Out of Egypt: Miracle! Quick, Run!
Then the LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied. The LORD said, “Throw it on the ground.” Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. (Exodus 4:2-3)
After God establishes who Moses is (the guy who’s with the One Who is with him) and Who God is (I AM WHO I AM), God lays out with great certainty the fact that the Israelites will believe Moses and that, ultimately, the Egyptians will release them and even wish them well on their way out. You can read the rest of chapter 3 for this.
God is certain. Moses is not. He is still unsure, still pretty wobbly on all this, and God patiently works to bring him around . . .
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My confidence grows as I read, yet Moses is still reluctant. He is still fumbling around for questions in his little game of “Stump the Creator.”
Now he fears that they will not believe God has truly appeared to him.
That’s an easy one, God says.
He tells Moses to throw his staff on the ground. He does, and it turns into a snake.
Moses runs.
Then God tells Moses to pick up the snake by the tail, and when he does, it becomes a staff again.
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Next, God tells Moses to put his hand inside his cloak, which I’m sure he did with mixed emotions after that ha-ha-really-funny snake thing. He pulls his hand out, and it’s covered with leprosy.
Ack! What kind of crazy stunt . . .
I guess for those of us not so easily convinced by something as ordinary as a talking-and-burning-but-not-burning bush, a little disfiguring disease is in order. God tells him to put his hand back in his cloak, which I’m sure he was more than happy to do. It comes out completely restored.
God instructs Moses to use these same signs to demonstrate that he did indeed meet with the Lord.
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In case there are still objections, God gives a third sign.
Moses is to take water from the Nile and pour it on the ground, where it will become blood.
Nice.
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Where I am struck most is where Moses throws his staff on the ground. It becomes a snake.
And he runs away.
He runs.
I do that.
God works a miracle. He does an amazing thing. But it might look funny. Not what I expected at all. And so I get freaked out and I run away.
I don’t know what to do with it sometimes when I see God work.
I panic.
And so I run.
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Why would I think that what God was doing was intended in some way to harm me? Why would I need to run from God’s working in me or around me?
Didn’t we just see how God doesn’t give us bad things? God gives us good gifts. God’s working in our lives is good.
We can trust Him. We can have confidence in His work for us.
No need to run from it. No need to panic. No need to sound the alarm.
God knows what He’s doing.
Just walk over and pick up your staff.
Pick up your gift from the ground.
It won’t bite.
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Out of Egypt: Who Are You?
Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am . This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ (Exodus 3:13-14)
Glad you’re back. We’re still watching Moses with the bush. Give me one more day or two? Moses has his answer to “Who am I?” So now he wants to know, “Who are You?” Let’s look in…
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Moses’ first attempt to avoid his calling is shot, so he raises the next question.
What if I do go to the Israelites, and they want to know Your name? Then what?
What do I tell them? Huh?
I mean, You know, You and me God, we know each other. We’re doing this burning bush thing together and all. But what if they don’t know You like I know You?
What if they want to know Your name?
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Again, God’s answer is very simple, very definite, yet very perplexing. I know I’d have a hard time arguing with a talking bush that said simply, I AM WHO I AM. Yep, You sure are. There’s not much more to be said to that, except What does that mean?
God’s identity is just that indisputable.
He declares Who He is, and there’s no arguing with it.
The Lord tells Moses to go to the people and tell them Yahweh, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, has sent them. This name, Yahweh, is His name forever. He is to be remembered by this name from generation to generation.
God is eternal. He will truly be remembered as the Lord God Almighty forever.
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Language sometimes is terribly limiting when we try to put words on Who God is. I AM WHO I AM is seen to be absolute and complete, encompassing all the fullness of His character, even that which had yet to be revealed through history.
Moses is to tell the people this is Who sent him.
God knows this name is complete. This name is all Moses needs to have. The people will know what he means.
They’ll know.
I AM WHO I AM.
All the fullness of Who God is.
Jesus helped unfold this fullness as He walked with us on earth. John’s gospel records it over and over.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven.
I am God’s Son.
You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am.
I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.
Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.
I am going away and I am coming back to you.
Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.
You are right in saying I am a king.
I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.
I AM WHO I AM.
And I will be with you.
Simple answers.
Perplexing answers.
Both give us all we need.
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Out of Egypt: Who Am I?
The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” Exodus 3:7-12
You may as well settle in. Moses’ visit with the bush is one of my very favorite parts of Exodus, and we’re going to spend another couple of days here before we’re done. Now that God has Moses’ attention, He begins to reveal His intentions…
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The Lord tells Moses that He has seen the misery of His people in Egypt. He has heard them cry out and He has not turned a deaf ear to their cries. Indeed, He is deeply concerned for them. It is out of this loving concern that He has come to rescue them.
As is so clearly demonstrated over and over in this book, God never does a job halfway. His plan is not merely to save His children from the hands of the Egyptians, but He has chosen a new home for them, a land flowing with milk and honey.
Not just a rescue, but a saving from and a bringing into.
And Moses is the man He has chosen for the task of leading His people out of Egypt and into this wonderful new home.
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Not being too different from most of us, Moses’ first (and second…and third…) response was to object. Yikes! What planet are you on, God? You’ve got to be kidding if you think I’m going back there!
I have to wonder if I might spend more energy thinking up excuses and reasons not to obey God than I do actually thinking through the task I’m called to.
I see it as the George Costanza Method.
Moses begins his long series of objections with what sounds like a very logical question: Who am I that I should go to Pharoah and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?
Now, understand this is logical only from our little human heads. See, from inside our little minds, if someone asked us why we had selected them to do a particular task or project, we would start answering this question by listing all the strengths and abilities this person has, and tell him or her why we made this particular choice for the job.
God doesn’t think from a small mind though. His answer is nothing like this.
In fact, what He says doesn’t seem to answer the question at all.
I WILL BE WITH YOU.
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Was God even listening?
That’s all very nice that You’ll go along, God, but You didn’t answer the question. What you said wasn’t even an answer at all.
Moses asks, “Who am I?”
God says “I’ll be with you.”
God doesn’t affirm Moses’ adequacy. He gives him no pats on the back. He doesn’t build him up for his strengths and abilities. You see, it is not at Moses’ capabilities that God is looking. Rather, it is His own.
God’s simple yet perplexing answer is all we really need to know.
I WILL BE WITH YOU.
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God was looking at His own strengths, not at Moses’ own resources. God knew that it would be only through His power, not Moses’, that the people would be brought to freedom.
Now the answer to the question “Who am I?” is “You’re the one who’s with the One Who’s with you.”
Come to think of it, I don’t think I care to be anyone else.
Being the one who’s with the One Who’s with me equips me for any task He calls me to do.
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God has a way of hearing not our words, but the cries of our hearts. Moses was afraid — God saw that in the question.
What Moses did not need was a simple answer to his question.
He did not need to be told how great he was.
The terrified cry of his heart needed to be answered.
God did that.
He answered the terrified cry with comforting and strong words.
I WILL BE WITH YOU.
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Out of Egypt: Take Off Your Shoes
“‘Do not come any closer,’ God said. ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’ Then he said, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’ At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. ” Exodus 3:5-6
Exodus 2 has an amazing account that follows the story of the midwives’ obedience to God in preserving the little boy babies. I’m not going to go into it here today, but if you haven’t read or heard the story since Sunday School, it’s time to take another look.
Don’t give me “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it a million times. I’ve seen Charleston Heston. I’ve watched the Ten Commandments on tv.” The account of Moses’ birth, his mother’s profound and risky faith in allowing him to live and then floating him in the river in a basket, and his amazing rescue by the daughter of Pharaoh staggers the mind.
God had a plan for Moses, and He worked that plan all day long.
He will do exceedingly more than we can imagine when it comes to keeping His plan on track.
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What I want to look at today is Moses’ unbelievable God-encounter on Mount Horeb. In the run-up to this event, remember that Moses was raised in the palace. During a stroll one afternoon, he takes umbrage at the mistreatment of a Hebrew slave by an Egyptian master. He kills the Egyptian and buries him in the sand.
In the end, he is forced to flee for his crime, and he winds up in the wilderness, where he helps some young women water their flock. He goes back with them for dinner, meets the family, and by the time it’s all done, he marries one of the women, Zipporah.
About this time, we are reminded by the writer that the Hebrews were crying out to God in their oppression, that God heard them and remembered His covenant with them. He looked on them with compassion, He saw their anguish. And He moved into the next part of his plan. Let’s pick up Out of Egypt from there, with Moses tending sheep a long, long way from the palace.
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We find Moses out on Mount Horeb, minding his own business tending his father-in-law’s flock, when an angel of the Lord suddenly shows up in the form of a bush that is on fire but doesn’t burn.
What?
Think about that a while.
We’ve heard it so many times it doesn’t seem like a big deal.
But it’s big.
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Moses cautiously approaches the bush to check it out. He is stopped in his tracks though, when he hears a voice coming out of the bush calling “Moses, Moses!” Of course, a bush that burns but doesn’t burn would have to talk, too. It just makes sense.
Now, had this been me, we wouldn’t have gotten so far as “Lyla, Lyla!” before I’d fallen down the side of the hill in my rush to get home and take a very long nap. But not Moses. He has to have either at least a partial grip on what is going on or else he has lost his grip on life altogether. Because he stays and answers.
“Here I am,” he says.
As though a bush that can talk and burn but not be destroyed needs to be told where you are.
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A conversation with the bush ensues. The voice tells Moses to take off his sandals.
Why?
Because the ground on which he stands is holy ground. The place where we meet God is holy. That could be in church, sure. Moses met Him in the desert by a bush.
