Wisdom or Folly

Life is made up of a myriad of big and little decisions. Everyday there are a thousand small turning points, most of which pass by without notice. There is simply no way that we can predict how even the smallest decision will impact the course of our lives or the lives of others. There is no point in obsessing about these minute decisions or fretting over whether or not a small misstep will change our destiny. We are cared for and carried along by the Sovereign King of Glory. He controls the destiny of each man and of all men. He guides the high and mighty and the meek and lowly. We each have a role to play in His designs and we need not fear that we will miss it because we decided to go to the bank or took a day off to go to the beach.

On the other hand, there are some choices that are of consequence. Adam and Eve chose to eat the apple. Abraham chose to sacrifice his son. Moses chose to go to Egypt. Jesus chose to come to earth and to go to the cross. These are turning points of history, and yet they are also just choices in the lives of individuals. Each day we are faced with choices to follow Wisdom or Folly. Wisdom invites us to fear God and to walk the path that leads us closer to Him. Folly calls to us and invites us to join her in her frivolous amusements. These amusements may seem harmless at first, but as we walk her path we find it slowly but consistently diverging from the path of life. Each day we are faced with the path of Wisdom and life, or Folly and death.

The path of Folly is well worn. It is a wide highway boasting pleasures and entertainments to slake every thirst. The invitations to walk this path are many and varied. Sometimes they come from friends or acquaintances that have ventured down the path and assure us it is safe. Sometimes it is in the form of media or advertisements the voice of the present age beating a steady drumbeat for Folly and their own selfish corporate interests. These voices have a vested interest in the success of Folly; their stock prices rise or fall on the success of their invitation to deaden our souls. Sometimes the call comes from within, from a part ourselves.

At times I feel the call rising from my own being. Folly calls me by name and bids me to join her on the road to hell. She reminds me of the times we spent together, when time flew by and the fleeting pleasures were indeed enjoyable. There is a part of me that remembers those times fondly. The physical sensations, the abandonment of restraint resonated with a part of me. Yes, my flesh is still with me and harkens back to those days. In those moments the darkness that is still within me whispers that it will be great, that no one ever needs to know, that a quick trip down memory lane will not hurt anyone.

But then I remember the pain. I remember the pain of my own soul, the pain of others that I dragged down into my degradations. It is true that some went willingly, but we hurt each other none the less. I remember the damage, the damage to my heart and the damage done to others. My heart is still scarred by these self-inflicted wounds. I remember the warping, the way my thoughts were twisted; so much so that I am still trying to disentangle my mind from their nefarious web today. I remember that it is not worth it. Sin is sweet in the mouth, but it is an insidious and powerful poison that eats away a our inmost being.

Every day we are faced with choices to follow Wisdom or Folly, to listen to the Spirit or the Flesh. We can sow to the Spirit and reap eternal life, the eternal kind of life that starts now and lasts forever, a life of love, joy, and peace; or we can sow to the Flesh and reap a dead life, a life of guilt, dread, and anxiety, a life that will lead us to physical and spiritual death. These choices are fraught with consequence for ourselves and for others. These choices matter. Today I choose Wisdom, I choose Life, I choose Christ.

Compassion and Anger

As I read the news and reflect on the nature of man and on the current state of the world I alternate between two perspectives and prayers. As I look at the wickedness of the world and the way that God’s laws are smugly flaunted I am moved to cry out for justice and wrath. I want God to strike the jaw of the wicked and smash their teeth. I want Him to smite them in His anger and wrath. I want Him to unveil His vengeance and to wreak havoc on His enemies. I want His power and justice to be revealed and for all to fall on their knees before Him.

Then I remember that such was I before He mercifully and gracefully drew me to Himself. I too not only did evil but approved of others who did likewise. I recruited people to participate in my perversions and debaucheries because misery loves company and because if “everyone is doing it” it can’t be wrong; or at least I didn’t feel as wrong. I recognize in the depraved celebrities of our age my own wickedness magnified and on display for all to see. I see the twisted delight that we take in the fall of the famous and I recognize my own sarcasm and mockery. The sins of my generation are my own.

When I recognize this, I am moved to cry out for mercy! I want healing for the wounded hearts I see. I know the hurt that drives them to seek numbness and release for I too was wounded and am finding healing. I cry out for God to pour out His mercy and grace! I know that none can be saved apart from His drawing. I know that it is by faith that I was saved, but that this faith did not come from my background, my family, or myself; it was a gift of God and not a result of works so that none, least so I, could boast. So, I cry out for God to continue to have mercy and patience and to draw them with His persistent and severe mercy to Himself. I ask for Him to save those who have given up hope and who have become not only participants but the very purveyors of the filth that pollutes our world.

I feel myself torn between compassion and righteous anger. I cannot reconcile these tensions in myself. Sometimes I feel guilty for the anger. I feel that compassion is the way of God, but then I remember Jesus scourging those in the temple and His angry rebukes of the Pharisees and I see that righteous anger is indeed righteous. Certainly the Psalms are full of prayers for God to smite His enemies and I know that this is part of the nature of God. But then, lest I become an angry and judgmental man, I am reminded again of the woundedness that propels men toward wickedness. Men are responsible for their sinful choices regardless of their woundedness, but remembering the woundedness that drives them and relating that to my own woundedness allows me to view them with compassion. I can see the as harassed and helpless, as sheep without a shepherd, I can see them as I once was before the Good Shepherd rescued me.

Only God knows those who will be redeemed and those who will not. I cannot know who will be an object of God’s mercy and grace and who will be an object of His justice and wrath. Both will glorify God by revealing a portion of His nature and confirming that He is both the lion and the lamb, the one who judges and the one who justifies. I cannot resolve the tension, but I can praise God that He has saved me. I can choose to walk with Him each day. Some days, most days, He chooses to use me to communicate His love and compassion to those who are dying all around me without hope, but some days He uses me to warn of His anger and wrath, He will not always be slow to anger. One day He will judge the world. May God have mercy on us all!

Forget to Remember

Why is it so easy to forget and so hard to remember. What is it about the nature of man, that we can learn lessons, but that we have to relearn them so often. As I read the Old Testament accounts of the people of Israel, I am shocked and appalled by how often they have to relearn the same principle or experience the same kind consequences for the same poor choice, or in some cases increasingly difficult consequences, repeatedly until they finally learn their lesson and stop making the poor choice. In their narrative I see something that is true not only for them but for all of us, not only for all of us but for me in particular.

