PSALM 108 - Who's Your Daddy?

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let Your glory be over all the earth! That Your beloved ones may be delivered. Give salvation by Your right hand and answer me! (Verses 5-6)

 My business was experiencing stress when the economy began tanking over the housing crisis. I'd spent thirteen years building it to a successful level. Loved the people who worked with me. I felt out of control some days as business fell off from the stellar year before. In the process of this trial, my father died. A complex grief. A deep relief. I was now an orphan on this earth. As 2007 approached, it was clear I should sell the business. And our new home. Come to grips with change and hard decisions. Synthesize what my father's death meant to me. Turn a wandering heart back home. I was kind of a mess.

The heartening thing to me was God was showing up for me as a Father. I knew in my head He is Father God. Jesus taught us to pray that way, "Our Father, Who is in heaven." I think, though, He was a long way off in terms of the way I related to Him. My earthly father's arrest in 1985, and the revelation of his many molestations, sent me running, in a panic, to hide. Mother's subsequent death confused my faith. By August of 1985, with cancer consuming her body, Mother decided to die. Gave up food. Went to bed. Left us to go home. I wish I could say I was a rock of a Christian in light of all of this. I wasn't. Emptied is how I felt. Hollow is how I stayed for years though most wouldn't have noticed.

Into 2006-2007 entered my Father. The death of Daddy made room, I suppose, for the possibility of a better one. It seems every time I read the Bible in that year, I was struck, as I am in the psalm today, by the fact that I am beloved. God, the Father, loves me as His precious child. He watches over me. Sings over me with joy (Zephaniah 3). Shepherds me. Calls me by name. Protects me from the enemy. Covers me with His feathers. Jesus told His disciples on the night before His death, "The Father Himself loves you (John 16)." Because I belong to Jesus, I belong to the Father. I spent hours repeating to myself what became a holy prayer, "We will be all right because my Father loves me." In the confusion of change, the betrayal of those I thought were my friends, and the disappointment of those with whom I did business, I walked with the increasing confidence that my Father would work it all out for my good and His glory. Because He loves me. No other reason. I certainly didn't deserve big breaks. I'm not worthy of such attention. That makes it all the more wonderful that He still looks out for this little lamb of His.

"You answer us in amazing ways, O God, our Savior!(Psalm 65)." A verse I found while fasting and praying in September of 2006. I can't explain how my heart wanted to be with my Father. Scared of making a wrong turn in a wrong-turn-ridden situation. Asking Him the specific question, "What is going to happen here?" I will answer you in amazing ways, daughter. Settled for me then. For I am beloved. When the staff asked what was happening, I would answer, "I don't know yet. But it will be all right because my Father loves me." It's all I had. Turns out it was enough. I sold the business. Sold my house. And all things worked together for the good. Which shouldn't surprise anyone. Least of all me. Miracles were in order for this to happen. My Father did things I wouldn't have dreamed of.

So I get it when David says to God, "Be exalted and show Your glory to everyone!" For in saving a wretch like me, in showing such love and grace, all can know there is a God Who reaches down out of His own goodness and grasps the hand of one too weak to walk. There is no other God like ours. Contrary to public opinion, the glorious God of All, Creator and Sustainer of the universe, Wonderful Counselor, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace isn't too busy to be my Daddy. My Abba. And He wills to move heaven and earth to get to His beloved child.


 

PSALM 108 - The Gift in the Road

My heart is steadfast, O God, above the heavens! I will sing and make melody with all my glory! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn! I will give thanks to You, O Lord, among the peoples. I will sing praises to you among the nations. For Your steadfast love is great above the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. (Verses 1-4)

Future grace. When things in the present are just plain rough. When life seems upside down and we don't know where it will all end up. What do we do? Will today to praise like it's already tomorrow and the enemy is conquered. Why? Because our hearts are as steadfast toward our God as His is toward us. So we can choose to thank Him today for all that might not manifest until later. I will give thanks to God. That attitude of the heart is my glory. Losing my own selfish desires in the knowledge that my God loves me and is faithful to me even when I can see no way out of the situation in which I find myself takes giving over to my better me. The spiritual woman. Not the carnal one who tends to complain against and blame God for my plight. She also accuses Him of not understanding her needs. Of not showing up. Winds up sitting down in a pile of ashes having a spiritual pity party.