I can meet Him in my car. In the grocery store. At my desk.
When I got to this part I had to stop and take a serious look at how I treat the presence of my God. It is no small thing to be in the Almighty’s presence. When I think of how every minute of every day is to be spent in His presence — not just my quiet times — I am blown away by the impact such a mindset could have on me. It would bring about a change in the way I think, the way I speak, the way I behave, the way I live my whole life.
If only I would “take off my shoes” on holy ground.
I think of how Brother Lawrence described the effect of staying in His presence in his little book, The Practice of the Presence of God. This was a guy that made a career of being in God’s presence. Literally. Everything he did was about that. And he said,
When we are faithful to keep ourselves in His holy presence, and set Him always before us, this not only hinders our offending Him and doing anything that might displease Him, at least willfully, but it also begets in us a holy freedom, and if I may so speak, a familiarity with God, wherewith we may ask, and that successfully, the graces we stand in need of.
If we keep ourselves in His presence, stay with Him, recognize He’s there, we sin less. We mess it up less often. We get to know Him better.
And we experience His grace more often, and more richly than if we just stopped by now and again when we got around to it.
Moses understood what it was to be in God’s presence. As the voice reveals to him that it is none other than the Lord God Himself, the God of Moses’ father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, Moses is afraid even to look, and he hides his face. This man knew what it was to be in the presence of the Almighty.
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I wear my shoes all the time.
Except when I go to bed.
And even then sometimes I leave my socks on.
Meeting up with God, Moses took off his shoes.
And he hid his face.
He knew what God’s presence was about.
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Out of Egypt: Those Meddling Midwives
“The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, ‘When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.’ The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, ‘Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?’ The midwives answered Pharaoh, ‘Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.’ So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.” (Exodus 1:15-21)
Set the scene.
Joseph’s entire generation is dead, and Egypt has a new king who knows nothing about Joseph and his very unique relationship with the king of his day. The Israelites are now multiplying to the point of filling the whole land, and the new king is afraid. So he makes them slaves in order to keep them under control.
Within seconds of beginning the book of Exodus, we get a vivid example of one of the overriding themes of this book: God is sovereign and is in control in all situations.
Check this out: Under their oppression, the Israelites actually continue to multiply. In fact, they seem to multiply and strengthen in direct proportion to the degree to which they are oppressed.
The Egyptian scheme backfires under the divine control of the God of the Israelites, our God.
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Pharaoh, desperate to find a way to keep the Israelites down, adds another nasty piece to the puzzle: all Hebrew baby boys must be killed at birth. This man who was so powerful, the ruler of a massive empire, must resort to killing newborn children in an effort to maintain his security and his position.
Such a hard, tough, stern exterior.
But inside, this mighty, fearsome king was himself afraid of tiny babies.
Try as he might, Pharaoh just can’t seem to get ahead of these Hebrews, even after removing all their power.
He didn’t plan for the Midwife Factor.
The Hebrew midwives fear God, and in that fear they allow the baby boys to live. Pharaoh naturally finds out. It’s difficult after a while to hide the fact that there are male children being born and raised in the Jewish settlement.
So he confronts the midwives and demands an explanation. “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”
It’s like the closing scene of a Scooby Doo cartoon, where the exposed villain mutters, “If it hadn’t been for those meddling midwives kids.”
Thinking quickly, they tell him that the Hebrew women simply give birth before they can get there, and there is nothing they can do.
See, Mr. Pharaoh, Sir, the Hebrew women aren’t like the Egyptian women. The Hebrew women are vigorous. They are strong and robust. No disrespect to your soft and weak Egyptian women, of course. But these powerful Hebrew women are already giving birth before we even can get there. There’s just nothing we can do.
These women are incredible. Pharaoh, a man who has babies killed just for being born, calls in those meddling midwives, and they tell them they aren’t following orders.
It’s not difficult to imagine the possible punishment they may have faced for such willful disregard for the law. But these women know a deep trust and reverence for God and they know He will be with them.
They need only obey Him.
And indeed, God honors their obedience. Not only does it appear from the text that Pharaoh was satisfied with their answer and they were not punished, but God goes on and blesses them further for their obedience.
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God is so clever. And so creative. And so personal.
Look at how He blesses them: He gives them families of their own. How much more appropriate a gift could He have given them? These are women who spend their days delivering other women’s babies. Now they have families of their own. We can trust our God to give us according to our needs and our longings — not according to what would bless our neighbor or what worked well last week in Detroit or Los Angeles. He blesses us according to what would bless our heart, in this moment and in this place. He knows us that well.
God is in control.
And God honors obedience.
By the time we’re through just the first chapter of Exodus, these two truths have lit up the place.
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God is in control. He has it covered.
Step out in obedience. He has you covered.
He honors your obedience. His reward is personal and fitting.
Those meddling midwives.
Trusting God by being obedient.
Trusting God to pour out His reward.
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Out of Egypt
I’ve mentioned before some earlier work I’d played with in the book of Exodus. This was actually while I was in college, though it was several years later before I had anything coherent on paper. One of the things I wanted to do here was to include some exerpts of that longer project. I have some catching up to do this week so I thought it might be a good time to begin doing that. So the entries you read here that are titled Out of Egypt are adapted from that earlier project.
By way of introduction, let me include a piece of the introduction I wrote in 1985 (yeah, it’s been that long) when I was doing the initial study. It was 1991 when I finally compiled the notes. And no, taking a stack of paper to Kinko’s and having copies made and bound does not qualify as “published.” The thing to understand is that, crazy as it may sound, studying Exodus every day in a dorm room in St. Cloud, Minnesota, was one of the most exhilerating things I’ve ever done. It was the first time that I’d spent time with Jesus for the sheer delight of it. It was the first time I remember the Word leaping off the page alive, burning into my heart.
From the 1985 introduction:
I make no claims to be a scholar, nor that this is a scholarly work. I’m just a kid, 22 years old, making my way through college. But this is a kid who has been touched by God in a most remarkable way, right in the heart, where He loves to touch. Exodus was as much an exit out of misconception and disbelief for me as it was an exit out of Egypt for the Israelites.
For a long time I misunderstood what my God wanted from me. I figured that time with Him and in the Word were necessary for fighting the battle. It was necessary to make me easier to get along with. It was necessary because that’s what people who love the Lord do. That’s all true, but I was missing something really big: the sheer thrill of just being with my God and learning from Him. From the first day I opened Exodus, there was never a dull passage. There was never a day when nothing seemed to fit. As the children of Israel journeyed out of Egypt, I journeyed unto Him. Unto knowledge of Him. Unto excitement in simply knowing Him. Unto enjoyment of His company.
People have pulled a lot of themes out of Exodus, I suppose. I see more of God’s personality than anything else. Who He is, what He looks like, how He works, what He cares about, how He feels about His kids, etc. I fell in love reading this book. I saw Him…and what I saw thrilled me.
I reached a point, perhaps to the frustration of my friends, where all I wanted to talk about was what God taught me in Exodus. That’s why I’m writing this. It’s really just my quiet time notes in a form that will make some sense. As I dug into this book, I scribbled whatever jumped out at me into my notebook. But it made sense to no one but me and I feared that in five years I wouldn’t even understand what it said. These are my thoughts…what the Holy Spirit taught me from the pages of Exodus. Some of it was very personalized and may seem trivial to you. But it meant the world to me when I discovered it for the first time.
Let me say one more thing here before I just get to it. I can’t hardly talk about Exodus to you all without saying this. You know how you see the name Muggy pop up now and then in the comments? Most of you don’t know Muggy. But if you could imagine my polar opposite, Muggy’s what you’d be seeing. She was an elementary education major. I was in political science. You can figure it out from there. She is full of energy and enthusiasm, while I like the sound of the words “even keel.” She is a total natural with people and you’d find her in the great room, while I’d prefer a quite den down the hall that most people didn’t know was there. She is an exclamation point where I am perhaps more like period or comma.
God saw fit in my freshman year of college to place me in her Bible study. I think we both spent some time asking what on earth He was thinking. Turns out He was brilliant. Muggy graciously took a sarcastic, entirely too serious know-it-all, who had no time for stickers and markers and cute cards, and certainly not for nonsense like evangelism, under her wing.
And God used Muggy in a mighty way. She stuck with me and discipled me for most of the balance of my college years — she poured her life into me and walked alongside me and taught me by living life in my line of sight. It was she who first persuaded me that I might want to try spending some time with Jesus because I might enjoy it, rather than just to put more stuff in my head.
That the relationship with Him was the very best part of all.
Mug, did I ever tell you that you’re always right up at the top of my list when I consider the people who have the most significant impact on my life?
Because I should have. It’s very true. I’m grateful for your investment then and your continued friendship now.
Ok then, on with the story.
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Adorable Kitten Needs New Home: Litter Trained, Has Had Shots, Loves to Drink Milk
“We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:11-14)
Maybe you already know the saga of the cats at our house.
In case you don’t, let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, a scraggly mother cat was cared for her young kitten in our neighborhood. Food was scarce, and forced to scavenge she often dug in our trash cans and killed birds on our lawn.
(The rest of) my family felt compassion and began to put out food for them. The cats filled their belly with fresh cat chow.
Soon the cold winds of winter began to blow. And the cats needed a place to stay. The boys crafted a shelter in the garage with comfortable beds and warm blankets. The cats were content to call it their home. (Something that was often lost in the freqent hissing.)
As they became more familiar they got their own names, just like part of the family. There was Mommy Kitty, and Baby Kitty. Clever, I know.
