Psalm 14 - What's It All About?

The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." (vs.1)

Just looked up the word for fool used here.  It doesn't mean someone who is simply ignorant.  The verse is not saying that those who just don't know any better think there is no God.  The word is nabal.  It means stupid.  The stupid person says there is no God.  And he or she says it in her heart.  Hmmm.  Why does her heart say that?  What makes her not want there to be a God when everything around her tells her that there is?

The word for heart is leb.  Very commonly used to mean the center of a thing.  In this instance, at her very center she stupidly rejects what she knows to be true.  She is not ignorant of God.  She just chooses, at her very core, to deny His existence.  Why, again, might that be?

1.  She is disappointed in God.
2.  God would make her do what she doesn't want to do.
3.  Those who say they believe in God have disappointed her.
4.  She wants to control her own destiny.
5.  The world seems a random place with too much suffering for there to be a God.
6.  She really hasn't given the possibility of God much thought.
7.  The Crusades.
8.  The Inquisition.
9.  She is too smart to believe in a fairy tale.
10.In her assumption that there is no God, she has never actually given that alternative idea any of her time.  She is ignorant of the evidence for a Creator-God.

Just a few of the reasons I have heard from people.  So what is at the heart of atheism?  Because the heart is central to the belief.  We have Backyard Skeptics here in our community.  In fact, the group made the paper again last week because of one of the billboards they erected near the 405 freeway.  It incorrectly quoted Thomas Jefferson, who, for some strange reason, has become their deceased spokesperson.  Backyard Skeptics had not researched whether Jefferson had actually said what he was quoted on a sign that must have cost the group a bundle.  Oooops..."We did not check it out."  Yet their most prevalent stated reason for being atheists is that those who believe in God are stupid.  Would be funny if it weren't so serious a subject.

Richard Dawkins, the voice of modern atheism, was raised in a Christian environment but gave up his faith in his late teens.  His core beliefs are that the universe is a random place ruled by natural selection.  When we die, we cease to exist in any form.  In his world existence is indifferent, the universe plugging along in a course set about by a chance bang in the cosmos billions of years ago. 

After sleeping through a hundred billion centuries, we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life.  Within decades, we must close our eyes again.   Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way, to spend our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it?  This is how I answer when I am asked - as I am surprisingly often - why I bother to get up in the mornings.  To put it the other way round, isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born?  Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be part of it? Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow.

Doesn't the question of "why" beg the question "Who"?  Can you ask why you are born of a random, meaningless, indifferent universe?  You could just as well be eaten alive today as make a great scientific discovery.  Nothing behind it.  No meaning, really.  Just randomness being random.  But our hearts don't let us think that way.  Not even his.  Science endeavors to discover the origins and workings of a universe too infinite to fathom yet refuses to believe in a Designer Who might just be allowing them to peek at the great intelligence that exploded it all into being.  It is like an ant describing Earth to its fellow ants.  Maybe not even that profound.  Science wanting to expel God in order to be a god.  What if God is allowing us a glimpse of His splendor in order for us to stand in awe of Him, not us.  That we glory in how smart He is, not in how great we are to have discovered the tip of the iceberg.  That is why it is a nabal who says in his heart, "There is no God."  A person has to ignore a lot of stuff to throw God away.  Like truth and nobility, enlightenment and beauty.  These are not scientific notions.  And they have no place in a random existence.  A sunset bursting with color, a symphony that stirs our hearts, love that changes our behavior, or the warmth of a little child's fingers wrapped around our own are not matters of science.  Man is the only part of creation that writes poetry or seeks to define how he feels.  In an indifferent universe, there is no "why was I born."

What if you really don't know if God exists?  What if you have spouted atheism and then discover there truly might be God?  Are you doomed?

I love Proverbs 24:12:

If you say, "But we didn't know about this," won't He Who weighs hearts consider it?  Won't He Who protects your life know?

Again with our hearts.  The center of what we believe.  If our God created a universe so vast and complex that we only know a finite piece of it, isn't it the height of stupidity to say that we are smart enough to figure it all out without Him?  At least say, "I don't really know about this."  That is reasonable.  But to look up at the stars or to understand all that the DNA from a single cell tells us about ourselves, to gasp at a rainbow painting the sky or to cry at the voice of a loved one on the other end of the line, and then to say we are random, out here as the prey for natural selection, gliding through life just to die is truly ignorant.