Bill and I were being hooked into the harness to take our first parasailing ride off the back of a boat in Hawaii. I'm not a fan of heights, so the thought of sitting beneath a parachute four hundred feet in the air was making my stomach tighten and my will waiver. Our children were cheering us on, though. "You can do it, Mom! It'll be fun!" My knees were weak,quivering. "Maybe I shouldn't do this, Bill," I said as the young man latched my harness shut. "I really don't want to do this.." I felt panicky. "Too late," replied my husband with a big smile. I dragged my feet along the floor of the boat as the driver heeded the call to "Hit it!"

Up, up we went. Not fast, but gently lifted into the heavens. I loved it! Though I admit I didn't look down much. Out--out over the ocean and up into the bright blue sky. We floated in the quiet. I could hear Bill breathing. Our children looked like little Lego people set adrift in a toy boat as they waved at us. And all I feared became delight. But only after I walked in shaky courage to the back of the boat. Allowed the unknown to lift me to an uncomfortable place. Took a chance all would be well.

Parasailing is flimsy compared to some of the things we face in life, but trusting God to take us to heights we can't imagine is what faith is all about. Thanking Him that in the place of pain or heart break He will deliver us. Wowed by the knowledge that He can make something out of the nothing we find ourselves embracing. It takes our more glorious selves to make the choice to harness in with God and let Him possibly scare us to death before we float.

There is always grace then more grace. God has walked before us into what's next, prepared a future grace for us to stride, crawl or fall into. I'm learning that if times are nearly unbearable now, He can be trusted to give us a balm down the road a bit. An unexpected grace gift. Like a present in the path that we unwrap and joy in. The perfect answer to the question we asked in our trial. Which is why we can thank Him now, awake the dawn and praise God for His faithful love, even though we wait for the answer in the current situation. We will to thank Him because we know He will do what He promises.

It takes knowing God to have the kind of confidence that gets up in the morning thanking Him in advance for what He will do when our circumstances bid us do just the opposite. Our hearts must experience God's steadfast love and His faithfulness to our wandering souls. Bound to Him because we love Him so much--and because He first loved us. Knowing God's character because we've gone up in the parachute and lived! Gotten through daunting circumstances with trembling trust and found ourselves floating after all. Trusting in future grace because we've experienced grace for today. And in that we find our own glory. The grace to be light among the people. To point the finger at God not as the malevolent enemy, but as the savior of our souls, our sanity and our very selves. In a world turning very dark, we can stand like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the midst of nations who bow to other gods and proclaim His faithfulness to the heavens, then watch as God walks in the fire alongside us. Like Jesus, we can know that the cross portends an empty tomb, a grace unimaginable on the other side of pain.

 

PSALM 107 - Not An Ordinary Drink

He turns rivers into desert, springs of water into thirsty ground, a fruitful land into a salty waste, because of the evil of its inhabitants. He turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water. And there He lets the hungry dwell, and they establish a city to live in. They sow fields and plant vineyards and get a fruitful yield. By His blessing they multiply greatly, and He does not let their livestock diminish...Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things. Let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord. (Verses 33-38; 43)


It was the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. The Jews celebrated this holiday in the fall at the end of the harvest season. During the week of festivities, the nation of Israel was remembering their sojourn in the desert where they slept in tents, ever ready to pick up and move when the daily cloud of God's Presence or the nighttime pillar of fire signaled it was time to travel. The Jewish people of Jesus's day hastily created make-shift shelters in which they ate their meals for the week, remembering in a tangible way the journey of their ancestors. Giving to others marked the days of the celebration, making God's generosity to them a reciprocal gift to others in need.

 Into the noisy business of rejoicing stepped Jesus on the last day of the feast. The most important day. Through the crowds He and His disciples wandered, speaking with some, probably eating some of the harvested fruits and vegetables. Unaware that in their midst was the Lord of the feast. The pillar of fire and cloud by day manifested in the flesh in a marketplace. Come to touch His people, to smell their sweat, shake their hands and eat their produce. Christ, Messiah, moving in a market.