Soon, we noticed other felines staying at the shelter. We presumed it was Daddy Kitty, often accompanied by a cat we called The New Girlfriend. And on particularly cold nights, Daddy Kitty would bring along some others known as The Drinking Buddies.
Our garage was completely taken over by a dysfunctional cat family seeking food and warmth.
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Once spring came, it was time for the cats to move on. And once their food supply diminished, they went their way.
We haven’t seen Baby Kitty in months.
But Mommy Kitty still passes by now and then, looking a bit battle weary again.
Perhaps she catches a glimpse in the window of a small kitten that looks . . . just like her.
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Her name is Sanchez. She was abandoned, apparently by a Mommy Kitty, in a neighbor’s garage. For some reason, the neighbor thought we might like to have her. After all, she’d seen some cats going into our garage.
When Sanchez came over, she might have been three weeks old. Her eyes were open, but she couldn’t really see. She couldn’t walk very well without falling down. She didn’t meow much. She mostly just screamed.
And she drank milk from a tiny bottle that Lane patiently fed to her numerous times each day.
She stopped screaming, started growing and finally learned to drink from a bowl. Instead of being off balance and falling down all the time, she runs and climbs and pounces on anything that moves.
As you might expect, despite the short-term transitional housing we intended for her, now she runs the house.*
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She had her first visit to the vet yesterday. She had some new experiences involving needles and thermometers that reminded her that life at our house is really pretty good. But the vet told us it was time for her to stop drinking just milk.
She needs to grow bigger and stronger. She’s holding herself back with the formula.
We’ve already been trying to move her to solid food for a long time. But she will have nothing to do with it. She likes her milk replacer. She even prefers a certain brand. The others make her sneeze.
She has no intention of giving it up.
But she has to.
She can’t grow strong and mature if she just keeps drinking Perci-Lac.
So in a couple of days, she will go cold turkey. Or cold cat food, perhaps. She will have to decide to eat solid food or not eat at all.
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The writer of Hebrews encourages us with respect to our maturity. We need to be growing. We need to eat solid food.
We like the formula. It’s comforting.
We stick with the basics. But God wants to take us further than that. He has much more planned for us. We need to move past the very basics of our faith, dig deep into the Word, and let it do its work in us.
To grow us and mature us.
“Solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves” to understand right and wrong, to understand God’s will and plan for us, to understand obedience. We train ourselves in maturity by constant use of the Word.
By constantly allowing God free reign in us to teach us and try us and test us.
Just above these verses, we are reminded that Jesus learned obedience through suffering. We learn obedience by constantly submitting ourselves to God’s direction, which may mean we experience difficulty at times, deal with pain at times, face great hardship at times. But by craving the solid food instead of just milk, we begin to grow strong. We begin to thrive.
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Sanchez is about to face some hardship. Some painful times. She’s going to have to learn the hard way how to eat solid food.
When it’s done, she’ll be a healthier cat, and she’ll begin to mature.
But it won’t be easy.
She’ll have to give up the milk.
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*This adorable kitten can be yours to take home today. Please contact me for details.
No Ark, No Glory
“The man who brought the news replied, ‘Israel fled before the Philistines, and the army has suffered heavy losses. Also your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been captured.’ When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backward off his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man and heavy. He had led Israel forty years. His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant and near the time of delivery. When she heard the news that the ark of God had been captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she went into labor and gave birth, but was overcome by her labor pains. As she was dying, the women attending her said, Don’t despair; you have given birth to a son. But she did not respond or pay any attention. She named the boy Ichabod, saying, ‘The glory has departed from Israel’ — because of the capture of the ark of God and the deaths of her father-in-law and her husband. She said, ‘The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured.’ (1 Samuel 4:17-21)
The Ark of the Covenant is the stuff of legends. Just watch movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark or read books like Ted Dekker’s A Man Called Blessed tell some fascinating stories of the search for the ark. Kind of makes our Sunday School diagrams come to life.
The legends may not all be true, but the ark was very real. God instructed the Israelites in meticulous detail as to the design and handling, and ultimately it contained the Ten Commandments.
The Ark was a symbol of God’s presence with His people.
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Now if you read from the beginning of 1 Samuel 4, you’ll find that when it came to the Ark, the Israelites had some legends of their own.
They had just come through a tough loss to the Philistines, losing about 4,000 men. So the elders met with the soldiers and determined to bring the Ark of the Covenant with them to the next battle, hoping that by bringing it along, it could save them.
It didn’t.
They were again soundly defeated, this time losing some 30,000.
And the Philistines took the Ark.
They took the Ark.
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A messenger returned from the front and reported the news to an old man sitting on a chair by the gate. The old man happened to be Eli, the priest. He was there waiting for news, for, as it says in verse 13, “his heart feared for the ark of God.”
He couldn’t bring himself to do anything else but wait and worry for the Ark. So he took his chair out to the gate to wait. He listened to the news of the great losses, including both of his sons, Phinehas and Hophni.
But when he heard that on top of it all, the Ark had been taken, he fell backward off his chair, broke his neck and died.
He broke his neck and died.
Because the ark was gone.
::
Shortly after this, his daughter-in-law also heard the news of her husband’s death, and her father-in-law’s death, and the loss of the Ark. She was pregnant at the time, and the news caused her to go into labor. She gave birth to a son, but did not survive the delivery herself.
But just before she died, she managed to name him “Ichabod.” What a thoughtful thing to do. She named him “No Glory.” Because the Ark was gone, and thus she believed God’s glory had departed.
It’s a big deal. The news already killed one man, and now it takes her.
And with her dying breath, she proclaims that God left.
Now who’d want to be this kid? To go through life being named for the very moment that your nation believed that God walked away.
::
The Ark was gone. And so, they believed, God’s presence was gone as well.
The Hebrews sometimes had a tough time keeping it straight between the symbols and the real thing. They had long since lost sight of the Ark being a symbol of God’s presence, and believed it was the real thing.
That’s part of the reason they thought it was such a clever idea to bring the Ark along into battle in the first place. Almost like a good luck charm.
So then, if the Philistines took the Ark, they took the presence of God. Leaving them without.
It was gone.
No glory.
Ichabod.
::
Now here’s what I’m thinking. I know that God did not leave them.
I know that God was not contained in a box, no matter how elaborate.
I know that God was mightier than the Philistines and that even if he was in the box, He couldn’t have been “taken” by mere men. Even by the baddest soldiers to be found.
God has never been kidnapped, not even by Philistine dogs.
So know that I know that God’s presence did not in truth depart.
::
But they thought that it did. And their reaction to that is everything.
Upon hearing that the Ark was gone, Eli literally fell off his chair and died.
Because he believed the glory had departed. God was gone.
Upon hearing that the Ark was gone, a woman went into labor, delivered her child, gave him an atrocious name, and died.
Because she believed the glory had departed. God was gone.
::
So what if it did happen? I know that He will not depart — His word promises He will never, no never, never leave me nor forsake me. And Lo, He is with me always.
But just pretend that it could happen.
Here’s my question: Would I notice?
::
Would I notice if God were gone?
How long would it take? And when I did figure it out, what would I do? Would I fall off my chair and die?
Or would I shrug and carry on as I had been, as unaffected by His departure as I had been by His presence?
I want to live in such a way that if this were to happen — and for the 97th time, I know that it won’t — I would know the split second that it did.
As soon as His back was turning to go.
I’d want to be sure to notice.
His presence has to mean that much to me.
::
Ask Not for Whom the Rooster Crows
“Then seizing him, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance. But when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. A servant girl saw him seated there in the firelight. She looked closely at him and said, ‘This man was with him.’ But he denied it. ‘Woman, I don’t know him,’ he said. A little later someone else saw him and said, ‘You also are one of them.’ ‘Man, I am not!’ Peter replied. About an hour later another asserted, ‘Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean.’ Peter replied, ‘Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: ‘Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.’ And he went outside and wept bitterly.” (Luke 22:54-62)
Ask not for whom the rooster crows. It crows for thee.
As a matter of fact, it crows for me.
I need it to.
If you were in church with me on Sunday, you heard my pastor preach a sermon on this story, only taken from Mark’s gospel. And if you were in Sunday School with me a couple of weeks ago, you might remember hearing part of the video teach on this too.
If you know the whole thing, you know a lot of things are wrapped up in this story of Peter’s failure and his redemption, this story about God’s immense grace and His merciful forgiveness.
But the oddball thought that comes to me in the midst of this story isn’t about Peter.
It’s about the rooster.
And about how I need that rooster to crow.
You know how this goes. Jesus has predicted that one of the disciples, one of those most close to Him, will betray Him. Peter stands tall and insists that even if the others fall away, he will stay.
He will face prison. He will face death.
But he will never betray him.
He will never fall away.
Never.
::
And Jesus has to give him the bad news that he would, in fact deny Him. In The Message translation in verse 34, Jesus said,
I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Peter, but before the rooster crows you will have three times denied that you know me.”
Before the rooster crows.
::
As the story goes on, Peter does exactly what Jesus predicted. He denies him three times.
All four of the Gospel accounts tell the story. In all four, he denies three times in sequence. There is no indication that at any point in between any of these denials he recognized what he had done.
There is no “Oh, man! I can’t believe I just did that! I’m going to grit my teeth and not do it again.”
There isn’t a sense that Peter saw what was happening at the time.
Until the rooster crowed.
::
At that moment, he knew what he had done. The third time, “just as he was speaking,” the rooster crowed. And according to Luke, at that moment, he and his Lord met eyes.