I just read the eulogy for Steve Jobs written by his sister.  Steve, a follower of Tibetan Buddhism, was only about fifty percent sure God existed.  Hopeful, of course, at the end that he would enjoy a "better place."  In his dying moment, Jobs seemed to see something beyond the loved ones by his bedside.  As his soul was leaving his body, his final words were: "Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow."  Of course, the world wants to know what he saw.  May I offer "what if's"? 
What if he saw that he was only 50% right? 
What if he saw his Creator sitting in His majesty above time and space and realized that he had missed the revelation that would gain him entrance?  Like when you walk past a jewelry store and are bedazzled by the brightness of a gorgeous diamond that you cannot afford but is beautiful all the same and out or your reach.
 Or, what if, in the privacy of his dying aloneness, he had stretched out his hand to the One Who had always been reaching out to him?
 We will never really know.  But the One Who knows our hearts will judge our ignorance, and one way or another, we will behold Him. 

Psalm 13 - Out of gas

Maybe one of the most important reasons God wants us to pour out our hearts to Him is that at the end of our pleadings we come to one thing:  Only He can do what we ask.  Surrender.  After looking inward at ourselves we must look upward to Him, acknowledging His omnipotence, wisdom and grace.  David ends his prayer with this:

But I have trusted in your steadfast love.  My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.  I will sing to the Lord because He has dealt bountifully with me. (vs. 5-6)

I have seen my God do amazing things in the past, things I did not necessarily deserve.  He gave because His love is never changing.  It is immutable.  Can you remember the first thing you ever really trusted God for?  A time when if He did not come through you would sink?  I am thinking about that myself.  Of course, as a kid, I prayed all kinds of things.  But as an adult, I think it might have been on a trip with my husband coming  home from a three month stay in California.  We were driving our little hot red Mustang Mach I through the hills of western Arizona and having a deep conversation about the book of Revelation from Living Letters.  Bill and I were reading it together and were caught up in the excitement of the end times.  We should have been more cognizant of how much gas was in our gas tank, however.  Our heads were full but our tank was empty.  So as our conversation sped up the car slowed down and we realized we were out in the desert with a very thirsty coup.  At the top of a pretty steep hill, the Mustang spurt-spurted and that was it.  Nothing happening when Bill hit the accelerator.  Ooh, boy.  What to do. 

Pray.  Please get us to a gas station.  NO GAS FOR THE NEXT 20 MILES.  We had seen the sign a few miles back, but.....

Pray.  We were stupid.  But we trusted that if Bill just kept his foot off the brakes we would watch God take care of His young kids.  Down the hill.  A little too fast.  Up the hill.  A little too slow.  Down the next hill.  We were feeling the exhilaration of faith as our little car with its 351 engine moved along the highway without gas.  Thrilling.  What would God do?  We honestly did not doubt that we would be okay.  So ready were we to see our God be God.

Creeping up the last hill.....almost did not make it.  The little engine that could.  We are breathless.  We have to make the downhill.  We were sitting forward in our seats helping the car up and up.  An inch at a time it seemed.  We can do it.....we can do it....

At the crest of the hill, as our car started downward we spotted a little gas station out in the middle of nowhere.  "Look, Kay!"  Bill cried.  "Gas!"   But could we get there?  It was still quite far away. 

Pray.  Car careening down the last hill.  Reaching the bottom, it was still a good mile to our redemption.  Each roll of the tire was for us a test of faith.  Revolution after painfully slow revolution, the four little tires stopped right at the edge of the one gas station for miles and miles of Arizona highway.  Whew! 

That I call Situation A.  Unprepared to drive through the desert.  Not thinking ahead to get enough gas.  God is watching His newly wed kids blithely rolling across America.  Faithful to keep us, He is also faithful to teach us.  He took care of us in A.

The lessons for B,C,D,E were exponentially tougher.  We were hopefully getting smarter.  But with each opportunity to trust, God gave us another reason to believe that He is faithful.  We were not always as successful as you might hope, but He never failed.