What He saw though? Hunger and thirst. Though the actual harvest had been good that year, it was a different reaping that was on the mind of Jesus. He looked into the soulless eyes of those whose lives had dried up. Starved for love and significance. Pressed up against Him in the crowds were the sick and lonely. The oppressed and poor. Children grasped His leg and begged for a coin or two. Temple merchants upped the price of the sacrifices to profit from the holiday. People with nothing packed like sardines in with the rich and self-righteous. Imagine being God and walking in our ordinariness. Unimpressed with all we believe is the actual because God lives in the realm of forever and this is just a reflection of reality as He knows it. Our struggles and fears small and our world view only extending a few feet in front of our daily life. Ah...He could change all of that. Pour into us the life He would die to bring. Call forth a deluge of living water into the desert that is our existence. Feed us with manna from the words of His mouth. Open up our souls and live inside us, plumping our desiccation with His Spirit.

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" Not the meek little Jesus some think of. No, Jesus, mixing with the crowd, filled with compassion for their spiritual and physical neediness, shouted out to them that He was living water. "Believe in Me!" He yelled. And everyone turned to look. This Jesus Who healed the sick and delivered prostitutes from their plight, Who talked with Samaritan women and touched lepers, Who ate with a mean little tax collector stuck up in a tree and honored a destitute woman for giving her last penny at the temple, Who didn't have a place to call home and walked the dusty roads with twelve average men--this Man stood in their midst and cried out to their pain. "I can quench your thirst." And He was speaking of the Spirit. Who indwells believers. Who fills the once empty spaces of our lives with joy, splashing, happy, rejuvenating joy. The plan of God all along to not simply walk among us, but to, by the death and resurrection of Jesus, live in us. Give us the power to live a godly life. The thing missing from the laws. Rules we humans can't fully obey. Now relationship trumps the law for we are loved to pieces by the One Who roamed our roads and ate in our homes. Father, Son and Spirit knew that if they could actually live in the broken, empty spaces in our lives, our deserts would be filled with springs of water and we'd find a place to finally dwell in safety.

He came for those of us who have wandered in waste lands of our own making, purposeless and powerless, the spiritual homeless. While we sat in the prisons of our sinful choices, God saw us there and waited for us to cry to Him in our misery. On dangerous seas, our lives rocked by the turbulence of our circumstances, we've needed to shout His name in the storm. With bated breath, our God attends to our lives and listens for the acknowledgement that we need Him. Because He desires to meet the need. Oh what love that must take to yearn for the willful wanderer to come home. To hope for acknowledgment that is our freedom, not our jail. To know all He has to pour into us, but to patiently watch our dramas play out. Loving us the whole time. At the moment we admit our hunger and thirst, God is there! And all of heaven rejoices over one lost soul refreshed.

PSALM 107 - Fear And Feathers!

Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters. They saw the deeds of the Lord, His wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven. They went down to the depths. Their courage melted away in their evil plight. They reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits' end. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress. He made the storm still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and He brought them to their desired haven. Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man! Let them extol Him in the congregation of the people, and praise Him in the assembly of the elders.
(Verses 23-32) Italics, mine

 Physical danger. Going about our business. An ordinary day. No warning. Like the woman I read about who decided to go shopping downtown on a breezy pre-holiday Friday. On her mind was her Christmas list. And the big dinner she always prepared. With her purse slung over her shoulder, she stepped out of her Chevy and plugged coins into the parking meter. She buttoned up her sweater against the breeze that was stirring, bending the trees in the median and the animating the leaves that gathered around her feet. She wasn't expecting the man who suddenly jabbed a metal object into her back, demanding money. It took her breath away. Made her feel faint. Her mind raced as her feet seemed stuck onto the concrete walkway. A nightmare become real as the thief demanded her money, trying to grab her purse. Help me, Lord! Please help me! Rising up from her soul like a burglar alarm. Trying desperately to remember the words from Psalm 91. To say them to this renegade who'd intruded upon her ordinary day. The verse she couldn't recite: For He will deliver you from the snare of the hunter and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wing you will find refuge. All she could call up was "Feathers!" She screamed it at the top of her lungs. Once more, "Feathers!" as she turned to face the would-be robber. Who ran. So stunned by the craziness of the word and the force with which the woman repeated it. The picture in her mind of her God as a huge mother bird Who protects her when she calls.