I know that God is the Lord of the Universe, the Lord God almighty. This is an indisputable fact of history and of my own experience; and yet, I forget to remember. If I am really a servant of the King then my life should be marked by humble dependence, and from time to time it is. However, more often than I care to admit, my life is marked by selfish ambition and independence. God is faithful and just. He never leaves me or forsakes me, and so He allows me to experience the consequences of my sinful independence and He points out my skewed perspective and draws me back to Himself.

One of the ways that my skewed perspective manifests itself is through an increasing emphasis on methodology and performance rather than on prayerful submission and dependence. I find myself seeking the right formula to produce the results in my work, marriage, children, or life in general, that I am seeking. Rather than asking my Almighty Father what He would have me do and obeying Him, I try to strike out on my own and to do things that I think will please Him, or at least please me.

It’s not that there are not methodologies that work. It’s the heart that is important. I believe that there are strategies and approaches that will yield results because they line up with the way that He has designed the universe to function and/or they are in accordance with His mysterious will. The issue is one of the heart, what am I seeking? Scripture tells us to seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness and that the other things will be added to us. It’s the “seek first” part that is of primary importance. Once I have sought Him and declared my dependence upon Him in word and in deed (most often through time spent in the Word, prayer, and quiet reflection) I have to do something with the rest of my day. I am after all called to serve Him.

I find that when I am disciplined to start my day, or to make it a habit to spend a portion of my day, in specific pursuit of Him, that it changes my perspective and aligns me with His will and work. Often this means that I add or delete things from my to do list during my times with Him. I keep a separate piece of paper with me during my times with Him specifically to jot down these ideas as they come to me. I can’t say that all of these items are from Him specifically. I believe that some of them are, but that some are the result of the peace and stillness in my heart during those times of silence and solitude that allow me to see more clearly. My heart is like a pool in a stream that has been stirred up by a stick or other activity and the silt from the bottom has clouded the water. It takes a time of undisturbed stillness for the dust to settle at the bottom again before you can see clearly through the water to what lies beneath.

It is far too easy for me to forget to remember. I am grateful for the Father’s gentle but persistent reminders to come away with Him and to renew my commitment and help me to remember.

Rationalization and Relationship

As I was reading this morning in Proverbs 28 I came across a verse that I had highlighted, underlined, and circled, but still had the ability to shock and convict me as the Spirit used it once again to probe my heart and bring me to my knees in humble worship. It is verse 13 which reads, “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”

My first response was just to praise God for this clear Old Testament expression of a core teaching of our faith. Here is the difference between Christianity and all other religions. The parallel and only slightly more clear New Testament passage is found in First John 1:9 which says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” I love the simplicity and am in awe of the power of these passages. I love that God doesn’t expect us to be perfect but that forgiveness and mercy are available if we confess our sins.

As I re-read the verse in Proverbs again, I was faced with the question, am I concealing my sin? As I paused and reflected I was struck by the fact that there was something that I had concealed. I was faced again with my ability to rationalize and deceive even myself, but again was moved to praise by God’s gentle but severe mercy in probing my heart to reveal those places where I was hiding this darkness. I find that most of my concealment is in the form of rationalization. It’s not that I have some obviously evil thing that I am doing or have done that I am hiding from the world. It’s that I can yield to temptation in small ways during the course of my day, all the while pretending that it isn’t sin at all.

One of the primary forms of rationalization is when I compare my conduct to what it might have been. I tell myself that at least I didn’t do “that” , sure it probably wasn’t great that I did “this” but it’s actually good because I didn’t push farther into the darkness. So actually this is a sort of victory. Yeah, that’s it! How great that I didn’t go farther down the road that I started down! So, instead of confessing the failure, throwing myself on the mercy of God and receiving the full forgiveness and cleansing that He promises. I now have this familiar pathway toward sin that is allowed because it isn’t as bad as other sins farther down the road. The fact is that I must be ruthless in stamping out the sin in my life, in my heart. The question isn’t how far down the road I got, but rather that turning down the road at all is a yielding to temptation as the more comfortable I get in yielding, even in “small ways” the more easy it is to grieve the Spirit and to harden my heart.

I am reminded of Psalm 95:8b-9a, “Today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah…” The people heard the voice of God, but they hardened their hearts and would not listen to Him. What I am after, what I believe God has for me is a conversational relationship with Him, a real relationship of Father to son, as friend to friend. This is what was lost in the garden and this is what Jesus came do demonstrate and to restore. When I rationalize my sin or conceal my sin in other ways I am false to myself and to Him. Deception of myself or others is always an obstacle to true relationship and intimacy.

I am so grateful for the Word of God and for the Spirit of God which again today probed my heart and moved me to repentance. In that moment, uncomfortable as it was, I experienced what my heart longs for, a real conversation with God.

Fighting From a Distance

I spend a lot of time in a room by myself It is easy to feel cut off from the world, cut off from what God is doing I spend time reading, praying, talking on the phone, and a lot of time sitting in front of a computer, typing. I do my best to discern what God would have me do, and often He asks me to do more praying and writing. So, once again I find myself in a room alone. I find myself struggling to feel useful, struggling for the dignity that comes from accomplishing something of consequence, something useful, something important.

Today I talked with a friend. She shared with me all the things that she had seen God do through her and through her husband in the last few weeks. I rejoiced with her and was overjoyed to hear the way that God had worked and glorified Himself in and through them. After I got off the phone I was once again alone in my office. I found myself feeling bothered and wondering why God was using them while I was stuck here in my room. I started to feel jealous and upset that I was sitting here and doing commonplace things while they were out on the battlefield winning great victories for God. As I started to feel bitter I was suddenly reminded of the way that God moved me to pray for them before and during their ministry trip. I got a sort of picture in my head.

I was like a man standing on a battlefield immediately following a battle. Our side had won the battle and I felt joy and satisfaction. But, I was not a soldier. I was looking on not as one who had fought on the front lines to vanquish the foe, but as one who had trained the soldiers, one who had helped them form strategies, one who had provided the weapons with which they fought. None of the glory was mine, and yet I had played a significant part in the battle. In fact, the battle could not have been won if not for me and for others who had supported the troops who fought.