So, that is why David can say, "I have trusted your steadfast love."  Past tense.  You have been there for me in the past.  So, in this trying situation he knows that he "will rejoice in God's salvation."  The way in which God delivers David this time will be a future song because the Lord has always, in the past, "dealt bountifully" with the psalmist. 

In today's situation I want to remember how my God has saved and sustained me.  From the first leap of faith to the reasons He gives me this day to trust in His love - to believe that He sees me.  That He knows what I have need of before I even ask.  The trip might be a bit longer than the twenty minutes or so we in anticipation to see what He would do with an empty gas tank.  There might be a few hills that we think we cannot get up and over....even a few we roll back down a couple of times.  But our God is faithful, past, present and future, to be the energy that fills our hearts with faith and moves us into victory.  Hold your breath, because He is taking you on quite a ride!

Psalm 13 - "Getting" It

Each of my three children has, upon reaching a fair degree of maturity, expressed how disappointing becoming an adult is.  There is just so much one has to do.  Get a job, pay for groceries, come up with rent, deal with banks, and keep up with car insurance and gas.  Added to that mix is all the other complications of daily life, like marriage and family.  I think, though, most esoteric of all are the times when we are left alone to understand what God is doing with us.  He is our Father and has our lives on their own paths, so even family cannot fight our individual battles for us though they may be praying.

I have had some mountains to climb...and reclimb.  In 1985, I had a train wreck of circumstances that escalated to such a cataclysm that I could not see out over the rubble.  A confluence of bad things happening that left me doubting God's love for me.  I did ask with David:  "How long will I have sorrow in my heart all day long? (vs.2)  I lost weight.  Lost hope.  Lost my way.  The light was gone from my eyes.  Stumbling in the dark, I despaired.

The prayer in desperate times is also David's:  "Consider and answer me, O Lord, My God.  Enlighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death."  Answer me or I will simply die!  Or, as I cried out over and over again, "What are You doing?"

During this time of great anxiety, I lay on my carpet face down and surrendered as best I could my situation to God.  Early one morning I remember receiving such devastating news that my life felt as though it would fall like a tower built of blocks when the last block on top makes the others crash to the floor.  Just one thing too much.  My daughter saw me crumbled and pleading on the floor of my closet.  We prayed together and she left for work.  As I heard her car drive away, I remember pleading with my Father:  "Please just show me what is going on!  If I only knew what You are doing, I could go forward."  Enlighten my eyes.....

A few minutes later, my daughter called me from her car.  "Mom, I don't usually function in this gift, but I think God has a word for you."

I cut off her stuttering, so desperate was I to hear from the God I had just begged to give me understanding.  "Just tell me what He said!  I was just now asking Him to tell me what He is doing."

Taken aback, my daughter took a deep breath, hoping her word was His word.  "Well, Mom,"  she began.  "He said you are in the lion's den, but don't be afraid because He has shut the mouths of the lions."

That was it!!!!  Enlightenment!  Okay.  I was in a lion's den.  Made a lot of sense because that is exactly what it felt like. And don't be fearful. Then I could, in my mind's eye, see those ferocious beasts before me.  Only they had backed away.  So, I spoke to them.  Because I knew what to say.  "Your mouths are shut.  You cannot hurt me!  So stay back!"

I know this sounds rather radical.  But, something came over me in that moment.  A new strength.  I prayed as I had not in months.  Over everything and everyone.  I was going to be more than all right because my Father showed me in the spirit what was manifesting on the planet. 

Some weeks later, when on a missionary trip to Cambodia, I was hit by an errant driver of a motor scooter.  His red vehicle screamed around a corner and ran into my left calf, lifting my body from the ground and slamming me to the hard dirt road with a crash that bruised my left side and clunked my head to the ground.  By the time I reached a nearby ice cream shop where the rest of the missionary team was slurping cones, my leg had a bruise the size of a golf ball rising up on it.  We iced it down and went on to the next orphanage.
A good friend rode with me in the tuk tuk.  She grabbed my hand and said:  "You know, back there when the scooter hit you?  I did not see a scooter, I saw a lion. He grabbed at you but couldn't quite get you, only knocked you down."