And he knew what he had done.
The rooster had to crow.
::
The rooster crow marked the recognition of his sin, of his failure, of his own betrayal of his Lord. Of the One that he loved with all his heart and all his soul.
The rooster crow made him look up and see the eyes of his Jesus looking back.
The rooster crow made him see Jesus’ pain at his failure and to feel his own pain and remorse.
And at that, he went out and he wept bitterly. The Message says that “he cried and cried and cried.”
I need the rooster to crow.
::
I need to have markers along the way that make me stop and look at what I’m doing. That make me recognize when I have engaged in sin. When I’ve entered into a destructive pattern of some sort. When I’ve not kept my commitment to the Lord or to others. When I’ve not done what He has called me and instructed me to do.
When I simply am not living in a way that is consistent with who I am in Christ Jesus.
Peter didn’t see it until the third time — when the rooster crowed.
The rooster got his attention, it got him to look at Jesus and see what he had done. It made him go out and mourn over his sin, and it made him able to experience Jesus’ redemptive work in his heart.
::
What is the rooster for me? Maybe it is another person pointing it out. Maybe it’s a life event that brings me to my senses. Maybe it’s time in the Word, time with the Father.
Whatever it is, I’ve got to be raising some roosters in my yard so they can crow when I need to brought to my knees. When I need to meet eyes with Jesus and know that I’m wandering off the path.
When I need to experience His complete redemption.
Never send to know for whom the rooster crows.
It crows for me.
::
You Want Fish? You’ll Have a Snake. And You’ll Like It.
“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:9-11)
Most of us would prefer not to admit it for ourselves. But we can readily tell you about seeing a fellow parent do it.
You’ve seen it.
WalMart, the grocery store, the convenience store. The child is begging for candy or a soda or a toy or a video game. The exasperated parent, rather than purchasing the coveted item, tells the child, “You’ll get nothing. And you’ll like it.”
A lot of times, “No, you can’t have it” is exactly the right answer.
But we could use a little help with our delivery.
::
As His Sermon on the Mount continues in Matthew 7, Jesus tells the people that God will honor their requests. Those who ask will receive. Those who seek will find. To those who knock the door will be opened.
You can trust the Father, He tells them.
You can trust your Daddy.
He asks them as parents,
“which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?”
Jesus followed the rule of a good reporter: There are times when you just don’t ask a question unless you already know the answer. He knew the answer. He knew none of them would ever do such a thing. To give their children stones or snakes when they asked for their meal? It was inconceivable.
So He tells them, Look. If you guys wouldn’t give your kids terrible things when they ask for something good, and you are imperfect people who make stupid mistakes, then why would you think your Father in heaven, who is perfect in every way, wouldn’t give you good gifts?
You can trust your Father, He says.
He wants to give you good things.
::
So He tells us, Ask. Seek. Knock. You’ll receive. You’ll find. The door will open.
Candy and toys and games? Not always. He gives us good things. Sometimes what we’ve asked for isn’t a good thing. Or we’ve already had enough of it and we need something else. We can trust Him to give us good gifts. We can also trust Him to withhold those things which are not good. That’s what really trusting Him can do for us.
We can trust Him to do what’s best for us. What’s in our best interests. Not just what we want, but what we need.
He won’t jerk us around.
No stones. No snakes. Just the good gifts.
::
How Quickly Things Can Change
“‘But what about you?’ he asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’ Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ. From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Lord!’ he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!’ Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.’” (Matthew 16:15-23)
How quickly things can change.
Jesus has just spent some time with his disciples trying to help them understand His teaching. And now He wants them to understand who He is.
He’s asked who other people think He is, and they’ve told Him. John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or another prophet. It’s interesting that folks had so little trouble believing He was a prophet long dead, returned from the grave but they couldn’t accept that their Messiah just wasn’t what they expected.
Now He asks Peter.
Put your money where your mouth is, Peter. Who am I?
Don’t tell me what the others think now. Who do you think that I am?
And Peter answers without a doubt. Without hesitation. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus commends Peter for his answer. It’s right on the mark. And He goes on to say that Peter’s answer isn’t so good because he’s so smart or he’s been taught rightly by men.
No, to answer this way comes from what God has revealed to him. God has shown Him that Jesus is the Christ. He’s the Son of God.
He goes on to tell Peter that He’ll build His whole church on him and even hell can’t overcome it.
::
What a moment that must have been for Peter. He got the answer right. He got the answer straight from the Father.
And he didn’t muff it.
He got it right.
And now, the Messiah is talking about using him in a might way. What a day he was having. He was going to have the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
I think that Peter didn’t even know what that meant at the time, but wow. To have Jesus say it. It must have been overwhelming.
::
Still riding high, Peter listens as Jesus begins to tell of what’s to come. He’s going to suffer. The elders and chief priests and teachers of the law will have their way with Him.
And He will suffer.
He will be killed. And He will be raised to life on the third day.
And it must be this way.
::
Then this rock, the one with the God-inspired wise answers, the one with the keys of the kingdom, loses his head. He takes Jesus aside and tells Him they must prevent this.
This can’t happen!
Jesus just got done using the word “must” a bunch of times. It must happen. And Peter immediately turns and says it must not.
You can hear the wheels turning in his mind, frantically trying to come up with a plan. If we don’t go to Jerusalem, then it won’t happen. If we keep Him away from the temples, maybe we can hold off the teachers and the priests.
We gotta stop this from happening. Jesus! Work with me! We have to stop this!
::
A second ago, Jesus said “Blessed are you” to Peter. And now, He spins around and says “Get behind me, Satan!”
Whoa. What just happened?
Peter, you’re the rock. You’re the man. I’ll build My church on you.
Peter, you’re Satan. Get behind me. Get out of My way.
::
A moment ago Peter had wisdom straight from the Father. Not revealed by man.
Now? Now he has the things of man in mind, not the things of God.
Now he’s not the rock. Now he’s the stumbling block.
How quickly things can change.
::
And the big difference from one moment to the next? What made Peter brilliant in one instance and an obstruction the next? The source of his thoughts. One moment they came from the Father. He had spoken from God’s revealed wisdom. The next? Puffed up from his experience from a moment ago, he acted out of his own wisdom. His thinking was of man, not of God.
I can’t rely on what I learned a week ago to keep me thinking right today. It’s a good foundation, but I need to be receiving from God today too.
And tomorrow.
Things change way too quickly.
::
Do as I Say and as I Do
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. (John 15:9-11)
For a couple of days now this thing that Jesus said keeps winding around in my head.
Just as I have obeyed My Father’s commands and remain in His love.
Almost like it never occurred to me before that Jesus was obedient. But I know He was obedient.
There’s no other way to explain His life and ministry among us on earth.
If Jesus weren’t obedient, He probably would have run away from Mary and Joseph’s house. And it wouldn’t have been so He could teach in the temple.
Can you hear it? Joseph would say, “Jesus, as long as you live under our roof, you’ll follow our rules.”
And Jesus would retort, “You’re not the boss of Me. I am God-Man you know. I can do anything I want.”
If Jesus weren’t obedient, He wouldn’t have had the ministry that He did for those three years. How else could He have continued to minister to the multitudes that crowded around Him all the time? Always clamoring at Him, begging for a miracle, grabbing at His clothes so they’d be healed. And they never their own lunch to His hillside seminars.
At some point, He’d have slipped away in the boat with the disciples like He was going off to pray, and He would have just ditched. Left and never come back.
If Jesus weren’t obedient, He sure wouldn’t have withstood Satan’s temptation in the wilderness. Come to think of it, He wouldn’t even have gone into the wilderness in the first place. What would be the point?
But even if He went anyway, if obedience wasn’t something He did, He would have grabbed up all that Satan offered. Satan was ready and willing to put Jesus on the fast track to a lot of goodies and glory. He could have had it all without having to do what God wanted.
And I know that if He were not obedient, Jesus would never have taken the cross.
Never.
::
Jesus was obedient to the Father.
In John 15, after telling us that He is the true vine and that we must remain in Him to have life, He goes on to say that’s exactly how He does it. He’s shown us how to abide in Him by how He abides in the Father.
If you obey my commands, you will remain in My love, just as I have obeyed My Father’s commands and remain in His love.
Jesus never had to tell us to “do as I say, not as I do.” Everything He asks us to do, He’s done before us. Obey My commands like I have obeyed My Father’s commands. Remain in My love as I have remained in My Father’s love.
Do it the same way.
::
Jesus was obedient.
Paul tells us in Philippians 2 that He was obedient, even unto death on a cross. And the writer of Hebrews tells us in chapter 5 that He learned obedience from what He suffered. Jesus was fully God but He was also fully man. He didn’t have an automatic “Obey God” switch that He could throw. He didn’t have an “Easy” button when it came to being obedient.
He had to choose to obey. And He actually had to learn how to do it.
He learned obedience.
And He did obedience.
His obedience to the Father was about keeping His Father’s commands, yes. But His obedience was also about His relationship. He listened to the Father. He loved the Father. He remained in the Father’s love, and this enabled Him to be obedient. To listen to what God was saying, and to act in keeping with it. To live in a manner consistent with the relationship He had with God.
Remain in My love, He tells us.
Do it the same way I remain in the Father’s love.
Do it by being obedient, the same way I have been obedient.
::
In His ultimate act of obedience, He took the cross.
He could have walked away.
And He knew it.
As He wept and prayed and bled through His sweat in the garden, He pleaded with the Father to take it away. To come up with another plan. To do it a different way. In Matthew 26, He asks God,
If it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.
But if it weren’t possible?
Yet not as I will, but as You will.
