PSALM 86 - Pastor Saeed Abedini, My Brother

O God, insolent men have risen up against me; a band of ruthless men seeks my life, and they do not set You before them. But You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Turn to me and be gracious to me; give Your strength to Your servant and save the son of Your maidservant. Show me a sign of Your favor, that those who hate me may see and be put to shame because You, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.  (Verses 14-17)

Today Saeed Abedini sits in solitary confinement in an Iranian jail where he's been beaten for his faith in Jesus. Saeed is an American citizen who was involved in church building. Arrested in 2005, Saeed pledged he would not evangelize Iran again and was released. Last summer, Saeed left his wife and two children in Idaho to return to Iran and help build a state-run, secular orphanage. When authorities heard of his return, they yanked Saeed from a bus on which he was traveling and threw him, once again, into prison. He has been in prison for over two hundred days. Until recently, he's been held without any charges. In January Iran set his sentence at eight years. Though his family and a group of attorneys pressure the government for his release, things are getting much worse for this young man who is only thirty-seven years old.

In an effort to get Pastor Saeed to recant his faith, the prison has placed him in solitary confinement. He's already told relatives who were, until recently, allowed to visit him, that solitary is a horrific nightmare of beatings and soul-testing silence. His health is failing because the beatings have apparently left him with internal bleeding, especially from his kidneys. Of course, this treatment of the young Christian is in violation of international law, but it is Iran where he is imprisoned. They don't care.

I awoke this morning with a prayer for Saeed Abedini on my heart. Then I read this psalm. It is my prayer for him. Moved to care for his people in any way possible, Saeed was doing the things that are on God's heart--caring for widows and orphans. I am reading Nehemiah right now, and his story reminds me of the heart God gave to the cup bearer to Artaxerxes. As Nehemiah prayed for God's people from a place of relative ease--Susa, where the king vacationed--his heart broke and he knew he must go to Jerusalem and help them rebuild their lives. The effort was not without savage interference from Sanballat, Satan's pawn in the rebuilding process. There are times, though, when God calls us to go, and we must. Pastor Saeed went. And, for those of us who know Christ, we then went with him. Saeed is our brother. Straining against the beatings and blinded by the darkness, Saeed is losing strength. Visitors are no longer allowed so there is absolutely no accountability for the prison guards as they flay and brutalize him for his faith.

So let us pray, on our faces, with tears, for our brother! Show Saeed a sign of Your favor, O Lord, right now! In this moment give him supernatural grace and strength. Clear his mind. Bind his brokenness and visit him in jail in a miraculous and appropriate way. As You visited Paul. As you delivered Peter! O God, merciful and gracious, we pray as Nehemiah did: "Let You ear be attentive and Your eyes open, to hear the prayer of Your servant!"

 

PSALM 86 - I'm All Ears

Incline Your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. Preserve my life, for I am godly. Save Your servant, who trusts in You--You are my God. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for to You do I cry all the day. Gladden the soul of Your servant, for to You, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.  (Verses 1-4)

Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore, let your words be few. Solomon.  Ecclesiastes 5:1

Yesterday I sat in church listening to Vanessa lead worship. It is her gift. This leading people into the presence of God. Not only is her voice beautiful, her heart is, too. I breathed to my Father a familiar prayer: "When, Lord, will You allow her to sing full time for You?" My heart was weary as I asked. Because I've asked so many times before. But His answer was surprisingly clear: "I'm the One Who gave her these gifts. I know what I have in mind." Answering my sighing heart more than my actual question. Better to listen sometimes than to speak.

Isn't it awe inspiring to think the Lord of all would sit with us and talk? That yesterday in church He was hearing what I asked? Available to this flawed and hopeful woman He calls His? He is not my friend, my companion, my psychologist--He is my God. Ruler over all of me. King of my life. And I know sometimes I act as though He must do my bidding. Make life happen my way. Pathetic, I know. It is when I listen instead of speaking that I become most wise. When I read the Word and discover His heart, mind and soul, I am secure in His goodness, mercy and love. God tells me in His own words what He has for me. The Holy Spirit within me tells me what Jesus is saying to me. Jesus promised that in John 16: "When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you." Jesus speaks directly to us. We should be able to hear Him because He is always telling the Holy Spirit what He wants us to know. The miracle of that is staggering. That is how His sheep hear His voice (John 10). Are we listening? Or talking?