As I reflected on this picture I realized that there is a joy and a sense of triumph that is rightfully mine when a victory is won by those whom I support. I feel a sense of ownership and accomplishment through my participation in the work. I will get no accolades and no glory, but in some way I share in the victory by doing the tasks that He has assigned to me. I play a part on the battle even though I am not on the battlefield. All the work is God’s. All the plans are God’s. All the battles are God’s. All the victories are God’s. Therefore, all the glory is God’s.

But God uses means to accomplish His goals, and He usually uses men to do His work. My part of the work may not be glorious in the eyes of man, or my own eyes for that matter, but it is the work that He has uniquely gifted and called me to do. The part that I play is the part that He has assigned to me. Only He knows the master strategy, only He knows the end from the beginning. The victory and the glory are His alone, but He gives us dignity by investing us with real power to make a difference. He gives us the ability to make real choices. From the very beginning God has chosen to work through Man on earth. He gave Adam and Eve the ability to make choices. Their choice to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree has had drastic repercussions for all of humanity. The fact is that we all make choices everyday without having the slightest idea of the potential consequences for even the most mundane decisions; even so, our choices matter.

I have to choose everyday to listen and obey His voice and to obey His commands, even in the seemingly ordinary things of life. We each have a role to play, a role in His plan, a contribution to make to His victory, a task that will contribute to His glory. If He wants me to write and to pray then there is nothing else that I can do that will bring Him more glory than that. If we each do our part, we will be doing all that we can to see His Kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

What Entertains Me?

Proverbs tells us that “folly delights the heart of a fool”. If that is true, then I must be a fool. I look at what entertains me, I look at what I want to consume in the media and I have to admit that it is folly. How much of what passes today for news is just gossip. How much of the news is really what the Germans call schadenfreude, meaning to delight in the misfortune of others. Rather than being moved to compassion, we gloat and mock those who suffer from their own poor choices or the choices of others. We have elevated mockery to an art form and it now passes for comedy. I know because I am amused by it.

This morning I read Psalm 12:8 which reads, “The wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honored among men.” I was struck that this is an apt description of our times. Our culture is a mess. We exalt lust, greed, and all kinds of sin. Not only do we do evil, but we heartily encourage others to do it. We are not content to wreck our own families and kill our own children in the womb, but we export our twisted values around the world. While I do not approve of the jihadists who label America “the great Satan”, I can understand what has so angered them.

But I am a study in contrast, because I find myself simultaneously repulsed by what I observe and strangely drawn to it. Like a man who sees a tragic accident about to happen, but who cannot avert his eyes, but watches it unfold with sickened fascination. I have grown accustomed to evil. It is said that familiarity breeds contempt. The first time you witness evil it is sickening and traumatic, the second time is shocking, the third time it is surprising, and by the fourth and fifth time it is accepted as normal. I have been desensitized by the sheer volume of evil on constant display every where I look. I cannot walk down the street without seeing more flesh on display than our forefathers could have imagined in a brothel. Does it sicken me? Not so much. At the least my eyes gloss over it, but more often than not I feel the desire for a surreptitious glance in the direction of the lurid display.

What is vile is honored among men. We are entertained by meanness and vanity. Revenge has replace justice and cunning has replaced honor. The good and pure are people to be pitied or mocked and are not by any means to be emulated. We are a generation of cynics, scoffers, and mockers. We are biting and devouring each other, and those who excel at this we pay handsomely and call them comedians and entertainers. I have allowed my culture to define what is funny, what is entertaining. I drink down what the world serves up. More than that, I hunger and thirst for it. I want more entertainment, more escape. No sooner do I finish one helping then I begin to wonder what the next helping will be.

Whether through print media, television, movies, music, or the ubiquitous internet, a constant stream of delicious poison is available to us, and I feel like I just can’t get enough. I can hardly wait for the next opportunity to turn off my mind, shut down my filters, and retreat to a semi-vegetative state while filling my find with banality or worse with toxic thoughts and images that slowly and subtly warp me while creating a hunger for more. I feel it is natural, normal, in fact, it is my right to be amused, even to amuse myself to death.

Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or worthy of praise – let your minds dwell on such things. Lord, rescue your people! Oh Lord rescue me from the quagmire I have helped to create through my participation. Help me to be in the world, but not of the world.

Being a Disciple

What does it really mean to be a disciple of Christ? In Matthew 28 Jesus commissions His followers to make disciples. He gives tells them to baptize and to teach these new disciples, but he does not define what it means to be a disciple. After living with them and modeling the discipleship process for 3 years it would have been superfluous and redundant to explain the core concept. In our day the concept of discipleship has been overlain with multiple layers of culture and tradition. I believe that reclamation of this core concept is in order.

To be a disciple is to be a learner. To make disciples is to create learners. We are called to be learners and to draw other people to be learners of Christ. Making disciples is about much more than just communicating content. Content can be memorized and repeated. There is no need for the Spirit of God to be involved in the communication of information. Humans are quite adept at that. But only the Spirit of God can make disciples. Only the Spirit of God can take out the heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh that is tender and responsive to God. The Spirit is central to discipleship! Of course, we are to teach and to model, to baptize and practice the ordinances that serve as tangible reminders that refresh and rekindle our faith, but these things are powerless by themselves. The reason that we do these things is to create learners, and we must be cooperating with the Spirit in this process. The goal is to draw others into a relationship with the living Christ where He is the master and we are the students. To do this requires that we remain humble learners ourselves who are submitted to the Spirit. We cannot draw others into an experiential relationship with Christ that we do not have. We will undoubtedly recreate ourselves in the lives of those we lead, but we must take care lest we fail to model true discipleship in our own lives.

True discipleship is to tune our hearts to the voice of the Shepherd. We should be ever inclining our ear to hear and obey His commands. The problem is that we often would rather not hear what He has to say. We would rather do our own thing, devise our own plans, or just go with the flow. Rather than be filled and controlled by the Spirit of God, we often train ourselves to tune out His voice, to grieve His Spirit. The Christian life begins with, and must continue in, the Spirit. The disciple of Christ is one who, like his Master before him, is attentive to the movements and the will of the Father. We will most likely never attain the kind of natural fluidity and constant connection with the Father that Jesus modeled on earth, but the life of the disciple is marked by the desire and discipline of learning from Him.

