Schools in Arlington, Texas, one morning a few weeks later.  "Can you tell me why I didn't get the job here?

"I don't do the hiring, Kay," he began, "the Assistant Superintendent does."  The superintendent changed positions in his chair.  "It seems you missed the first meeting of student teachers when he introduced the program.  He was offended by this.  I'm so sorry."

I'd never been made aware of such a meeting.   Ann knew but it had slipped her mind.  Apparently there was some bit of animosity between them of which I was also unaware.  No job for me there.  I couldn't wrap my head around it.  Or my heart.

In a panic I rushed to check out any schools that might, so late in the hiring process, need a teacher.  Red Oak, Texas.  A suburb of Dallas, of which pretty much no one was aware, needed a middle school English teacher/librarian.  Dewey decimal system was a fog to me.  But I loved English. 

I was sitting in the office of the Superintendent of Schools in Red Oak, Texas, one morning in 1971.  "You teach speech, I see," he said with a big grin. 

"I do," I replied.  "I was a college debater and speech team member."

"I coach the debaters at the high school." He beamed with pride.  "We win."

"Then I will win, too," I assured the man.

My first day of classes was preceded by a one day crash course in library science from the woman who had overseen the school's library for years.  My senior speech class was filled with kids almost my age.  The middle school English class was peopled by pubescent kids with minimal skills.  My dreams of advancing the cause of literacy seemed doomed.  The rest of my schedule was taken up with library things.  The place is probably still a mess all these years later.

But God chose where to give me favor.  Where to promote me.  It didn't really come from the administration of the Arlington schools nor from Don Shields, the kind man for whom I worked in Red Oak.  God's favor had to do with His plan.  That I couldn't have even guessed when I drove out to the boonies of suburbia to ask for a job.  Before the first semester even ended, almost fifty students became Christians because of a fluke.  A Christian man came by the library because he'd heard I was a Christian, too.  He regularly delivered goods to the school.  On one these stops he told me of a young man who visited schools and told of how he had become drug-free.  Would I help him set up such an assembly in Red Oak.  "He won't mention Christ at the school.  We will have the kids come later to a nearby church where the young minister will then tell the kids about Jesus."

Of course, the young preacher did tell the kids about Jesus in the assembly.  The principal came screaming to me that "this is worse than alcohol in the schools," and I was persona non grata for a bit.  However, favor came from the place most counter intuitive.   The kids.  They loved me as much as I loved them and came that night to the local Baptist church to hear the gospel fully preached.  Many became Christians.  Bill and I had a family of babies to rear in the Lord.  Favored by Him to love these students become spiritual children.

It is His favor I have learned to seek.  Man's favor doesn't really matter to God's agenda for me.  It's like GPS.  We are guided to the place of promotion.  Find ourselves in the spot where the little flag is waving and the Map Voice declares:  "You have reached your destination."  I know Red Oak seemed  at least second best when I was rejected in Arlington.  I judged it to be inferior and took the job out of the desperation of thinking I would become a secretary with no typing skills.  Silly me.   No one was more blessed by going in the direction where my favor lay than I.

All of my life as a child of God -- every single day -- I have great favor.  I am the apple of His eye.  The Beloved of His heart.  His little lamb.  A mighty warrior princess child of the King of Kings.  The face of my Father beams when He looks at me because He judges me to be His.  I am a joint heir with Christ, receiving all that He will inherit.  I will let this God be my only judge, not looking to the east or the west or to the desert mountains to see what I should think of myself.  Nor will I decide what favor from the world looks like.  As long as He delights in me, I have all the affirmation I will ever need.