Have you ever been with a friend who just can't seem to hear you out when you are talking? One who constantly cuts in with something to say then doesn't remember where you left off? A good listener is very hard to find. We are so overstimulated and needy when we come before God that it's difficult to sit still and quiet before Him. But you know what? God has important things to impart. Jesus desires to declare it to us! I am encouraging myself today to incline my ear to Him. I already have God's attention. He wants mine! What are we missing out on because we vomit all our needs in prayer, brush our hands together and call it done for the day. Leave Jesus standing there with His mouth open, ready to guide us, when we are long gone.

Here's my prayer today, Jesus. I want to listen. You are in heaven and I, so small, on earth. Let me be taken up in spirit to soar with You on streets of gold today before I walk the pavement of this planet where my feet, oh, so temporarily, make their way on down the road.

PSALM 85 - Holier Than Thou? Nope.

Righteousness will go before him and make his footsteps a way. (Verse 13)

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne. Steadfast love and faithfulness go before You. Blessed are the people who know the festal shout, who walk, O Lord, in the light of Your face, who exult in Your name all the day and in Your righteousness are exalted.  Psalm 89

We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteousness is as filthy rags. Isaiah 64

Righteousness is such a lofty word. Tied for so long with its cousin, self-righteousness, it has some ugly undertones. If you are righteous you must be like the Westboro Christians who hate monger with signs and spit outside of funerals. Or you kill abortion doctors and vote for the death penalty. With their noses in the air, the righteous live above the prostitute or adulterer, the thief or addict, the poor and destitute. To be righteous is to be proud. My stomach is already turning. But these were the very people Jesus railed against, calling them "white-washed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness." Matthew 23 is pretty much a diatribe by Christ on self-righteousness. So that can't be what it is that "goes before us to make our footsteps a way."

I am righteous. There. I've said it. I know. I know. When you look at my life, it ain't perfect! That isn't what I'm claiming. Because I know with Isaiah that all the good things I try to do in my flesh are worth about nothing. I'm not righteous because I'm so good. I'm righteous because He is good. That pretty much leaves out any boasting on my part. The rules of the Law served to show me (and the Pharisees) that we can't keep them. It just isn't in us. Not only are the Ten Commandments impossible, the Jewish leaders added hundreds more rules to them. Why? The more rules you claim to abide perfectly by, the more righteous you are. Right? Except pride becomes the tape worm of the heart, eating alive the very thing that could make us right. Our humble acknowledgment that we are nothing without Him. So, what makes me righteous today as I sit here? Not the sterling way in which I keep all the rules, never breaking them. Not the way I lord it over those whose missteps lead them to disgrace. Not that I can go to sleep at night with a clear conscience because, by golly, nothing was my fault yesterday!

Relationship is why I can say Jesus prepares the Way in front of me. I deserve the death penalty for my sins. A holy God demands absolute perfection. On my best day, I am so far from perfection it's not even funny. If I count my thoughts along with my deeds, which God does, I am absolutely hopeless. I cannot work hard enough to purge my life of all that is unpleasing to Holiness. That is why I need Jesus. He was and is the penultimate. His sandals flapped on this dusty earth He spoke, as the Logos, into being to live the life I couldn't and die the death I now won't have to. If that sounds like an amazing story, it is! The proof of its validity isn't in the history that bears it out, but in the lives completely changed  by the Son of God Who now lives in me. That, by the Holy Spirit, Jesus could take this woman with a propensity for all the wrong things and make her want only to please Him is a miracle of miracles. Multiplied millions of times in others throughout the last two thousand years. If there is anything good in me, it comes as a result of my relationship with Christ Who died for me. How can I then look at anyone else from my ivory tower of purity and judge their way? Instead I look from a broken life, restored by the grace of Jesus, and pray for that same grace in others.

My righteousness is a gift. Really. Bestowed on me, free of charge...to me. Paid for in full at the expense of His life. There is no room for bragging about it. Great thankfulness is all I can come up with. It makes me follow the Way. Hand in hand, my path lighted by the favor of the Father I gained when I loved His Son, I walk on down the road following after His love, sustained by His faithfulness. You won't hear me shout about how great I am when He leads me aright. What you will hear is a shout of joy, though, because I will always know Jesus has brought me to a place I could never have found on my own!

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified (made right) by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus!  (italics mine) Romans 3

PSALM 85 - A Seedlíng's Ode

Faithfulness springs up from the ground, and righteousness looks down from the sky.Yes the Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.  (Verses 11-12)

Your people shall all be righteous. They shall possess the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified. Isaiah 60

"...that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified." Isaiah 61

The day had been busy for Jesus. Most notably an argument with the Pharisees. They wanted to see signs from Hm that He was Messiah. While He was in a house speaking intensely with these men, the place became so crowded there wasn't even room to eat. The teachings of Jesus caused such a ruckus that his mother and brothers were concerned about His sanity. Came to the door. Knock. Knock. "We've come to seize Him." What?