I am daily faced with struggles and temptation from within and without. I often refuse to name these temptations and struggles aright; instead I entertain them and start to drift along with them. The Spirit of God tugs at my heart and reminds me of the right decision, the right choice, the choice that will sow to the Spirit and will produce the sweet fruit of righteousness, renewal and peace, but I have become adept at tuning out that voice. I am so good at dismissing and ignoring the voice of the Spirit! But, I do not lose hope, for I know that like Peter, even after grieving Him, I will be restored again. Sometimes there will be weariness, weeping and other consequences for sowing to the flesh, but I know that He holds me safely in His hands and that He will not lose me. So, I confess and repent, and reorient myself to Him. Then, we begin the ascent again. The most fundamental aspect of this is the Spirit empowered choice to exercise my will to submit my will to His. (Oh the mystery! I must work out my salvation with fear and trembling but it is He who is at work within me, and He will be faithful to complete the work.) I must choose to be a learner. Only then am I truly a disciple and fit to make disciples of Christ.

Engaging God With Our Emotions

I was raised in an environment where emotions and religion were intertwined, but not talked about. I remember my dad crying at Easter services or almost anytime that the passion of Christ was re-enacted. I remember him getting teary eyed as he was singing some of his favorite hymns. But I never remember being taught that our emotions were markers or indicators of our spiritual status. I do not remember being encouraged to deal with the heart or to seek to understand where emotions were coming from. On the contrary I was often warned about the dangers of introspection. I was encouraged to obey and to focus on outward signs of obedience rather than the inner workings of my own heart.

Over the years I have grown in both my respect and value for the way that I was raised and also for the ways in which my upbringing led me astray. I am so grateful for the emphasis on the Word of God and on submission and obedience. On the other hand I have had to learn to listen to my heart and to bring the workings of my heart to the Lord. It is true that the heart is desperately wicked and that we can scarcely understand our own inner drivers, but there is One who does understand and He is not mute like the idols. He loves us and wants to speak with us.

He walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the garden, and He wants that kind of relationship with us. When we go astray as Adam and Eve did we find that He pursues us and asks me questions like He did with them. When they sinned, something went wrong, and it showed up in their emotions. They were afraid and ashamed. God gently pursued them with questions that surfaced the problem and allowed Him to start the process of reconciliation. He knew needs of their heart and He met them there in their pain. He is still reconciling us to Himself. He is still probing and questioning, gently but persistently applying the pressure to reveal our hearts to us and to bring healing to the innermost parts.

Every human since Adam and Eve has been thirsty for God. God does not condemn us for this thirst. We are all meant to be dependent on Him and to drink deeply from Him. But every human since Adam and Eve has been foolish. Since Adam and Eve marred the image of God in us, we have had imperfect access to the Fountain of Living Water ever sense. Our approach to the fountain is obstructed. We are no longer perfectly fit for it. Now we have to labor for our food, and we have to labor for the intimacy that once was so effortlessly available to us. It is still a gift, but now we have to get it by the toil of our brow.

It is hard work to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We grow weary in doing good, and so we often turn aside from the fountain and settle for other sources of water. These other sources are feeble imitations that will slowly poison our souls, but we are drawn to them again and again. We return to them and we seek to drink from them. When the cisterns dry up, we angrily demand that the cisterns act like springs and give us what we so desperately need.

God is gracious and kind to reveal these cisterns to us, but the process is rarely pleasant. We find the water for our souls, the source for our identity, in so many illegitimate places: people, power, pleasure, position, fame or fortune. Often we don’t realize that we have been drinking from a cistern at all until it either runs dry, or someone or something comes between it and us. It is in times like this that our emotions are rapidly and forcefully engaged. These strong emotional responses are like warning lights on our spiritual dashboard. It is good and right that we should explore where these emotions come from. It is good and right that we should ask the Lord to reveal the true source of our responses. Often I find that I am lashing out in a futile effort to defend my cistern. The Lord is gracious and kind to reveal this to me when I seek Him. He reminds me where my true identity lies. Only He knows who I really am. He is the only true and legitimate source for my identity and well being. He meets me and draws me back to Him and I drink from the refreshing Fountain again.

A Feast for Our Souls

The written Word of God is one of the greatest gifts that the Creator has bestowed upon His creatures. Only the gift of Himself in all His triune glory surpasses this gift. Even the gift of Himself would be poorly discerned and little understood if it were not for the Scriptures. For it is in and through the Scriptures that we find the record of His dealings with man and with man’s responses over time. The Bible is filled with stories that trace the handiwork of God from before the beginning of time right through to the end of the world. What a wonderful gift to know the past and future history of the world and to be able to witness His involvement and interactions with His people both individually and corporately.

The Word of God is so rich a varied. No other purported holy book has the wealth of literary styles or the scope of history and perspective contained in the Canon of Scripture. The many colored hues highlight various aspects of God’s nature and character as well as revealing the bright spots and dark blotches of the human soul in relation to Him. The Bible is simple enough to be read and understood by a child, but deep enough to perplex even the most educated scholar. What work of human hands or even demonic revelation can compare to the Word? Even a cursory look at other options reveals that nothing is worthy of compare.

The Word is like a banquet with many courses prepared by a master chef, each course different from the others but somehow complimenting one another. The opening courses set the stage and draw you in. They whet your appetite with subtle flavors that tantalize and intrigue. They draw you in with their aroma and texture and prepare you for what is to come. Some courses are so hot and spicy that they are hard to swallow. They shock our senses with their pungent spices and earthy aftertaste. They surprise us and are not altogether pleasant, but here too is the familiar flavor that piques our interest and makes us wonder what the next course will be. Some of the courses are meaty and dense. Like a roast that you must cut into with a sharp knife but the work of carving is rewarded as you savor the scent as the meat is revealed. They take longer to chew and digest, but there is a satisfaction as they go down into your innermost parts. They only yield their rewards to those who are willing to take the time to chew them and tease out the full flavor. No fast food this; this is a rich meal to be slowly devoured. Other portions are light and sweet they fill us with joy as we taste them. They remind us of happier times in the past, or lift our eyes up to those yet to come. These light courses fill us with hope for the journey ahead. The banquet is so rich and the chef so masterful that there is something perfect for us in each portion. If we will only come to the table, we will find the food that we so desperately need.