Hmmm.  She did not know what my Father had shown me a few weeks earlier.  But lest I forgot the word He had spoken, He reminded me through my friend that He was aware. 

Day after day, I saw the enemy defeated in his efforts to destroy me.  One thing after another worked out for my good, though it was not all at once.  However, the peace of having my eyes enlightened to what was happening gave me the courage to walk into each new day knowing that my God wins in the end.  And if He wins, I win!

Psalm 13 - Get Out of My Head!

How long shall I take counsel in my soul?

I spend an exorbitant amount of time living in my head.  That is not always a good thing.  I like to problem solve.  I love closure.  So, I dream up alternative fixes for every situation that I need an answer for.  Usually, I settle on one that I just know will be the outcome.  There!  Closed!  Don't have to think about it any more.  Except, I am often wrong, looking for something to happen that is not going to.  In my confusion, I have blamed God, in the past, for not coming through on what I had decided He was going to do.  He took the fall for my wrong scenario.

I love the story of Jesus and His mother, Mary, at the wedding in Cana.  They have all wined, dined and danced when the wine runs out.  Not a good thing to happen in the middle of a wedding.  Mary gets wind of the situation.  Her first thought is: "Jesus will fix this."  How did she know that?  She could not have believed that He and his friends were going to the local Albertson's to buy a couple cases of cheap wine.  Something in the history she had with her son made her know that He would do something out of the ordinary to fix this ordinary situation.  Not only that He could, but that He would.

Mary finds her son milling around the guests and pulls the sleeve of His tunic.  "Jesus, they have no more wine."

"Why are you telling me this, dear woman.  My time has not yet come."  But it was his mother who tugged at His clothing, looking with the greatest confidence into His eyes. 

Mary knows her son.  So, she goes to the servants, who are sweating over the party problem, and says to them:  "Do whatever He tells you to do."

That is what I should always be doing.  "Whatever He tells me to do."  Not telling Him what I think He should do.  It will probably not be any way I expect, anyhow.  I mean, who would have thought to tell Jesus to have the servants fill ceremonial washing jars full of water.  How could that make wine?  The questions I have about that fix are long and logical.  Therefore, my solution would be unimaginative and mundane.  It would not thrill me the way His plan does.  His thoughts are higher than mine. And He has a great deal more power.

A while ago the Lord gave me a visual of myself that I must refer to often in my walk with Him...er..ride with Him.  While I was praying, telling Him how to resolve my issue, I was taken in my mind to a car. I was in the front passenger seat and God was driving.  I could see His profile, the set of His jaw.  Not His face.  He asked me a question:  "Kay, wouldn't you be more comfortable in the back seat?"

I was immediately transported to the back seat, and I was six years old.  The window was rolled all the way down and summer air was blowing into my face.  I could feel the warmth of the sun on my skin.  Not a care in the world.  "See, there?"  He asked.

I am more comfortable in the back, letting my Father drive.  Like Mary, I need to just say: "Lord, do whatever You will."  He doesn't need my feedback.  The wedding would have been a bust had I been Mary, telling Jesus and his buddies to go to 7-Eleven to buy a bunch of Bud Light.  He had something way more exciting in mind.  I couldn't have dreamed it up no matter how many nights I had stayed up building imaginary endings to the story.  It is His desire to thrill us.  To get the best wine the best way.  And for us to leave it with Him, like Mary did.  Can't you just see her walking away from the servants absolutely confident that her son would take care of everything?  No worries.  She cast her care on Him, took off her sandals, and danced!

Psalm 13 - Light Years Away

How long, O Lord?  Will You forget me forever?  Netsach is the word for forever here.  Listen to this.  Literally it means the bright object at a distance travelled toward; the most distant point of view. It is often used in scripture to ask if God has forgotten His people.  And to show that He has not!  In 1 Samuel 15: 29 God is described as the netash of Israel....it's glory, splendor, the brightest object in the universe, the One farthest out.