"Let's go across to the other side of the lake," suggested Jesus to His disciples. It was a beautiful day, the sun warm and the sails shining bright in its glow. A weary Jesus lay down in the bow and was lulled to sleep by the gently splashing water as it hit the sides of the boat. Nothing to worry about. But as the morning progressed, storm clouds formed in the distance and the zephyr became a raging windstorm that kicked up the waves and rocked the fishing boat back and forth, up and down, as the lake spilled its excess onto the wooden slats on which the disciples slipped as they held on tightly to the sails. "We're going to sink!" cried Peter. "We're taking on too much water!" Panic made the grown men want to cry. They didn't know what to do. And Jesus was still asleep.

It wasn't until they'd exhausted all other possibilities that they thought to wake Him. How could He still be sleeping, anyway? "Master! Master! We are perishing!" Jesus sat up, rubbing His eyes. Unbothered by the treachery that had come upon them in the middle of the day. Confused by their wailing fear. He stood then. Spoke to the wind. "Stop!" And to the waves, "Cease!" They obeyed. And there was peace.

"Where is your faith?" An odd question. Really. If Jesus was in the boat, why the storm at all? He is God in the raging waters. Put Himself through the ups and downs of their plight to what purpose? And why did He stay asleep through their panic at perishing? They didn't fully realize who He was. Thought God would die with them out there on the lake. Just wanted to wake Him to let Him know, you know, like, we're dying here. Doubtful. Their faith was small because they didn't grasp the magnitude of Who was asleep in the bow. In the calm, as the boat settled back to steady itself, the men were terrified. No longer at the storm. Its power subsided. No. This time a holy fear. A reverence for the One Who commands the weather. Stills it for their sakes. Not His. He wasn't worried. And they went safely to the other side.

Maybe the storms are there to show us how powerful our God is. To awe us that He cares. Loves us and will deliver us. That God asleep trumps our abilities when fully awake. And that as long as He is in the boat, we'll get safely home. As long as we remember to cry out to Him, even with a puny word that calls up all He is, our God will speak to our circumstances and increase our faith in the process. He will never, never, never leave us or forsake us in the raging sea, on a city sidewalk, or in the calm. Jesus understands the nature of the waters as well as He knows the depths of our hearts. No mysteries. No treachery too great. And when at last we are overcome by the waves of this life, and we will be, we will rejoice to surface whole and complete on the other side of the storm.


 

PSALM 107 - You Got Squat!

Some fools turned against God and suffered for the evil they did. They refused to eat anything, so they almost died. In their misery they cried out to the Lord, and He saved them from their troubles. God gave the command and healed them so they were saved from dying. Let them give thanks to the Lord for His love and for the miracles He does for people. Let them offer sacrifices to thank Him. With joy they should tell what He has done.  (Verses 17-22)

Who among you fears the Lord and obeys His servant? That person may walk in the dark and have no light. Then let him trust in the Lord and depend upon his God. But instead, some of you want to light your own fires and make your own light. So, go, walk in the light of your own fires, and trust your own light to guide you. But this is what you will receive from Me: You will like down in a place of pain.   Isaiah 50  (italics, mine)

Is God cruel or loving to let our circumstances take us to a place of misery where we finally call out to Him? I know many atheists who would condemn the idea of a God who can look on miserable mankind and manipulate circumstances to His advantage. Who might find the motives of this kind of God in question. And, perhaps, without fully understanding the character of a loving God, it looks that way. The upshot, however, of all the scenarios into which the psalmist puts hurting people is that a benevolent, prescient Father allows our misery in order to save us from it, not to gloat in it. God doesn't want us to be destroyed.