God has lavished us with His love. He has given us this world over which to be stewards. He has given us all good things to enjoy. He has given us each other to care for and learn from. He has given us the Word made flesh in Jesus. He has given us His Spirit to indwell us. He has given Himself to us as our Father and our King. He has given us His written Word to make us aware of His extraordinary generosity and to serve as an unchanging reminder. All other sources of revelation are more subjective and personal, more open to interpretation. But in the Bible we have the stories of God authored by God through the pens of His prophets and apostles. This is the immutable standard by which we can measure all other supposed revelations. As we develop familiarity with the flavors of this magnificent banquet our palates are trained. The more we dine on this sumptuous fare, the more we hunger for it even as we are satisfied by the now recognizable flavors. The more we eat of the delicacies that He has stored up for us the more easily we can discern subtle rot of the spoiled fare that the enemy would feed us. Let us tuck in to the table of God and sate ourselves on this feast for our souls.

Embracing the King of Mystery

As I read scripture, particularly the Psalms, I impressed by the immensity of God. He is the creator. He is the Holy One. He is the giver and sustainer of life. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. The mountains melt like wax before Him. He wraps Himself in light as a garment. He is great beyond imagining. As high as the heavens are above the earth so are His thoughts higher than ours and His ways higher than ours. There is no one who knows the mind of God. There is no one who can lay a hand on Him and bring Him to court. He is exalted and majestic. He is the uncreated one, eternally existent and entirely self-sufficient in Himself. He is the one and only possessor of all wisdom, knowledge, power, and glory. We are like dust before Him. We are all together like dust on the scales before the greatness of God.

When I am struck by this, I am in awe of Him. I am impressed not only by His greatness, but by my smallness. I am moved to wonder that we understand anything at all. I am dumbstruck by the mysteries that He has revealed and by those that remain hidden. Those that have been revealed are somewhat clear to us, but no less impressive or mind numbing in their enormity. Jesus Christ is such a mystery. The reality of Christ was shrouded in mystery and those saints who went before us longed to look into the mystery of Christ. God, in His perfect timing revealed the mystery and we now look back on it as staggering, overwhelming, too crazy to have been imagined by the mind of man, but fact. The birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ and the implications of these for mankind are so obvious to us now. We look back and wonder at how clear are the prophecies and how marvelous their fulfillment. But no one at the time understood it. Not one school of thought or group of believers among the people of God rightly understood. Some of them knew where He would be born. Some understood some elements of His ministry. Even Satan understood some of the prophecies related to His life and work. But no one understood the mystery of Christ. The Pharisees and Sadducees studied the scriptures and were confident in their assertions. They were scholars of the Word, but even they missed it. Although they diligently studied the scriptures they missed the mystery of Christ, even when He was standing right in front of them.

When I reflect on this I have to stop and wonder at what mysteries remain hidden from us today. We have our own schools of thought, our own theological systems, but what are we missing? What mysteries have we reduced, what paradoxes have we confidently straightened out, only to miss the Christ standing among us? We create systems of thought and teach our systems to others with such confidence that soon the systems have trumped the reality. Our studies can actually become sources of pride. Knowledge puffs up. We construct and defend our systems and find our identity in the church, organization, denomination, or theological system to which we adhere, but isn’t all this misplaced and prideful?

Diligent study of the scriptures is not the problem. I believe in the Scriptures and that we should, nay must, diligently study them. The problem is that we forget that the purpose of the Scriptures is to testify about, and lead us to, Christ, yet we refuse to come to Him to have life. Christ is still a mystery. He is a person not a system. He is free and terrifyingly powerful. His ways are still higher than ours. We need not understand or explain the mysteries, but rather to embrace our mysterious and loving Lord. We have to allow the paradoxes to stand and to allow God to reveal His mysteries in His time. So often we are distracted from the real work of knowing and doing His will by petty infighting about our systems and structures. We ought rather to allow the tension of the paradoxes to drive us to Christ and to allow Him to be our Savior and Lord. We ought to be about the Kings business. Some of us will be scientists and scholars, but the work of those is not to detract from the mysteries, but rather to more clearly lay them before us so that we might all marvel at the glory of our King. The mysteries we understand or the answers we theorize about should compel us to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our King.

A Forehead of Stone

My parents had always told me that I was somewhat hardheaded, and it wasn’t generally a compliment. Imagine my surprise when my wife told me that she was praying that God would give me a forehead of stone! Many years ago my wife came to me excited to share what she had been reading in Scripture and what she had been praying for me. I remember my wife reading to me from Ezekiel chapter 3 as God encouraged the prophet for his work. In both chapter 2 and chapter 3 Ezekiel is instructed not be afraid although the path ahead of him is hard and the people to whom he will minister are rebellious. It is in this context that God encourages him with the promise that he will make him hard enough to stand up against those who are hardened against him; he will give him a forehead of the hardest stone.

It is interesting to me that Ezekiel was specifically called to be a prophet to the people of God. He was not called to a foreign people who would listen but to God’s own people who would not listen. (Ez. 3:4-7) At that time in my life, when my wife began praying this for me, I was undergoing trials and attacks from within the Body of Christ. I was being assailed and labeled and generally maligned. By God’s grace I came through that period of ministry and then spent several years ministering to people of obscure language and generally did find them more open to listen to the Words of God. It is ironic that those with most access to the Word of God are often least hungry for it, and those with least access are sometimes the most open to receive it.

A friend of mine recently joked that I have the spiritual gift of blowing people off. I had to laugh, but I wonder if that is not part of the answer to my wife’s prayer for me. I see in Moses, Joshua, and Ezekiel men who were not strong and courageous naturally, but whom the Lord instructed and encouraged to be strong and courageous and to walk the path that He laid before them. He gave them the toughness that they needed to do the work to which He called them. Each of them were called to lead and serve God’s people. Each of them experienced great opposition. He promised to be with them and to guide them as they ministered. He promised never to forsake them. Jesus promises us the same thing. He promises us that He will be with us always and He has sent His spirit to dwell in us, comfort and guide us. Jesus also modeled for us the art of “blowing people off”.