If this is really what You’re asking Me to do, and there isn’t another way, then I’ll do what You’re asking.
I’ll do it. I’ll obey.
::
The Father, His Father, ask Him to do something none of us will ever be asked to do.
Not just to relinquish His own interests. We’re all asked to do that.
Not only to die a painful and horrific death on the cross. Many have been asked to suffer dreadfully for the cause of Christ in ways most of us can’t grasp.
But to be the One Who knew no sin and yet to become sin for us.
To become sin for us.
To take the full weight of all our sin.
None of us can do that. None of us will be asked to do that. None of us can imagine what that could be like.
But Jesus knew. Before it happened, He knew. He knew enough that He asked His Father if there were another way. And knowing there was no other option, there was no Plan B, He submitted.
He became obedient even unto death on a cross.
He never said “You aren’t the boss of Me.”
He knew Who He was. He knew why He was here. And He did everything God asked Him to do.
I can’t fathom what would have happened if He didn’t.
::
So what about me? Remain in My love. He has loved me like the Father loves Him. I’m to remain in His love like He remains in the Father’s. Obey Him like He obeys the Father. And then what?
His joy will be in me, and my joy will be complete. It doesn’t get any better than that.
::
Barking the Apple Tree
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” John 15:1-8
Since we moved into our home 14 years ago, we have systematically removed nearly every tree. Despite what the previous owners may have believed, a shelter belt of trees is just not necessary in town.
Most of the trees I wanted removed. But it broke my heart to cut down the apple tree. This tree produced the most delicious apples. But one day it stopped bearing fruit.
It had something to do with an overactive puppy stripping all the bark off the trunk.
I’ll tell you something. Losing that tree was very sad. It was way more than “just a latte.” Ma’am.
::
The summer after the the tree was degloved, knowing it would probably be the last crop we’d ever get, I spent a day up in the tree trying to get as many apples brought in as I could. After only one spectacular, death-defying crash from the top of ladder to the ground (I’m ok), we had enough apples to make a pie for everybody in town.
And when my brother-in-law inadvertently hauled all the good apples to the dump grounds along with the bad ones, I made him go back in to find every last one and bring them back. These apples were priceless.
Mom came out for the weekend and we cut and peeled and made junkyard apple pies and apple crisp and apple butter until we couldn’t stand it any more.
Between my aversion to cooking, heights and anything remotely related to gardening, you have to know that this was good fruit.
::
We learned from the landscape guys that the tree would die. “Maybe tomorrow, maybe a year from now,” they said. But it would die.
Which is exactly what it did.
I guess trees have a vascular system, and when that’s damaged, oxygen doesn’t get to the roots and water doesn’t get to the leaves. The spring after that last crop of apples, it didn’t even bud.
And then the tree was dead.
The bark was stripped off and it could not survive.
It could not produce. It had to be cut down.
Instead of bearing the tastiest apples the world has ever known, it became the apple wood that a grateful friend would use to barbecue and smoke meat.
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The vine is different than the apple tree, but there are some common realities for both. When you read Old Testament descriptions of destruction and devastation, the Word often talks about both the vine and the fig tree together. In the book of Joel, alongside the laying waste of the vines is the stripping off the bark of the fig tree. The King James says that
He hath laid my vine waste and barked my fig tree.
The tree needs oxygen and water to survive and bear fruit. The branches have to stay connected to the vine in order to survive and bear fruit. Either way, there has to be an attachment to the source of life.
The supply line cannot be disrupted.
::
Here, Jesus tells us He is the true vine. The real thing. We are the branches. We have to stay connected to Him to get life. To get what we need to bear fruit. The branch lying on its own in the yard doesn’t produce fruit. It doesn’t even survive. It has to be connected to the vine. The tree with the bark torn away doesn’t yield fruit. It might look like it’s alive a little longer than a severed branch. But it’s disconnected from its source.
Maybe tomorrow, maybe a year from now. It’s going to dry up. It’s going to die.
And once the branches are dead, they are bundled up and tossed into the fire.
They’re used for a tasty barbecue.
And that’s it.
I need to be with Jesus. I need to remain in Him. I need his Word to remain in me.
I need to stay close.
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God Is Not a Centrist
See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (Deuteronomy 30:15-20)
Now that the presidential primary election season is over, where potential candidates have to capture the hearts of voters and activists at the far end of their party’s respective political spectrum, each now has to try to win over the middle ground — they have to come off as less “left” or “right” and play to the middle.
They become what is known in political circles as a centrist. The guy who, at the same time as he tries to keep his party’s base supporting him, has to also try to capture the hearts of these independent moderates in the middle of the spectrum — not red or blue, but “purple.”
God doesn’t play to the center.
Ever.
He is the center.
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When Moses continues his preparation of the people to cross the Jordan, and is commissioning Joshua as their new leader to take the people into the land God promised, he lays down a choice.
He draws a bright line.
And he makes it absolutely clear that there is no middle ground. There’s no gray. There’s no purple.
You pick one, or you pick the other.
You don’t pick both.
You don’t pick neither.
You pick one.
::
It’s right there. Read it with me.
Life and prosperity. Or death and destruction.
Love the Lord your God. Or turn your heart away.
Walk in His ways. Or be disobedient.
Keep His commands. Or be drawn away to bow to other gods.
Be blessed in the land. Or be destroyed.
Live and increase in the land. Or do not live long in the land.
Life. Or death.
Blessing. Or curse.
There just isn’t a place in the middle that we can safely hang out.
We have to pick one.
To make Him the center of it all — to choose to follow and obey and love — this is the only way to experience life, to enjoy the blessings, to live long in the land.
God won’t play to the middle.
He is not a centrist.
He is the center.
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Heart and Soul
“When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the LORD your God disperses you among the nations, and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you and bring you back. He will bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live. The LORD your God will put all these curses on your enemies who hate and persecute you. You will again obey the LORD and follow all his commands I am giving you today. Then the LORD your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land. The LORD will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your fathers, if you obey the LORD your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” (Deuteronomy 30:1-10)
When folks are wanting to poke fun at God, and question whether the Word is viable and applicable for us today, in all the brilliance of our 21st century enlightenment, a couple of the places they like to go are to Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
These two books are full.
Full of a lot of good stuff.
But full of a lot of stuff we just don’t get anymore.
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That doesn’t invalidate the Word so much as it just puts the spotlight on how much we don’t get. But there’s really, really good stuff there, and it still works just as well as it ever did. That’s kind of how God made His Word to work. So it would still be with us and effective even when we acquired what sometimes seems like too much knowledge for our own good.
In Deuteronomy 30, Moses is giving what you might call his farewell address to the Israelites. They are preparing to enter the land God promised to them. For reasons maybe we’ll get into some other day, after leading the people out of Egypt and through the wilderness, he lost his chance to go with them across the Jordan.
He’s given them the law, preparing them for their new life in the new land. The preceding chapters go into intricate detail about issues like what to do about a brother’s ox or donkey that fell on the road, and how to build your roof to prevent you from having guilt if someone falls off it and dies. About what kind of fabrics you couldn’t wear together, and why it was important to carry a shovel along when you walked outside the camp at night to relieve yourself. About using honest weights and measures, of treating hired help properly, and setting aside a portion of your produce to help care for the priests, widows and orphans.
There’s a lot of detail.
A lot of it makes sense, and a lot of it we just don’t get.
::
But as we near chapter 30, Moses gives some other specifics that are easier to understand, and harder to poke fun at. He’s very clear about what happens when we obey, and what happens when we don’t. He spells out the blessings and the curses, respectively, in Chapter 28.
If we choose to obey, we’ll be blessed.Blessed all over the place. We’ll be blessed inside and outside. Going in and coming out. Our enemies will be defeated. Even our baskets and kneading troughs will be blessed.
And then he outlines the curses, which amount to pretty much the blessings in excruciating reverse.
And none of the curses look too good.
::
So, starting in chapter 30, where I’m trying hard to get to today, Moses takes the detail, pulls it together and draws the big picture.
When all this happens, when the blessing and curse do their work to persuade to you to return to God and follow Him, he says that then God will restore you. He’ll have compassion and bring you back from the ends of the earth, where you have been scattered. You’ll come back to the land that was promised to your fathers, and you’ll possess it.
He will make it your own.
And then the curses will go back on your enemies instead of on you. And the blessings will be poured out, will be lavished on you. Because you have returned to God, because you have acknowledged Him, because you have desired Him again and have chosen to obey Him.
::
Now, it really all boils down to this thing he keeps saying in these verses, this phrase he keeps using: with all your heart and with all your soul.
You will return to God and obey Him with all your heart and with all your soul.
You will love God with all your heart and with all your soul.
You will turn to God with all your heart and with all your soul.
::
We’ve been scattered to the ends of the earth, we’ve run as far from Him as we can get. But He says He wants to give us our land back. He wants us to possess our territory again. He wants to restore us. He loves us with all His heart and all His soul, and He’ll do anything to get us to see that we need to come back.
He’ll even let us suffer under the curse.
God doesn’t want much.
He wants it all.
Everything we’ve got.
Heart. Soul. All of it.
::
And that’s when He will bless us with everything He’s got, when we give Him everything we’ve got. He won’t hold back.
But then neither can we. No going part way. “Yeah, I think if I can get enough of this kind of blessing, I can offset that kind of curse and then it’ll all balance out in the middle.” Doesn’t work that way. The curses are too devastating. The blessings are too immense. And they don’t come together.
It’s not a package deal.
::
God asks for my whole heart. My whole soul.