It goes black out here for all of us. The way unclear, the long path ahead dark and daunting. No one is exempt from the confusion of this age. Cancer, job loss, abandonment--the lights go out for a bit. What do we do? To sit still in a dark place is freaky. I know my first lake dive when Bill and I were learning to SCUBA was nerve wracking because of the dense diaper-drenched bottom of Lake Perris in Moreno Valley, California. Bill, it turns out, was having trouble on the surface with his gear. I was told when plunging to the depths by myself that he and the instructor would be right down. But they weren't. It seemed like hours that I crouched on the bottom breathing through a tube and not being able to see my hand in front of my face. Scared half out of my wits by a large fish that swam right up to my dive mask. My heart pounded and it took all my gumption to stay down there. Alone. Waiting for some action. I started praying then. The Lord's Prayer, to be exact. I wanted the comfort of Scripture. The Word speaking beside me. Life has been, on and off, for me a trip to the bottom of a dark, dirty lake. Sometimes I put myself there. Sometimes it was the current of living that nearly drowned me. But, all the same, I was in the dark.

It can make us run. Darkness. Suffocating and unsure, we grasp for something that makes us feel less afraid. A little light. Alcohol. Crack. Adultery. Power. Money. "Come on, baby, light my fire!" Make it less dark in here. Listen to Frank sing: "For what is man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught to say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels. The record shows, I took the blows, and did it my way." If God's asleep, I guess I'll have to get myself out of this mess! And we go John Wayne on our circumstances, bullying life and blaming God. For a while it might just work. But if all you end up with is yourself, I'd argue with Frank. You got squat. Swallowed by your own perspective, cornered by your own ignorance, kicked in the gut by stupid decisions--yeah, you took the blows. And fell into a bed of pain. Because we don't possess enough light to get us very far. Our AA batteries give out. For our omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God, watching us strike out on our own would be like our watching a two-year-old running away from home with only the flame from a birthday candle to get her wherever she's going. It's ridiculous. And the more quickly we become miserable in our own pursuits, the sooner our light burns out, the more quickly we crawl back to the Light. And that is smart. Continuing the journey with a burned out birthday candle isn't.

Granted, life is often dark and painful anyway. God understands sometimes we feel like running away. Even Jesus, in the depths of the garden on the ebony night before His death, prayed against the coming circumstances. But He didn't run. He stayed and waited. And it got worse before it got better. But, man, did it get better! Jesus cried out in His misery and the Father heard and saved Him and everyone else who believes! The plan in the dark was for light forever more. Never wasted. Letting our hearts pound against our chests while we try to sit calmly to see what He will do. There is nothing but a small candle to guide us in our running away. Our God wants to rush in with star-shine before we find ourselves on a bed of pain, agonizing over wrong choices and smelling the acrid odor of a burned-out flame.

Ever loving us...ever at the ready to come even into our sick room and heal us of our contagious sinfulness, our Father waits for the invitation to visit us. To lay His hands upon our fevered brow and renew our vigor. To walk us out of our addictions, to change our minds with His Word, to caress our aching souls and, sometimes, to excise our deadly fears. The Great Physician. Come to heal the rebellious patient who was nearly burned to death by her own puny flashlight. The miracle of His love. That meets us in our misery. And lights our way again.

PSALM 107 - A Beggar's Story

Some sat in gloom and darkness. They were prisoners suffering in chains. They had turned against the words of God and had refused the advice of God Most High. So He broke their pride by hard work. They stumbled, and no one helped. In their misery they cried out to the Lord, and He saved them from their troubles. He brought them out of their gloom and darkness and broke their chains. Let them give thanks to the Lord for His love and for the miracles He does for people. He breaks down bronze gates and cuts apart iron bars.
(Verses 10-16)

The Lord looked and could not find any justice, and He was displeased. He could not find anyone to help the people, and He was surprised that there was no one to help. So He used His own power to save the people. He covered Himself with goodness like armor. He put the helmet of salvation on His head. He put on clothes of punishment and wrapped Himself in the coat of His strong love.  Isaiah 59 (italics, mine)

The son said to his father, "I wish you were dead."

Of course, the aching in the father's heart was palpable. This wasn't the first time his younger son screamed the invective at him. If only his kid knew how much the father loved him. How willing the elder was to lavish on this rebellious child affection without limit. But they lived on a massive estate with many chores. There was much work to be accomplished every day. And this son? He wanted no part of the process. Just the father's money. Now. His portion before his father's death. And death was nowhere in sight. The father a vital man. Tired of the rules of the household and his perceived lack of freedom, the younger son demanded his inheritance one fateful morning.

The father went to the bank. Sick to his stomach. A foreboding washing over him anew. As it did every time his child and he argued. I will finally let him go.