In Mark 1 Jesus is engaged in powerful and fruitful ministry. One morning He went out early to find some solitude and silence to pray. His disciples are somewhat anxious as the crowds begin to gather and they sent out a search party to literally “hunt down” Jesus. They knew that they couldn’t do the things that Jesus could do and the people had expectations. When they finally found Jesus and told Him that He needed to return to the people, Jesus responded by telling them that they were not going back to the village, but rather were going to skip town and go somewhere else. Imagine the disciples surprise! Jesus did exactly and only what the Father had for Him to do. He did not allow the expectations of man to dictate His response, nor did He allow the needs around Him to set His agenda. He sought His Father and did His Father’s will not His own. He also fearlessly confronted those that the Lord directed Him to confront and in the case of cleansing temple even used physical violence to do so. He was so committed to doing His Father’s will that He submitted even to the humiliation and ignominy of the crucifixion.

Jesus had a forehead of stone. He sought His Father’s direction and was obedient to God’s will even at great pain to Himself. I have often heard it taught that Jesus loved people and sacrificially served people. I know that Jesus loved people, but He sacrificially served God. He served because His life was not His own. He did so, not for the sake of the people, but in humble service to God. His ministry was God-centric, not man-centric. Sometimes in serving God we have to have a forehead of stone like Jesus.

Sola Scriptura

The Reformers loved pithy sayings to sum up complex doctrines. They boiled down theological truths to simple slogans. One of the key slogans of the Reformation was “sola scriptura”. It literally means “scripture alone”. By this they meant that scripture alone was self-authenticating, clear to the average reader, and the only reliable and sufficient authority and source for all matters of doctrine and faith. They specifically proclaimed this doctrinal position in contrast to the Catholic Church which held that scripture could only be rightly interpreted through the traditions and authority of the Church.

This emphasis on the written Word of God has been a hallmark of Protestant Christianity ever since. However, I have recently read some articles in which I was surprised to find that men that I respect, and have learned much from, have moved away from the primacy and authority of Scripture. In an effort to be culturally sensitive there is a danger that we can place culture over Scripture or strip Scripture of it’s authority by reading it as the product of a different cultural perspective. This can lead us to set aside the clear commands of God as mere traditions of men from another time, or set them aside in favor of our own new traditions. I don’t know that Christians ever set out to do that, but like the Pharisees of old, we start out be interpreting scripture and trying to clarify it and make it “relevant”, but in the process our “clarifications” become traditions and then get fossilized in our sub-cultures and the Bible is slowly superseded by these cultural forms and understandings.

Even more disturbing than the article were a few e-mails I have received lately from friends in the ministry. Several of them are looking for good ministry materials so that they will be able to lead people to Christ, make disciples, and train leaders. They are looking for materials that they can translate, adapt, or use to teach people the critical doctrines of the Faith. I confess that I have done many years of ministry this way, but I am scratching my head now and wondering what this approach says about the sufficiency of Scripture. Is Scripture alone enough for life and ministry? Do we need extra biblical lessons to be translated and books to be written? Certainly I have learned a lot from books and I appreciate resources and materials, but I have to wonder what our reliance upon these tools and techniques says about our underlying beliefs about the Word and the Spirit.

As I read scripture I see a model for discipleship consistently through the text. You can see it with the Patriarches, right through Moses, David, the Prophets, Jesus, and the Apostles. Discipleship is not a series of lessons that communicate a certain content to transfer knowledge. Discipleship is more than objective teaching or even skill development. It is a personal relational process whereby a teacher walks, talks, eats, lives, and works with his student identifying the areas of growth that are needed and then teaching to those points. He teaches through modeling as well as words. He gives assignments that will help the student to understand and apply the content that he has learned. From the early availability of the written Word it was integrated into this process of instruction and used as the primary, if not only, “textbook” for the student. This model of discipleship is the foundation of the Church. This is how the apostles were trained by Jesus. This is how the apostles trained their students, and this is how it continued for generations. It also happens to really work! It is readily transferable and adaptable. It requires the Word of God, the Spirit of God, a teacher (who is a disciple of Christ) and a student who wants to learn. That is all. There are no bottlenecks, no materials to be translated, no worries about cultural baggage, and no unhealthy dependence on foreign materials. Scripture alone was enough then, and it’s enough today!

Respect

I don’t like to be laughed at. I don’t like to be mocked. I don’t know why it cuts me to the heart, but if I am honest I have to say that I am afraid of being disrespected. Maybe this is because of something that I didn’t get from my father, or maybe there is some other reason, but I know that this is true in my heart. I don’t think that this impacts my day to day life very much, but I am beginning to wonder how much it impacts my relationship with God.

In my life I have had many opportunities to engage in dialogue with relatively learned non-believers. They have often responded that they were surprised to find a Christian who could dialogue with them about the various topics under discussion. They were intrigued that someone who understood their arguments could also believe in and worship God. I have to admit that their esteem felt good. Even as their compliments heaped disrespect on my brothers and sisters in the faith, they felt good to me. After all who wants to be thought of as a fool? Their comments fed my need for respect. I didn’t think about it like that at the time. I thought that I was showing them a path to God that wouldn’t require them to check their brains at the door.

I know that you can follow Christ and be a thinker too, but it is also true that following Christ demands a childlike humility that surrenders even our desire for clear answers to some of life’s most perplexing questions. God is not afraid of our questions, but he often doesn’t answer as we would like. My pursuit of truth leads me to ask questions and as I follow the path of inquiry I find that each winding path leads me back to God. I am after enlightenment and clear answers and God is after relationship. It’s not that I don’t ask the questions, but I am finding that I tend to discuss the questions and to seek answers from other people, rather than asking God. My honest inquiry should include consultations with His people living and dead, but I believe that the primary focus of my inquiry should be dialogue with His Spirit, which He sent to guide us into all truth, regarding His revealed Word. I really need to talk with God about my questions.

But this leads me back to my need for respect. I don’t want people to think that I am a lunatic. After all, what kind of crackpot claims to have conversations with God? I am starting to realize that my passionate pursuit of God is leading me into areas which will leave me open to charges of extremism and excess. I am coming to a place where I am really desiring and just starting to experience a conversational relationship with God. I was comfortable with the version of Christianity I was raised in where I read His Word and applied His principles to my life, but reasonable people just didn’t expect to hear the voice of God. But now I am asking Him questions and am beginning to really expect Him to answer. I have much to learn and far to go, but my ear is beginning to discern his whispered responses. I am growing in confidence in my prayer life and am starting to wonder where this will all lead me. What kind of arrogant fool claims to hear the voice of God?