So when the curse does its work and drives me back to Him, my whole heart and my whole soul is what He gets.
And then He starts pouring.
::
It’s Not too Difficult
“Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’ No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.” (Deuteronomy 30:11-14)
One of the best things about looking at what God says is that even though a little bit of it by itself might really get me wigged out, if I read the whole thing together, and look at it all in light of the rest, it makes more sense. It becomes less daunting and more life giving.
Reading the past couple of parts of Deuteronomy 30 as we just have makes it look pretty daunting.
My whole heart.
My whole soul.
Everything has to be His.
Obey all of the things I’ve commanded you.
If you read and read and read, you find out that all of the things that He’s commanded us is really a lot of things. An undoable number of things it seems. That can get me pretty wigged.
But if I go back to the verses I skipped in this chapter, a weight comes off my shoulders. A load is lifted.
Because He makes it clear how doable this is.
What I am commanding you today is not too difficult or beyond your reach.
He does not command impossible things. We don’t have to send someone else to figure it out for us. He has put it within our reach.
It’s within my reach.
I have to reach. I have to move. But it is near to me. It is available. It is reachable. To love the Lord my God with all my heart and all my soul — the very thing He has just been saying is the thing He so much wants from me — He says it isn’t too difficult for me.
It is not beyond my reach.
Back in verse 6, Moses says that the Lord will circumcise our hearts so that we can love Him with all our heart and with all our soul, and so we can live. Now, at first glance, that really just sounds not very nice. The Message translation says that God
will cut away the thick calluses on your heart and your children’s hearts, freeing you to love God, your God, with your whole heart and soul and live, really live.
The thing to walk away with from that is that God is the One who will make me able to love Him the way He so desires. He will condition my heart to love Him totally. Absolutely.
It’s not too difficult. But that’s not because it’s so easy and it’s not because I’m so capable. It’s not too difficult because God will do the work that needs to be done in my heart to make it able to, desiring to, thirsting to love Him. God does the hard work our hearts need to free us to love Him. And that makes it not too difficult, not impossible, to do this enormous thing He asks us to do — to love Him with all our heart and all our soul. God does the work to put it within our reach.
God asks us for everything. For our whole heart, our whole soul. And we think we can’t do it.
God says we can. God says He will condition our hearts so it is not too difficult.
It’s within our reach.
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For a Really Tough Headache
“No doubt about it! God is good — good to good people, good to the good-hearted. But I nearly missed it, missed seeing his goodness. I was looking the other way, looking up to the people at the top, envying the wicked who have it made, who have nothing to worry about, not a care in the whole wide world. “
“Still, when I tried to figure it out, all I got was a splitting headache . . . Until I entered the sanctuary of God. Then I saw the whole picture: The slippery road you’ve put them on, with a final crash in a ditch of delusions.” (Psalm 73:1-5, 16-17, The Message)
We think we get it all figured out. Settle into a comfortable routine. God’s where He belongs, we’re doing what we want. Yeah, now and again we get our nose all out of joint because it’s not really the life we wanted. We see people around us who are doing things we want to do, having things we want to have, or that just seem to be successful in everything they touch and nothing bad ever happens to them.
And yet, they don’t care about God.
How does that work?
We love God. We serve God.
And we don’t have it all. What gives?
::
Asaph tells us what gives.
God is good. He is good to His people.
And the more we look at what everybody else around us is doing, the more we can’t see that. We just see a whole bunch of stuff that just doesn’t matter at all. Like what somebody else has. What somebody else gets to do. Why somebody else never seems to suffer any consequences. Why somebody else has no worries.
No matter what’s going on, he says, God is good. All the time. And if we watch everything around us, and not Him, we’ll surely miss it.
God is good.
::
Later on in this psalm, Asaph tells us what else gives. We try too hard to figure it out on our own.
“Still, when I tried to figure it out, all I got was a splitting headache.”
Ever had that splitting headache? The one that comes from me trying to figure out what God’s doing, what God wants, what I’m supposed to do, what other people are doing, and all on my own?
Extra Strength Tylenol, Advil, Axert, Excedrin Migraine . . . I’ve got ‘em all on my desk.
Not a one will help with a headache like that. Not even that stuff you rub directly on your forehead. None of that will help this kind of headache.
It’s the headache I get when I try to do God’s work. When I try to figure it all out on my own.
And leave Him on the sidelines.
All I get is a splitting headache.
::
So when your head finally hurts so badly that you have no choice, what do you do? Go to a quiet, darker place to rest. Gotta get away from all the stimulation. Asaph did that too.
Until I entered the sanctuary of God. Then I saw the whole picture.
When he entered God’s place, when he stopped striving and thrashing and trying to get it all worked out on his own, it started to make sense. It came together. He saw the whole picture.
To work this all out on our own, it becomes oppressive. That’s exactly what the NIV says.
When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me.
It’s just too much. But it goes on:
Till I entered the sanctuary of God.
Then we understand, then it becomes ok.
::
Psalm 94 echoes this, saying that “when anxiety was great within me, Your consolation brought joy to my soul.” The Spanish version of this passage talks about how God’s comfort comes after being devastated by the “multitude of my thoughts within me.” We have to move from the multitude of our thoughts into God’s comfort and consolation, into God’s presence.
Then we understand again. We can get it again.
And when we understand again, our thoughts clear. And we remember the things that come up later in this same Psalm:
Whom have I in heaven but You? And earth has nothing I desire more than You.My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Yet I am always with You; You hold me by my right hand.
But as for me, it is good to be near God.
For a really tough headache, I don’t need Excedrin.
I need the sanctuary.
I need the place where God dwells.
I need His consolation.
::
Pushing the Promise
“Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, ‘The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps then I can build a family through her.’ Abram agreed to what Sarai said.” (Genesis 16:1-2)
I really love the Old Testament. Would you permit to to take one more crack at Genesis 16?
Now, I’ve said a couple of times already that this whole mess started because Abram and Sarai decided not to trust God, not to wait on Him, not to take Him at His word. Instead, they took matters into their own hands. To recap very briefly (read the last two entries for more), God had previously promised to make Abram a great nation — descendants that would outnumber the stars. He’s an old man, and so far he and his wife remain childless.
The dream looks like it’s vanished.
At the end of their rope, they try to force the promise into being. They take control, they grit their teeth and they try to make it happen on their own.
So Sarai gives Abram her maidservant as his wife; he sleeps with her and she conceives a son. And from then on, it’s all about the train wreck.
::
Three parts of these two short verses are most troubling:
The Lord has kept me from having children.
God made a promise to Abram — his descendants would be many. Had He yet failed Abram? Or Sarai for that matter? It’s not in the record. He has not failed them.
Not ever.
Yet Sarai’s impatience consumes her. And here she not only accuses God of not keeping His promise, but also of actively preventing the promise from becoming reality.
God, she says, You promised it, and then You prevented it.
Perhaps I can build a family through her.
Impatient with God, believing He promised and then reneged, she concludes it’s up to her to make this happen. If God is not to come through, then I’ll just take care of it.
I will fulfill God’s promise myself. I can build my family without God. I am in control.
I am on my own.
Abram agreed to what Sarai said.
Sarai suggests this monumentally foolish course of action, but Abram goes along with it. He agrees to what she said. This is the part where Abram is supposed to sit her down and set her straight.
He had every reason and every right to stop her.
But he did nothing.
Well, he did something. But this is a family friendly site.
The thing is, Abram knew God to be faithful. And if Sarai forgot, he had to remind her. He knew God, he’d left his home to follow Him. He talked with God. God showed him the very stars his legacy would rival.
God revealed His plan, His promise, His heart to Abram.
But instead of remembering that, he followed Sarai’s impatience and unbelief.
And that’s when that train wreck happened.
::
Who’s the God you know?
The One I know doesn’t promise and then prevent it. He doesn’t ask us to force His promise to play out on our own. He doesn’t want us to forget His faithfulness and instead follow doubt straight off the edge of a cliff.
He asks me to put my faith in Him.
He asks me to leave Him in control.
And He asks me to resist efforts to be dragged into doubt.
Believe. Surrender. Stand up.
That’s what He’s asking of me.
He does the promising. He does the fulfilling.
He’ll do the heavy lifting.
::
More Dumb Ideas than the Stars in the Sky
Then Sarai said to Abram, ‘You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me.’ ’Your servant is in your hands,’ Abram said. ‘Do with her whatever you think best.’ Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.” (Genesis 16:5-6)
I think we like to look at Bible characters as consummate heroes and villains. There are no ordinary folks for us in Scripture. They all appear larger than life.
And when we look at our heroes, we see all their extraordinary feats and sometimes overlook their humanness.
Moses led God’s people out of oppression and slavery in Egypt, parted the Red Sea, got water out of rocks, and saw God’s glory on Sinai. (After he killed a guy and buried him in the sand.)
Jacob was the father of the twelve tribes of Israel, one who physically wrestled with God. (But he lied to his dad to swipe the birthright from his brother.)
Joseph remained faithful to God despite being sold into slavery by his own brothers and imprisoned on false charges, ultimately becoming a most powerful figure in Egypt and saving his people during the famine. (And my, did he have a bit of an ego problem at the start.)
David, giant slayer and man after God’s own heart, was the finest king Israel knew and the author of heart rending Psalms. (Somewhere along the way he seduced another man’s wife and then killed him to cover it up.)
Peter stepped out of the boat to walk on water and meet Jesus on the sea in a show of unmatched faith among the disciples. (And then denied even knowing Jesus, three times yet.)
These guys were really just like us.
They loved God. They served God. They gave Him everything they had.