"Your mom is at the door with Your brothers." This coming gossip-game style from the back of the house all the way to Jesus speaking up front.

"Who are my mother and my brothers?" Jesus knew. Those who'd grown up with Him thought He was loony-tunes. His ministry didn't look like it was going anywhere. And He kept offending the people in church with His radical ideas.

After the crowds left, Jesus went out in the late afternoon sunshine to sit by the sea. Take deep breaths and be with the Father. That didn't last long. People saw Him there and came in droves to hear Jesus speak. He stepped from shore to sit in a boat anchored close by and began teaching the people about seeds. Hmm. Consider His day. The sower sowed seeds that fell along the path and the birds ate them. Some landed on rocky ground where they sprang up for a minute then died because they had no root to nourish them when the scorching sun rose. A handful fell among thorns that grew up and choked the fragile plants. Ah, but some fell on good soil and sprang up to produce lots and lots of grain. The birds, or the evil one, snatch the word before it is understood. The seed on the rocky path springs up for a bit but doesn't have a deep enough root to endure. The cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches chokes out the seed among the thorns. But, oh the joy of the seed planted to flourish. She hears the word and understands it! This little acorn gets to become a mighty oak.

A little later, in Matthew 15, Jesus says, "Every plant that My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted." If God hasn't planted us, we don't grow. He puts a tiny seed of faith--mustard seed small--into our hearts. If we are good ground, the kind that receives and understands the message, we take that seed and nurture it, small as it is at first. We water it with the Word and feed it with time in the Son. It sprouts little roots that entwine themselves into every part of us. Fed by the Vine (John 15), the plant endures troubles, resists the evils of riches and hubris, and even stays strong when the Vinedresser does some pruning that hurts in the moment but produces a huge crop of acorns later.

How do we know which soil we fell on? By our fruit. As we oaks of righteousness get bigger and bigger our faith growing up should be reaching His righteousness flowing down. In faith, the plant reaches higher and higher, yearning for more of the glory flowing from above. And on the horizon, one who looks at the oak from afar cannot distinguish between trust as it ascends and God's ways as they descend, for all they see is the glory of the tree at dusk.

PSALM 85 - Kissing Peace

Steadfast love and faithfulness meet. Righteousness and peace kiss each other. (Verse 10)

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness.  Lamentations 3

And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.  Isaiah 32

I have been out there, like many of you, away from God. Pain pushed my buttons, but I moved my feet. I know in the scheme of things (and believe me, there was one) I found myself doubting the goodness of God. Some days, even His existence, because, well, life blew up around me. Part of said scheme was to cause my heart to wander from the assurance I was loved by a mighty, benevolent God. I lost my mother to cancer, my father to jail, and two of my lifelong friends to breast cancer within a short span of time. It seemed to me that God killed His children and abandoned those in pain. I couldn't think it correctly...and I had some help there, too. All this to say, my love for Jesus was predicated to some degree on my own ideas about what is fair and on the notion I could figure out what He is doing at all times. Life turned to crap and it didn't make sense. So I strolled into the dark to ponder and sin.

From that journey, though, I have learned a thing or two. Doing wrong doesn't feel good. Not when you already know Jesus. Righteousness is about doing what pleases Him because of all He has done for us. Not about Brownie points. When my heart was angry with God, it was easier to do what I wanted to because I could say He didn't care. That had been my only motivation before. Wandering off from those feelings of love for God left me with no real catalyst to be a Christian except I had been one for so long. I know the Holy Spirit lives in me. He doesn't go away. I can hide Him in the corner of my life somewhere, but when He can't shout, He will whisper...and whisper...and whisper. It is very uncomfortable. I could never get away from the faithful wooing of my God. How could I possibly have any peace, then? See what I mean? As Paul told Timothy, "if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself."

Why would Jesus keep on keeping on with us? Because He first loved us. Gave Himself up on our behalf. He is CRAZY about me! And you! Can you imagine climbing up on a cross to be murdered so I wouldn't have to pay for my own sins? Bet not. Jesus did! Before the foundations of the world God knew me. Watched me in my mother's womb. Wrote out my life before I was even a day old. (Psalm 139) He sings over me with joy (Zephaniah) and stands between my life and the evil one. God is jealous of my love for other gods. That's why when He finds us in a pit, He goes to hell and back to retrieve what belongs to Him.