I know that if I continue down this path that many in my life will not only disrespect me, but may actually start to question my sanity. Am I willing to endure that? Am I really willing to be a fool for Christ? I am willing to be His disciple during the triumphal entry. I am willing to reign and rule with Him, but am I willing to endure the scorn and shame of the cross? He was despised and rejected. I cannot expect to follow Him and receive different treatment than He did. Faced with the choice of accompanying Him to the cross I find myself wanting to deny Him like Peter. May God have mercy on me! I know that He will be faithful to complete the work that He has started in me. I also know that there are many who have walked this road before me and that they testify that it is worth it. He is both the destination and my constant companion on the journey.

Pragmatism and Prayer

It has been said that pragmatism is the true American religion. We test things to see if they work. If it works then it must be true and right. The problem is that we lack perspective. We judge what works by what we see in the world around us. We take the short view, the human view. As a result we misjudge both God and Man. We have decided that we are the scientists and that we will experiment with the world and prove or disprove truth using our minds. We live as if we are the final judges. We have decided that we can get all the information we need from the world around us, from the tangible and corporeal. We can judge the goodness, even the truth value, of something based on our observations. We have decided that if it works, or more precisely, if it works for me then it must be true.

We confidently assert that certain things are true or false, even though we are too small, our perspectives too limited, and our lives too short to gather the data that we would need to prove our grandiose assertions. There are many problems with this perspective; a key one is that we know that this world is not all that there is. There is another world, another level of existence that does not submit itself to our scientific and pragmatic pursuits. If we looked only at this world, we reach faulty conclusions. The bookstores of the world are full of books promoting “what works” in the areas of business, religion, sex, health, nutrition, and virtually any other aspect of our lives. We have reduced life to a series of “how to” books, lectures, and seminars. We have focused on methodologies for “success” in all aspects of our lives, but these systems and techniques are based on limited data and faulty presuppositions.

The fact is that in this world the evil will sprout up like grass and the wicked will flourish. (Ps. 92) The wicked and arrogant are prosperous and their lives are good; in fact, they are so luxurious and easy as to provoke envy from worshipers of God. (Ps. 73) If you take a look at those who rise to the top in most professions, it is not because of their godly character and adherence to biblical principles. It is because they have discovered how to work the systems of this world. They have learned the techniques which allow them to manipulate people and to take what they want regardless of the consequences to others or to their own souls. This would be cause for great despair if this world was all there is, but there will be a reckoning. There is a way that seems right to a man but in the end it leads to death. (Pr. 14 & 16) What will count in the end is not technique, but relationship. The foundation of the created order is not a system of natural laws, but the Creator God who will not allow Himself to be reduced to a formula that can be scientifically tested. The laws that govern the universe are descriptive, not prescriptive; they are descriptions of the way that He normally works, not “laws” that exist over or apart from Him.

I wonder if the prayerlessness of the Western Church can not, at least in part, be traced back to the pragmatic application of Enlightenment ideals. What started out as a pursuit of God and a quest to understand how He created the universe has been hijacked by those who believe that Truth is knowable apart from God. Scripture tells us that “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God.” (1 Cor. 2:14) Our wisdom and our thinking has become futile. (Rom 1: 8, Ps. 94, 1 Cor. 3:20) We were made for God, but that relationship and understanding can only be laid hold of when the Spirit is given. It’s not a result of methods or works, but a free gift of God. Life is about doxology not methodology, it’s about relationship with, worship of, and obedience to Christ not adherence to a system or applying the right techniques to get what we want. We simply cannot control to whom God gives His spirit. We cannot make Him do anything, even by using prayer.

We cannot pray because it works. It does work, but not always in the way that we expect. I often hear that there is power in prayer. That is not actually correct. Prayer is not merely a tool to be used, but a conversation to be had. God answers prayer, plain and simple; but He is not a tame God who can be domesticated and manipulated. Teachings on prayer that promises to produce a quick return on your investment or certain results with a money back guarantee have reduced God to a vending machine. These ideas and practices have more in common with paganism and animistic magic than they do with the God of Scripture. God will not be mocked or used for our own selfish ends. (Jam. 4:3) Prayer is first and foremost a humble response to the Sovereign and Almighty God to whom all power and glory belong and who is worthy of honor and praise and worship forever and ever. I pray because there is only one God and I am not Him.

A Path to a God-Centric Life

Is my ministry God-centric, or man-centric? Do I really believe that Christ will build His church and that the gates of hell will not stand against it? If I believe that building the church is God’s prerogative and purview then my life and work will be characterized by prayer. One of the main causes for my failure to pray is because I am too busy with life and ministry. Imagine a kingdom where those who serve the king are working too hard to listen to his commands, or too busy to seek his input.

My ministry is man-centered when I am more focused on doing good for man (myself included) than I am on glorifying God. Prayer is one of the best ways to counteract this kind of human narcissism. Prayer puts God back at the center of my life and work. Prayer helps me to remember that it is God’s work that I should be about, not my interpretation or carefully reasoned strategy for what God should do, but rather what He really would have me do. I don’t think that it is enough to obey the maxim, “love God and do whatever you want.” I think that this is a cop out. It certainly has been in my life. At the least, it pushes God to the margins of my life and more often excludes Him altogether.

I am not advocating a paralysis of analysis, where we don’t move or do anything out of fear of doing the wrong thing, or because we are unsure of our motives. As humans even our “purest” motivations are a mixed bag. That kind of fear and paralysis is another symptom of our man centric perspective. I am suggesting that we should spend time in our pursuit of God. I recently received an e-mail from a friend in which he talked about how he had neglected his personal relationship with God over the last few years because he was too busy with ministry. It was with good motivation, and while his faith is not in peril, he realizes now that his pursuit of God is most the essential element to knowing and doing the will of God on earth. We need God. Not just as a principle, and not just to save us. We need Him every day. We must pursue Him. Pursue Him as a real person who wants a relationship with me, and from whom I have a lot to learn.