He is the forever.  He is the One out there to Whom we travel toward.  Our most distant point.  Light years away and more.  So how do we ever reach Him?  How does He even know we exist?  David is asking, "Will I keep travelling toward You while You keep moving away?"  God addresses this question about His seeming aloofness in Isaiah 45:

For thus says the Lord Who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it.  He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited).  "I am the Lord, and there is no one else.  I have not spoken in secret...in some dark land.  I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, 'Seek me in a waste place.'  I, the Lord, speak righteousness declaring things that are right."

This declaration is in direct response to the accusation in verse 15 that God is a God who hides Himself.  Hmm.  The gist of it is, I did not create a wasted thing.  I speak openly.  I am not teasing you, saying, "Seek me where I am not." 

So, why then does He feel so far away sometimes.  Our prayers go unanswered.  We stress and worry.  If we were God, we would have already taken this situation in hand and made an end to our misery.  Another poignant Facebook quote of the day:  Don't believe everything you think!  God's ways are not our ways, so if we go thinking He's thinking what we're thinking...well...that can go down a rat hole pretty quickly.

Daniel (a prophet with a book in the Bible named after him) prayed desperately for three weeks.  He could not eat, did not drink wine or properly clean himself, but sought a word from God.  Twenty-four days into the month, Daniel was standing beside the Tigris River when he looked up and saw a man dressed in fine linen with a belt of gold wrapped around his waist.  The man's body shone like yellow quartz, his face was as bright as lightning and his eyes were like fire.  His arms and legs were shining like polished bronze and his voice sounded like the roar of a crowd. 

What did Daniel do?  Fell face down..passed out!  The shining being raised Daniel to his hands and knees.  Daniel was so afraid, he was shaking all over.  And what was the first thing this angel said to Daniel?  "Daniel, God loves you very much." His unanswered prayers were not about God's forgetting about Him.  God was not hiding His face.  The angel continued:  "Some time ago you decided to get understanding and humble yourself before God.  Since that time, God has listened to you and I have come because of your prayers.  But the prince of Persia has been fighting against me for twenty-one days.  Then Michael, one of the most important angels, came to help me."

So you think God thinks you are unimportant.  He listens to your prayers.  He doesn't only hear them, saying: "Yeah, yeah.  I heard you."  Your prayers are so important that there is war over them!  They are sacrificial incense to our God. 

Why does He make us wait.  I do not know.  But He does.  And it is not that He does not love us. 

Psalm 13 - Just Can't Take It Anymore?

How long?  Ever asked this?  Or heard it? 
"How long 'til we get there, Mom?"
"How long 'til Christmas?"
"How long until school is out?"

We want to know when things will happen.  Waiting seems interminable, especially when the outcome is uncertain.  It makes us worry because we can think of an infinite number of scenarios depicting glorious and inglorious ends to the problem. We are impatient with a waitress who gets our food out a bit too late or a driver ahead of us who is just too slow.  The urge to kick our computer when it slows or to change lines in the bank because the lady in front of us is asking too many questions is evidence that we have forgotten patience.  My son is half way around the world this morning after 25 hours of flights and airports.  That is a long, tiring trip (he went business class, so don't feel sorry for him)....but think how long that used to take, before planes.  How impossible it would have been so long ago.  There must be something at the other end of our waiting worth the test of our patience.  If there does not seem to be a point, we despair, lose hope and are tempted to jump ship.

Hear David's lament in this psalm:
How long will you forget me, O Lord?  Forever?
How long will you hide from me?
How long must I worry and feel sad in my heart all day?
How long will my enemy win over me?

Of course, David knows in his heart that God has not forgotten, but honestly, sometimes it feels like God misplaced us and can't remember where He put us.  The despair that has seeped into our hearts after months of battling against the whispers that God does not care has wrapped its claws around our hope, choking it until it has all but died.  Our question then?  Will this go on forever?  We cannot see how it will be any different tomorrow than it is today.  What is there to look forward to but more of the same?  Our predicament.

Or maybe God is playing hide and seek.  Perhaps He wants us to go find Him in His hiding place.  A cosmic game that plays out badly for us.  He knows all the places to conceal Himself.  We are limited to the realm of our mere existence.  And.....why would He hide?  Did He make us then leave us here to fend for ourselves? 