Day and night, night and day, Jesus is thinking about us. Nothing we can do can make Him love us more...or less. Love, to Him, is love. Always meeting faithfulness head on. It's His love that makes Him take me for another day. To hang in there with me when I am hurt or just plain stupid. For I am sure that neither life nor death, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height not depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8) How absolutely out of the box amazing that Jesus decides He'll love me steadfastly, faithfully.

If you've wandered very far away from your first Love, you know He comes to get you. To kiss your wounds and bind up the heart you allowed, in your disobedience, to be broken. As He holds you, it is the caress of one you have betrayed, and that is what makes the sweetness of it almost too tender to bear. Forgiven and washed clean, made right by His grace, there is finally peace again. A peace you could just kiss you've missed it so much. I know I didn't want to move from His side after that. Did I still have questions about the train wreck that sent me packing? Yes. But they weren't accusations any longer. Questions are different. I understand His love so much better now and know He knows things I can't possibly understand. I John 4:20 became a life verse. For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and He knows everything. 

Who is loved like God loves us? No one. Unique to Him is His faithfulness and steadfast love. I want to be right with Him. Not always right. Vast difference. To please Him is my highest aim and my easiest burden for I am yoked together in this life by His Holy Spirit to live in the righteousness that results in peace, quietness and trust forever. I never want to break His heart again.

PSALM 85 - The Devil Never Gave Me Anything Good

Let me hear what God, the Lord, will speak, for He will speak peace to His people, to his saints. But let them not turn back to folly. Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him, that glory may dwell in our land.  (Verses 8-9)

But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way.  Philippians 3

No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back if fit for the kingdom of God.  Jesus

I watched "Anna Karenina" last night with Bill. The sobering story depicting the verse in Proverbs: "There is a way that seems right to a man (woman), but the end thereof is death." Choosing her lover over her husband and children over and over again then abandoned by the one in whom she had "put all her happiness." Anna's death was literal. But the story is a sobering picture of what the ruler of this present darkness has in store for all of us who would be enticed into his realm. Complete destruction is his plan of choice. With many little deaths along the way. Satan has never given me anything good...or remotely good. Nothing I want to look back on and wish I were still in the claws of. I have been extricated, believe me. I understand the subtle journey into blackness. I never want to go there again.

Our addictions and attachments in this world come from a place of dissatisfaction with life. A desire for more. More thrills, more adventure, more peace. An extraction of pain, or at least, a numbing of it. The joke is on us, though, for in trying to find ease, we increase pain. Add another deeply throbbing ache to a life already wrenched. On our knees we find salvation. Cry out to be saved from not only our situation, but from ourselves. Our Christ, Whose steadfast love can be counted upon, reaches into our pit and grabs us up, walks us out, bring us peace we never dreamed possible because our hearts are made for Him. Then some of us jump right back into the mire! We are still loved. But we are not fit for the kingdom. Not ready for the life ahead. If we can't leave the past behind and move on. Proverbs 26 describes such a thing this way: "The dog returns to its vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire." Not a lovely picture.

How does one become fit? For many believers, the pit is all they've known until they find Christ. Pit dwelling is a way of life. If I might be practical, we all need the "washing of the water of the Word." The Bible is God's mind and heart chronicled across the pages for the ages. It is God's way of speaking a broad word for all and a personal word to each. It is the beginning to keeping fit. Conversations with Him are as rich as our knowledge of our Father. Prayer keeps us on our toes. Our victories are exponentially dependent upon our relationship with the General. Our ability to be awed by God is dependent upon what we see Him do, and prayer is the beginning of that wonder. If we can't control our urges, we must practice. Especially in this world today which is a carnival of hedonism where every booth offers some new pleasure sure to change our lives. And, boy, do they! The oven is hot and we should be prepared not to touch it...or even go near it. Folly is so yesterday. And if we engage again we will be even more miserable because we now know what real peace looks like. If we are looking back on sin as something we miss--the way it made us feel--we are unusable and unhappy.

So forget what's back there. Yes, we have all made mistakes. Stuff we could recount ad nauseum. And each time we talk about what's back there, we either get titillated or depressed. Dance instead in the freedom and joy of now. For there is glory involved in dwelling where God lives. Peace is poured out on the saints who decide to walk with the Way. The deeper the relationship with our Father the less we want anything to do with the father of lies. We have switched families. From paupers to princesses. Walking the streets and begging for bread shouldn't compare to living in the courts of the King of Kings. How could any of us in our right minds go back to the slums when we have lived in the Presence of real glory? It is why, if we do turn again to our folly, we aren't fit for royal courts. We don't think we deserve it, we aren't used to it or we don't trust it will deliver all we will lose in the streets. None are good reasons to go back to vomit--to lay with the pigs. That is what should be hard to forget! That God pulled us up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set our feet upon a rock and put a new song in our mouths, a song of praise even unto our God (Psalm 40). Does it make sense then that we miss the pit?