And boy, at times, did they ever mess it up.
::
Look at Abram, later called Abraham. We got a little peek at him yesterday. This is the same Abraham who really did become the great nation God promised. The same Abraham who, in complete dependent obedience to God actually laid his son on the altar and was prepared to sacrifice him.
Abraham is one of our heroes.
But he messed it up just like us.
::
Go back to yesterday’s story for a minute. We were looking at the predicament he and Sarai (his wife) got themselves into with Hagar the maidservant. Remember that God had promised to make Abram into a great nation — more descendants than the stars in the sky. And when they grew impatient waiting for God to come through, Sarai told him to sleep with her servant.
After all, if he was to have all these descendants, somebody had better be getting pregnant.
::
There’s a lot wrong with this story, and I think I have at least one more day coming out of it. But look at this part today. Look how everybody handles it when this awful plan starts to play out.
When Hagar the maidservant does become pregnant, she begins to despise Sarai. It becomes a pretty hateful relationship. Now, knowing Sarai, I think it’s a safe bet that there was something else going on to fuel this hatred than the text lets on. But that’s just a hunch.
Sarai goes back to Abram and lays it at his feet: You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering.
Where have we heard this before?
The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.
The serpent deceived me, and I ate.
Sarai does the same thing. Abram, you did it. You are responsible. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregant, she despises me.
Sarai essentially says, I told you to sleep with her, and you did. And now she’s pregnant, which was the whole point. But it’s not working out. Now she hates me.
This is all your fault.
::
Everything goes exactly according to plan. Sarai’s plan.
They get the exact intended result. Hagar is pregnant with Abram’s child. But somehow, they forgot about how this might impact Hagar. They forgot about some big picture implications of this dumb idea. They forgot that God had His own plan and they just went around it.
And now, when that part goes wrong, and makes it difficult for Sarai, it’s somebody else’s fault.
How very much like me. I circumvent God’s plan and it blows up in my face. I’m always shocked when that happens. And I need somebody else to blame.
Even though this was totally my idea, I’ll blame the guy who carried out my plan.
Sounds reasonable enough.
::
And then Abram goes along with it, again. He doesn’t acknowledge that they blew it. He doesn’t step up to take responsibility for their choice. He doesn’t call Sarai out like he should have in the first place. He just tells her, Your servant is in your hands. Do what you think best.
Abram, come on. What Sarai “thinks best” doesn’t seem to be best. She thought this plan was a good idea from the get-go. She cooked it up. Do what you think best?
He washes his hands of the whole thing. Sarai’s idea, Sarai’s maid.
She’ll have to fix it.
::
Responsibility. Stepping up.
We don’t like to do it.
We’re all going to blow it. Sometimes all day long. But what do I do with that? Do I go back to God and acknowledge it, do I agree with Him that I’ve messed it up? Do I go to the people affected, the people I hurt, and ask for forgiveness, try to make it right?
Or do I, even in the face of absolutely contrary facts that everybody else in the world but me can see, find a way to put it on somebody else?
The great thing is that when Hagar has run off and encounters the angel of the Lord in the desert, the angel instructs her to be the grown up, even if Sarai and Abram won’t. While Hagar may be handling this all wrong, at the end of the day she’s the one that’s been wronged. And yet the angel tells her to go back, and submit to Sarai.
Be responsible. Step up, do the right thing.
::
You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering.
Your servant is in your hands.
The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit.
The serpent deceived me.
I could add a few of my own.
::
The One Who Sees Me
“She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me.’ That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.” (Genesis 16:13-14)
Here’s an interesting story. Way back in the early chapters of Genesis we meet a couple, Abram and Sarai. When the writer introduces Sarai, he tells us just two things about her: she was Abram’s wife, and she was barren.
She was married and without children.
These are two very important things to know about Sarai. Especially since one day when God was talking to Abram, her husband, He said he was going to make him into a great nation. His wife could not have children, but somehow God promised to create this great legacy, this great nation.
How does that work?
They were getting on in years (he was already 75), and this was getting to be more unrealistic by the day.
::
Another day God and Abram visited. Abram confided his growing distress that he had no heir. His inheritance appeared destined for one of his servants instead of his own child.
God said no, that’s really not how it is. He assured him he would have his own heir, one from his own body. And then God took Abram outside, had him look up and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars — if indeed you can count them. … So shall your offspring be.”
And Abram, a man of unparallelled faith, believed God.
He would have an heir.
::
But then, in Genesis 16, things took an unexpected turn. Sarai, without children, remember, decided it must be up to her to make happen.
She took matters into her own hands.
Thinking perhaps then they could get started building this family of theirs, she sent Abram off to sleep with her maidservant. The servant, Hagar, became pregnant, and then all kinds of conflict started to bubble below the surface of this dysfunctional little love triangle.
Hagar, carrying her master’s child, despised Sarai.
Sarai got fed up, and blamed Abram.
She blamed Abram?
The guy she sent off to sleep with the servant in the first place?
Crazy.
Sarai got exactly what she wanted, and now wanted nothing to do with it. So she mistreated her servant, and her servant ran away.
::
Background out of the way, let’s get to Hagar. On the lam, she stops to rest at a spring in the desert. An an angel of the Lord speaks to her.
“Where have you come from, and where are you going?” the angel asks.
Hagar replies, “I am running away from my mistress Sarai.”
The angel reassures her, telling Hagar that she will have descendants too numerous to count. And he speaks some prophetic words about her soon to be born son, whom she is to name Ishmael.
But the angel instructs her to return and submit to Sarai.
Go back, and be obedient. You’re a servant.
::
This has been a long road to get to the heart of this for me today. But when we pick this up in verse 13, Hagar gives God a name.
She gives God a name.
Who among us has done that?
What kind of amazing encounter do you have with the living God that ends with you giving Him a name?
She says that she has now seen “the One who sees me.”
He sees me.
::
How incredible is that? God saw Hagar in her great despair in the desert.
And He sees me in my condition, whatever it happens to be. He sees me in my pain, He sees me in my despair, He sees me in my rejoicing. He sees me.
Who I really am. How I really feel. Unfiltered. Unhindered. Unobstructed.
He sees me.
::
I love to read Ted Dekker. He has a way of weaving stories that absolutely capture my heart. In one story, a man and a woman are talking about the man’s relationship with the Father. He’s been up all night with God, and in the morning, the woman inquires about this experience.
Rebecca: So what have you been doing all night, really?
Caleb: Staring into the eyes of God.
Rebecca: And what was he doing?
Caleb’s answer is nothing short of stunning.
Caleb: Staring back into my eyes.*
::
God sees me. Good, bad, ugly. He sees it all.
And He doesn’t look away.
He stares back into my eyes.
::
*From A Man Called Blessed, Ted Dekker and Bill Bright, WestBow Press, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc. Copyright 2002
It Takes a Thief
“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns.” (Matthew 24:42-46)
The Discovery Channel runs an interesting little reality show called “It Takes a Thief” where a couple of experienced burglars (read: ex-cons) case out a house, break in, steal a bunch of stuff and record the whole thing. Then they meet up with the homeowners, walk them through their ransacked home, show them the video of the break-in and warn them of the dangers of not properly securing their house. (And eventually they give them their stuff back.)
The homeowners, predictably, are mortified.
They’re furious.
They feel violated.
The crazy thing is that the homeowners give them permission to break in.
::
They prearrange this whole thing. They actually get signed waivers from the homeowners before anything bad ever happens. The folks who live there know it’s coming, they know what’s going to happen.
They just don’t know when.
And they do nothing to prepare.
Zilch.
Nada.
And still they are shocked and horrified when it actually comes to pass.
::
Jesus talks to his disciples in Matthew 24 about His imminent return. He’s told them that He will come back, and they’ve just asked Him, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
When are You coming back?
What day?
What time?
And how will we know?
::
He goes on to describe some genuinely distressing events that are coming, starting with “birth pains” and including the sun going dark and stars falling from the skies. He tells them how dreadful this time will be, such that it would be “unequaled from the beginning of the earth” and “never to be equaled again.” And after that, He’ll appear in all His glory and gather His own back to Himself.
But the big question was still When?
When are You coming, Jesus? We really need to know.
And He flatly says to them, I’m not telling you. But you should keep watch.
::
And why won’t He tell? Because He knows how we are. If we knew when the thief was coming, we would have locked up the house. We would have made sure everything was secured. We would have called to make sure our insurance was paid. If we just knew when it was going to happen.
But being ready for that at any moment is a lot of work. That takes a lot of focus and energy. That’s tough to sustain over the long haul.
So then look at what He says. “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when He returns.” It will be good for the servant to be carrying out his duties when the master comes back.
It makes me wonder sometimes, what will I be doing when the Master comes back? I’m convinced He’s coming. If that should occur during my life, will I still be shocked? What will I be doing? Do I spend my day engaged in activities I’d be quite comfortable doing if that were the moment? At the time He returns, will He find me in the middle of a sarcastic and snide remark to someone? Will He find me exasperating my children? Will He find me absolutely wasting time?
Or will He find me actively bringing good news to the poor? Will He find me showing my children and husband how much I love them? Will He find me serving His people? Will He find me in the middle of talking to Him? (Would that be cool? “Yeah, hang on a sec, I’ll be right there.”)
I want Jesus to find me doing what He called me to do when He returns. Walking in those good works He’s prepared for me. I don’t want to have to explain myself.