It just gets plain wearying to worry all day long....and all night.  "What if's" can drive us crazy!  Pervasive sadness at the idea of being abandoned and having to work our fate out by ourselves is almost stultifying.  Afraid to do anything lest it be the wrong thing.  Afraid not to do anything because we just can't stay in this mess forever and need to do something.

Then there is the enemy.  Sickness.  Loss of job.  Crushed relationships.  Addiction.  Abandonment.  Rumors.  Or a physical enemy coming at you with a vengeance.  How long until you are free?  A close friend of mine, dying of cancer, told me, in her last conversation with me, that she did not think it would take so long to die.  Frustrated with the enemy overpowering her body, she was ready for the fight to be over.   How long, Lord?  How long?

There must be something on the other side of our longings worth fighting against despair for.  We must have a vision of an outcome worth the wait.  What do we trust in when we feel abandoned by our God?  When we cannot seem to grasp His plan for our apparent defeat? 

Answer:  Verse 5:  I trust in Your love. 

Seem too easy?  Seem pat?  It might just be the hardest thing you have ever done.  More to come.

Psalm 12 - Hot Air

What does your word mean?  When  you give it?  When you say tell someone you will do something, do you do it?  Words are so important that Jesus calls Himself the Word of God - the Logos - the expression of God.  In this psalm, David is trusting in the words of his God concerning His rising up and defending the helpless from the liars and flatterers around them. 

Lord,  You will keep us safe.  You will protect us from such people.  (vs.7)  How does David know this?  Because God's words are pure, refined, flawless.  David knows it because God said He would protect them.  The psalmist has faith in the word of God.  If He says He will do something,  you can bet on it.  Here is what God says about His own words:

"The words I speak will not return to me empty.  They make the things happen that I want to happen, and they succeed in doing what I send them to do."  Isaiah 55

Empty words.  Isn't that what makes us so upset?  Someone makes a promise and it is empty.  No action.  Pretty soon a friendship is in question - or even a marriage - because you cannot depend upon the other person to follow through.  Better to never promise.  Better to just keep quiet and hope you can do what you said rather than to promise and be a deadbeat.  I know so many adult children whose divorced parent failed to show up when she/he said she would.  Now grown, trust is a huge issue for them on other levels, too.  Our word says who we are.

I love the story in Matthew 21.  Jesus starts the story by saying:  "Tell me what you think about this."  Hmmm.  Jesus wants my response to this story of two brothers.  It goes like this.  A father approaches his sons, telling them to go out and work in the fields that day.  The first son says, "I won't do it."  Later, however, he thinks better of his response and goes.  The second son said:  "Oh, yes sir, Father.  I will go and work."  He did not.  The question from Jesus:  "Which one of these sons obeyed his father?"

Don't know what went on in the mind of the first son after he refused to go to work.  I'm guessing, though, that he regretted his disobedience, his curt manner with his father, and decided to repent of his bad attitude and get to work.  He loved his father enough to do what he did not want to do that day.  The other son?  My guess is that he never had any real intention of going to work.  Empty words.  Get Dad off my back.  Maybe he saw that his brother had changed his mind, so he did not need to go after all.  Clearly, though, only one obeyed the Father. Which is the point Jesus is trying to make.  Don't give lip service to God.  Do what He says.  Better yet!  Say it and do it!   What do you think about that?

Jesus, the Word of God become flesh, tells us to pray in His name.  By His integrity.  Like David, we can know that the words of Jesus are pure, flawless and powerful, because He keeps His word.  He came and did what He said He would before the foundations of the world when it was clear that He would be our Lamb, sacrificed for our sins.  He did not want to suffer all that He did....cried in the garden that the Father not give Him the cup of suffering.  But like the faithful brother, He did what He did not want to do in order to fulfill what the Father wanted.  That is radical.  That is Someone whose every word we can trust.

Ever thought that God really wants reciprocal love and trust from us.  It is not a one-way street all the time.  If the discussion is always God's trustworthiness, then what of the part we play?  Shouldn't He be able to trust our word?  Shouldn't He be able to depend upon us to do what He asks?  As His dear children, shouldn't we say yes to working in the fields today even if we don't really want to expend that kind of energy?  Say yes!  It does the Father's heart good.