May we turn our heads around and look forward at all God has promised us. May we live right now, today, in the light of His glory, remembering our salvation! And if we think at all of the days gone by, may we only be thankful to our toes that we are no longer snared by the devil. Let those of us who are mature think this way.

Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who revere Him, on those who hope in His steadfast love, that He may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine. Our soul waits for the Lord. He is our help and our shield. For our heart is glad in Him, because we trust His holy name. Let Your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in You. (italics mine) Psalm33






 

PSALM 85 - It's Getting Hard to Breathe Here

Restore us again, O God of our salvation, and put away Your indignation toward us! Will You be angry with us forever? Will You prolong Your anger to all generations? Will you not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You? Show us Your steadfast love, O God, and grant us Your salvation.  (Verses 4-7)

Revive.  To restore to life or consciousness. Ew, boy. You are revived when you are out cold and need air in your lungs and oxygen to the brain. So, when we are spiritually dead, we need a good resuscitation. The logic of it is this. If our benevolent God is mad at us, we have done something/s wrong. We have moved away from what pleases Him and into what doesn't. God isn't indignant and angry because we are such great kids! That's hilarious! Our Father has a set of standards that are for His glory and our good. Like any sterling parent. How long has He put up with our rebellion to get to the point that it feels like He'll be angry forever? A looong time.

I received a call many years ago from a friend who is more like a sister to me. With terrible grief in her heart and with trembling voice, she told me of having to tell her teenage son to leave the house. Long battles over drugs and other addictive behavior had forced the issue. He was sleeping somewhere in his car. And she wasn't sleeping at all. But the boy left my friend and her husband no recourse but to remove him from their presence for a time. Scary as it was, the process led to the unloading of guilt and shame the son had thrown onto his back. Today he has his doctorate. Because God is gracious and my friends, wise.

I don't think that picture is far from what happens with us and God. Read the parable of the prodigal son. You can't need more reviving than he did, slopping the pigs and wishing for their food in his belly. In need of more than a good bath. A cleansing of heart and soul. An understanding of what the Father's heart has been all along. But there is the other brother in the story. Mad, mad, mad! Who does the brother think he is to come home and expect love and security. He took his inheritance and spent it in the worst way. Prostitutes, gambling and alcohol. Homeless, then, and smelling to high heaven when Dad sees him afar and runs to him. Can't get more co-dependent than that! No way is this older brother going to any party that has to do with the pariah "little brother" has become. Worked all these years for his own share of the inheritance! The Father never gave him a party! Not for being faithful. Guess you have to be bad before He notices you. And out spills the blackness of his self-righteous heart. "I'm the good one."

"All I have is yours,"says the Father. Actually, that is literally correct. He will inherit what is left because the younger brother took all of his when he wished his Father already dead and split. "You could've had a party with your friends any time!" Too busy working this darn farm!  Me, me, me. "Rejoice with me that your brother was lost and is now found!" The Father is just so happy to see his kid alive and repentant!

Which child gets resuscitated? Only the one who knows he needs it. The older brother gets the rest of the farm. He deserves it. But the younger brother gets His Father. Is covered in kisses and clothed in clean linen. Never gets to give the speech he'd prepared as he trudged the miles of dusty roads back home: "Father, I have sinned against you and am no longer worthy to be called your son." Over and over again. Couldn't wait to get the words out of his mouth. To spill his guts. To fall on his face. "Make me as one of your hired hands." I just want to be home. The kid is filthy. Matted hair, dirty teeth and rancid clothing. But the Father threw his arms around him, kissed his pig-slopped face! Oh, revival!

When we know our need for God again! When we see that our plans lead to the sty. Or when our eyes are opened to the depths of darkness in which we live when we push God away because He isn't impressed with our self-righteousness. When we recognize that religion can't replace a relationship with the Father. We will never know the heart of our God until we see that ours are rebellious and empty without Him. Christians are having a hard time breathing these days. Caught up in the miasma of cultural pollution that mesmerizes our minds and compromises our beliefs. All the while, the Father waits. For His children to understand the depths of His love as it reaches out to the pew or the sty. Revive us again, dear Father! We are losing air.