It took a very long while for the son to spend his father's money. On prostitutes, drugs, parties and every other dishonoring thing he could find. Filling the emptiness of riches with hedonistic pursuits until one day he found himself alone and destitute. Begging first on street corners for money to feed his habits. Working in a homeless shelter for pennies. A bare subsistence. Diseased from his profligacy, addicted to his medications, the boy kept thinking, "I wonder if Dad will take me back? I could work for him. Wouldn't have to be his son. Just a servant in the kitchen, maybe. Or an errand boy." It would be better than this. It took him months to get the courage to wander home.

The father always looked. At sunrise and sunset. Perhaps today he'll walk up the driveway. Day after day for months that turned into years, there was no sign of his boy. This child he loved. Gone astray, refusing to live by the standards of the house.

No time to shower at the shelter. No time to waste. The boy had made up his mind and began the long walk home. Through several cities, down major interstates, walking, walking, walking. And thinking what he'd say. "Dad, I've been so wrong. I know I'm not really your son anymore. I wished you dead, took what wasn't really mine, and squandered it. But...but, Dad...would you just hire me to do some job for you? Any job? I never want to leave you again." Over and over. A mantra. This is what I'll say to my dad.

Sweat was pouring down his face as the boy neared the long driveway leading up to his father's mansion. A homeless beggar, unrecognizable beneath the scraggly beard. He stank of garbage cans and months-old perspiration. Open sores oozed his body's retribution for the abuse it had endured. With his hands, the young man smoothed his matted hair as best he could and started toward the house. "Dad, I've been so wrong...." Repeating it so he'd leave nothing out.

The sun was hot when the father ventured outside. It was a ritual by then. Stepping onto the sidewalk leading to the front door of his home and walking to its edge for a glance down the driveway. Always hope. On this day there was a man standing on the street, head down as if in thought. He was dressed in rags. A homeless beggar was what the father thought. And just then the man looked up. The concrete of the drive covered a quarter mile, but there was something about the way the homeless man moved. Something familiar. And the father's heart beat fast. Pounding recognition to his brain. "My son!" He screamed it. He screamed it over and over as his feet beat the concrete in an ever faster rhythm that took him closer to the boy with whom he collided in joy.

"Dad, I've been so wrong.." He couldn't say it for the kissing and hugging. Tears of joy had wet the father's face and washed his own in their embrace. "You've come home! Oh, my God! You're finally home!" That was all. The father didn't seem to smell the boy's rancid breath or notice his broken body. But embraced the boy's misery and traded it for joy.

It's just what happens. When we go astray. Strike out on our own in our rebellion against God. Well loved and divinely cared for. And it just isn't enough. What is left for the Father to do but let us get to the end of ourselves? In the prison of our pain, we sit. And sit. Scraping our open wounds and working off our addictions. And no one cares any more. We've used everyone up. Misery is a great teacher. It drives us to the edge. And if we're smart, we work our way back. Like the younger son, hoping in our groveling for God to help us out here. Covered in darkness, gloom hovering over us, we might be in an actual jail or one we've created that binds us just as surely. God doesn't care where we are when we say, "Jesus, help me." He just wants us to come to that. Many of us have gone a long way out. And for us, it will be a long way back. But worth the journey to hear our Father say, "My daughter! My daughter! You're home!"

Seems too easy. Someone needs to make it right. All this we've done wrong. Isn't the Father's mawkish greeting a mockery? I mean, the kid's been horrible to him. And then we truly understand. Someone had to pay. To put on clothes of punishment and wrap Himself in the coat of His strong love. And His own goodness gave Him the strength to do it. The embrace of the Father cost the Son Who said: "The Lord God has put His Spirit in Me, because the Lord has appointed me to tell the good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort those whose hearts are broken, to tell the captives they are free, and to tell the prisoners they are released." Isaiah 61; Luke 4:18

When we were unable to help ourselves, at the moment of our need, Christ died for us, although we were living against God...But God showed His great love for us in this way: Christ died for us while we were still sinners.  Romans 5:6;8

We can always go home.
 

PSALM 107 - Prone to Wander, Lord I Feel It

Thank the Lord because He is good. His love continues forever. That is what those whom the Lord has saved should say. He has saved them from the enemy and has gathered them from other lands, from east and west, north and south.