I don’t want to have to grab for the remote to turn off the tv. I don’t want to have to quickly Alt-Tab to change to a different screen on my computer. I don’t want to have to bite my tongue and not finish whatever unkind thing I was saying. I want to be able to say without hesitation, “I’m so glad You’re here.” I want what I’m doing to very naturally move to the immediate and overwhelming worship response that His presence would most certainly compel.
::
If I knew what time He was coming, I’d live my faith even sloppier than I do now. I’d be just like those dim folks on tv who know that the break-in is coming and still just do business as usual.
If I knew, I’m afraid I’d be the one that would just quick tidy up in the nick of time, sound of the door opening in the background while I’m shoving the last rogue sock in the closet and forcing the door shut.
It takes a thief to give them their wake-up call on tv.
I want to be the faithful and wise servant.
Already awake, ready and waiting.
::
Ma’am, It’s Just a Latte!
“So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” (Matthew 10:26-31)
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It used to be that when I traveled I’d stop at one of my favorite coffee shops for a latte and a croissant. If I have the two together, close my eyes and imagine the smell of diesel, I can start to feel like I’m in Buenos Aires just briefly.
On a recent stop, I had the craziest altercation with the cashier. As usual, I ordered the house latte and a plain croissant. She politely told me that they no longer offered the house latte.
Without thinking much of it, I said, “Oh, how sad.” No melodrama or histrionics. I just said it, and turned to the menu to make another choice.
Meanwhile, the drama started full speed behind the counter.
::
The cashier said, “Ma’am! It’s just a latte!”
Let me clarify that. She didn’t say it. She announced it. She hollered it. Kind of like kids do when they are in another room, supposedly talking to each other but really trying to attract an adult’s attention to the other kid’s behavior.
I was a little startled, said something like, “Yeah, it is,” and stepped up my efforts to reorder hoping to divert her off course.
Not getting an argument from me apparently fueled the fire.
She got louder. “Ma’am! It’s just a latte!”
And I quietly agreed again, desperately trying not to make eye contact. All I could think was, “Do not engage.”
I reordered.
She did not relent.
::
By now, she’d shouted this several times, and my kids had ducked off to a table in the corner hoping not to have been seen with me or the cashier at any point.
She calmed somewhat, but continued on. “Wait now. Was that like, a joke? Were you trying to be funny? Because when I think of ‘sad,’ I think of world suffering and anguish. Like total despair.”
I explained that I certainly didn’t think of this in tragic proportions, it was simply disappointing and I’d be sure to get over it quickly. I paid for our food and detached myself from the very agitated cashier. I found my boys hiding at the furthest table they could find, a little befuddled but smiling.
Despite the craziness, I had a great new phrase to add to my repertoire.
“It’s just a latte.”
Keep it in perspective. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
It’s a phrase I use often now. And it’s packed with meaning well beyond what this woman ever imagined.
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When Jesus sent out the disciples, He told them, in a manner of speaking, “It’s just a latte.” Don’t fear those who can kill the body but not the soul. I’ve got your back. I pay attention to the number of hairs on your head, and know the whereabouts of every sparrow. Your life is in My hands, the most capable hands you’ll find anywhere on earth.
Don’t sweat the small stuff.
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As the disciples went out on their first mission, they needed to understand what really mattered. What they needed to focus on. And what they didn’t. They didn’t need to worry for their survival.
It’s not that survival is a little bitty deal. It’s a pretty big deal. But God had that all taken care of. He wanted them to understand that. They were to focus on getting the word out. Proclaiming from the rooftops the good news that their Redeemer had come.
He didn’t want them wasting time fretting over lattes, worrying about things over which they had no control.
You just get the job done, He told them. I’ll take care of you.
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In the grand scheme of things, my latte was not a big deal. I knew that. My kids knew that. Apparently the cashier didn’t know that I knew that. She knew that of all the things in life that really matter, a latte is not one of them. She felt passionately that I needed to know this too.
The now discontinued house latte represents a lot of things — paying the mortgage, skyrocketing gas prices, making relationships work, performing in our jobs, getting good grades, passing tests — things that are important to life, but things where God says He’s got it covered.
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He knows how many hairs are on my head. He’s that involved.
He knows when a sparrow smacks into my living room window. He’s that concerned.
He knows when certain restaurant chains change their menus. He’s that aware.
He takes care of stuff I can’t begin to keep track of.
I need to focus on what matters.
After all, “It’s just a latte.”
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No Results Found
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)
I thought it would be fun to do something in line with Independence Day for the 4th of July.
So I stopped over to Bible Gateway to see what I could find. I punched in “independence” and waited for my results. I got them instantly. The search page came back saying No Results Found.
Now, realize that this was a search of the whole Bible.
New and Old Testaments.
Sixty-six books.
That’s an awful lot of words to pick from.
But still, No Results Found.
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I figured maybe the translators of the NIV just didn’t prefer that word, so I searched the New American Standard instead.
No Results Found.
What about King James?
No Results Found.
I even tried searching for “independencia” in the Reina-Valera (Spanish) version.
No Results Found.
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What I do think we can fairly conclude is that when God was breathing out His Word, apparently “independence” wasn’t something that He wanted to see come up very often.
By contrast, when I searched for things like “trust in the Lord,” I got pages and pages of results. Imagine that. God doesn’t value our independence.
He values and desires our complete and total dependence on Him.
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It’s funny, because when I consider our job as parents, it is to grow up our kids so that they are not dependent on us. So that they are independent. Our goal in large part is to have them ultimately reach the point where they can make their own sound decisions, can adequately support themselves, can live high quality lives on their own. We celebrate milestones throughout their lives that show they are becoming independent, from taking their first steps to graduating from high school or college.
That independence marks their maturity.
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But when it comes to our maturity in Christ, our spiritual maturity, it’s marked less by our independence than it is by our dependence. Our utter dependence on God. We can recognize spiritual maturity by how an individual recognizes their own dependence.
Really, face it. We are dependent on God for our every breath. But we don’t always like to say so. We like to pose and pretend we are capable and independent. The mature among us can readily admit that they are dependent.
That they trust in the Lord with all their heart, that they don’t lean on their own understanding.
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It’s Independence Day.
We want to celebrate that big. For a nation to be its own sovereign power and not be subject to another gives us good reason to celebrate and set off fireworks. The struggle for independence fought by our Founding Fathers was noble, and it afforded us the freedom we now have to seek after and worship our God. We are indebted to them, and the many since then, who have sacrificed to protect our freedom and independence.
But, as individuals subject to a sovereign God, our own independence leaves much to be desired. It leaves us with the very things we need to survive — the things that God can only provide to those who recognize their absolute dependence on Him — hanging just out of reach.
And that’s nothing to celebrate.
Falling on my face in humble and grateful acknowledgement of my need for Him?
That should set off fireworks.
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(In the spirit of full disclosure, I do have to confess that I also did a word search in The Message for “independence.” I had a hunch that Peterson would come through. And admittedly, I did find one instance of the word in Jeremiah. This sole reference comes in a scathing indictment of the people for their rejection of God and includes some endearing references to a Sir Windbag and an examination of the credentials of the schools of sin and graduate courses in evil that they seemed to be promoting. The chapter got my head spinning and I’ll come back to this. But one day couldn’t do it justice. So stay tuned.)
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Just Do It
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” [Ephesians 2:10, NASB]
Not so long ago my son Isaac had to design his “dream room” for math class. The project involved building a scale model of his ideal dwelling in a shoe box.
Somewhere between installing the little bitty guitar amps and the teeny tiny diving board on a miniature pool, he stuck his hand under the hot glue gun at the same time as his dad pulled the trigger. When the smoke cleared, Isaac had a blister.
In exactly the shape of the Nike swoosh.
Now he has a Nike logo scar burned into his hand, a compelling illustration of branding — in at least two senses of the word, though I’m mostly interested in product branding today, not so much with cattle.
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Isaac is glad to sport his Nike logo. Not just on his hand, but he’s also ok with it on his shoes, socks, shorts and t-shirts. Nike stamps its logo on its merchandise to tell the world that the product they see is Nike’s workmanship. That it meets their rigorous standards for quality and performance and appearance. That it’s going to do all the things that Nike designed it to do.
That’s what they created it for.
Paul says we were created in Christ Jesus as God’s workmanship. Get that. We are His workmanship. He is pleased to put His mark on us and let everyone know that we are His.
We bear His brand. We wear His label.
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And He created us as His workmanship for a purpose. He has prepared good works for us to do. He prepared them in advance. He knew ahead of time what He made us for. He has a plan for us, a role in the Kingdom. He’s already figured it all out.
One of the best parts of this verse shows up in the New American Standard version I’ve quoted here. We are His workmanship, created for good works in Christ, good works that He prepared ahead of time “so that we would walk in them.” We are created for a purpose. He made us His workmanship – He made us in a such a way that we can fulfill that purpose by virtue of our very design. He prepared the good works for us to do in advance.
All this so we can “walk in them.”
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That’s our part. We step out and walk into the good works He’s already prepared for us to do. The good works He’s designed us to do. We do it in Christ. We just keep putting one foot in front of the other and carry out the good things He has put in front of us to do.
So much of this is His part – creating us, preparing the good works.
We walk into what He’s already prepared.
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The Message translation puts one more twist on it.
“He created us by Christ Jesus to join Him in the work He does, the good work He has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.”
Because we are His workmanship, our job is just to do what He’s made us for.
The Nike shoe doesn’t say to the designer, “I’m really not up to running.” It just runs when the foot starts going. Not completely unlike that, He’s designed us perfectly for the task He’s called us to. He’s prepared us, and He’s prepared the good things.
Things we were made for. Things we’d better be doing.
We’d better just do it.
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