Some people had wandered in the desert lands. They found no city in which to live. They were hungry and thirsty, and they were discouraged. In their misery they cried out to the Lord, and He saved them from their troubles. He led them on a straight road to a city where they could live. Let them give thanks to the Lord for His love and for the miracles He does for people. He satisfies the thirsty and fills up the hungry.   (Verses 1- 9)

This week found me once more on the carpet in my bedroom desperately crying out to God to save me from a deserved doom. I'd done something inadvertently dumb. It could've been costly to me. I needed Him to protect me from my own shortsightedness. My stomach was in knots. I paced some. Prayed some more. But I really had to just wait to see how it all turned out. So far, I'm good. It wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been. And you can't imagine how thankful I am! I have no problem, in fact it gives me pure joy, to say with the psalmist, "Thank the Lord because He is good! His love continues forever!" The entire psalm is about how God gets us out of trouble...usually circumstances we get ourselves into in the first place.

Wandering is first. This one speaks to many of us right now. Trying to find where He wants us to go. What He wants us to do. Taking the fork in the road and feeling like it's the wrong direction. And finding no city in which to live. No answer to "What am I supposed to be doing?" And in the wilderness of the trek toward purpose, we are hungry and thirsty. Discouraged about ever finding the right road to take. Some of us sit down and wait beside the road. Some of us keep pressing forward with our own sense of direction. Some of us turn back. But there must be a straight road out there where God wants our feet to travel. And, you know what, we might be on it at just the time we think we are lost. Because our God is a lamp unto our feet instead of a floodlight down our path, we keep going forward on the promises that He will lead us. That's the message for those of us who are looking for guidance. Who want His leadership. He is your teacher. He will not continue to hide from you, but you will see your Teacher with your own eyes. If you go the wrong way--to the right or to the left--you will hear a voice behind you saying, "This is the right way. You should go this way." (Isaiah 30)

But there is a different kind of wandering we fall prey to. It's more like straying. We let go the Hand of our Father at the carnival that is this world and find ourselves, like Pinocchio, enthralled with all the booths beckoning us with the thrills of the bizarre or the chance of great riches at the arcade games. It's not until it all goes dark, all the twinkling lights go off, that we realize the fair was a façade and we are in hell. Like looking at Vegas in the daylight. Just a bunch of gaudy buildings in the desert. What then? Does our God even care about us? After all, we let go. Chose the gaudy over our God. This is what the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel says: "If you come back to Me and trust Me, you will be saved. If you will be calm and trust Me, you will be strong (Isaiah 30)." But if wandering has gotten into our blood, we wait in the dark for the next thrill. For the evanescence of the world's electric light bulbs to lure us once again into its delights. The steady walk with God can't compare with the drama of deceit. Seems boring in comparison to the highs of the bazaar. Isaiah 30 continues this way: "But you don't want to do that. You say, 'No, we need horses to run away on.' So, you will run away on horses. You say, 'We will ride away on fast horses.' So those who chase you will be fast. One enemy will make threats, and a thousand of your men will run away. Five enemies will make threats, and all of you will run from them. You will be left alone like a flagpole on a hilltop, like a banner on a hill." The Lord wants to show His mercy to you. He wants to rise and comfort you. The Lord is a fair God, and everyone who waits for his help will be happy.

Discouragement makes us wander away from the hand of our Father. Add pain to that. We need comfort and encouragement. And so in our walking along with our faithful, steady God, when the sidewalk is narrow and the path ahead dim, we stick out a passing hand to something more exciting. The fix for now. The distraction wastes time. Truncates progress. As God waits for us to come back and trust Him again. The other things will fail us. I'm old enough to know that now. I've run on a fast horse to get what I wanted. And found myself being chased by the demons who lured me in. Running as fast as my spiritual (and sometimes physical) feet could carry me back to my Father. And just like the father in Jesus's story of the wayward son, my God was waiting for me with open arms. He cleaned me up and took my hand again. I held on much more tightly afterward. No wander lust for this world left. No excitement at the carnival. Only a desire to navigate its confusing, deadly hawkers and amusements with a firm grip on He Who chose to rise up from His throne to run and comfort me.