Every relationship of real value requires intentionality to develop. God invites us into real relationship with Him! He has given us the marriage relationship as a picture of the kind of intimacy and relationship that He wants with us. Marriage is a sort of training ground, an apprenticeship, a workshop where we learn about what our relationship with Him can and should be; what it will be in the end, at the wedding feast of the Lamb. It’s not just an analogy, it’s a deep reality.

I love my wife and I have known her for many years. I generally know what makes her tick and what her desires are. This is the result of many years of pursuit. The pursuit started when I first realized that she was available and desirable; I realized that a relationship was possible and worth pursuing. I was intrigued and I wanted to get to know her more. Then, as I got to know her more I realized that there was depth and value in her as a person, and that I too was growing because of our relationship. I wanted to get to know her more and to take our relationship to a new level. We started courting. We defined our relationship as more than just a casual relationship, but rather one that we were both willing and excited to invest in deepening. As that continued I realized more and more what a treasure she was and I realized that I didn’t want to go through the journey of life without her by my side. I realized that I needed her in my life and wanted to make our commitment permanent rather than just exploratory. I asked her to marry me and I committed myself to her once and forever. Our relationship took on whole new dimensions of depth and intimacy. I continue to learn more about myself and about her. I am daily challenged and encouraged to grow and am in the process of becoming more and more who I want to be, who I was created to be. Our relationship still needs to be cultivated. There are times when I take her for granted and don’t spend time with her or seek her out. When I do this, we tend to get a little out of sync. The ability to “read each others minds” and to finish each other’s sentences slowly degrades and if we don’t do something about it, we start to miss each other and distance begins to creep into the relationship.

As well as I know my wife, there are still times when I try to please her but miss the mark. I do something that I believe will communicate love, but in fact causes hurt. It’s not enough for me to know about her, and to extrapolate from what I know to the unknown. If I want to know what she would like, I should talk to her about it. If I want to know how I can help her, I should ask her. I can’t assume that because I have read her to do list, or because I have known her for many years, that I should just jump in and start doing something. I should communicate with her. I should ask her how I can help. Often times, I find that even my attempts to communicate love to her are based on my own faulty presuppositions. Let me give you an example, I like it when she hugs me and so therefore I think that the most loving thing that I can do is to give her a hug. I’m sure that she would like that, I reason. Who wouldn’t? If I am practicing the maxim of “Love your wife and do whatever you please”, then this makes perfect sense. In fact, the most loving thing that I can do for her is to make the bed in the morning. I don’t understand it, I don’t even value it, but I know this because we have talked about it…repeatedly. However, sometimes I ask her how I can help her and instead of asking me to make the bed (which I can clearly see is unmade) she asks me to run to the store, or do something else to help. Even though I know her and know some of the ways that I can love her, I have to ask her. I have to talk to her. Imagine what my relationship with my wife would be like if I tried to love her based on my understanding of her, or based on the way that other men love their wives. There will undoubtedly be some good that comes from it, but it wouldn’t be me loving her. I would miss the mark.

In ministry I think that we often talk with one another, but not enough with God. It’s not enough for me to read His Word and discern principles to be practiced. It’s not enough for me to learn from others about the things that He has asked them to do. It’s not enough to develop strategies based on our observations or the experiences of others. We were meant for something more! I need to pursue Him as a person and to know what He would have me do. We must train ourselves to discern the will of God. We must tune our ears to His voice. One of the best ways to do this is to bathe our minds in His Word. His Word is the unchanging standard. The only source that we know is pure, untainted, unadulterated truth. By familiarizing ourselves with the truth we will begin to learn how to discern between good and evil, but more than that, we will learn to discern His voice among the cacophony of voices competing for our attention and allegiance. There are many counterfeits out there, and we must be on our guard, but we cannot allow fear to keep us from pursuing our birthright as children of God. We have been born again into a real conversational relationship with God, and we cannot trade our birthright for something less fulfilling, even if it seems safer. We lose more than we gain.

The best way to train people to identify counterfeit currency is to begin with the study of genuine money, money that you know is real. By using and training our senses to recognize the real thing we will be able to attune to distinguish between our bridegroom and the pretenders. Jesus said that His sheep would know and hear his voice and that they will follow Him. This is not an option, but a statement of fact.

We must start with the Word and continue in prayer. The Word is the primary way that we discover the general will of God, but we must have a real relationship with the Spirit. The Spirit is the only right interpreter of the Word. Not only that, but He promises to guide us into all truth. There are many forms of prayer, but conversational prayer is a key, but often neglected form. In conversational prayer we spend time talking, but we also spend time listening. I find that starting with the Word helps to set my mind on Him, renew my perspective, and remind me of the sound of His voice. Then, as I enter in to prayer I share my heart or the needs of others and I listen for how He would have me pray, and what He would have me do. Over the years I have found a journal to be an invaluable tool for recording these conversations. Aside from crystallizing the thoughts or impressions into words this also serves to record those words for later reflection, application, and testing against the Word.

I am serving a King and I need to get my orders from Him. The general outline of His battle plans and principles of warfare are available through His written Word, but my role in the battle is often less clear. I need to know where He wants to deploy me today. What position on the battle line, what resources I should take with me. Prayer is how we get our orders from the King. Prayer also humbles me and reminds me of my right relationship to the King. I am not the King. I am a servant, a supplicant, and a soldier of the King. Prayer, as my father used to say, keeps me from getting too big for my britches. Prayer is also a weapon that we use in our service to the King. We have been entrusted with weapons that demolish strongholds. Prayer is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal as Christians. We have been commanded to pray, we have been instructed how to pray, we have been given examples of prayers, we have been admonished about the potential power of prayer. But still we neglect the very weapon that could win the battle because we are too busy trying to win the battle. I do not pretend to understand how or why prayer works, but this much is clear: Prayer does a work in me, and is also a powerful and effective means that God uses to accomplish much.

Perfectly Designed

The Lord sure did a good job when he created the world! It is so varied and so beautiful and so real. I have often heard people say that we were made for heaven, but I don’t think that does justice to God’s creation, nor to our relationship with it. The universe was created by God as a sort of terrarium, a perfectly designed home, for His children. He designed us for the world and the world for us. He gave us 5 distinct senses through which to perceive and enjoy the many splendored delights with which He filled the world. He gave us minds to wonder and speculate and he placed within us the ability to comprehend and appreciate the wonder of it all. We may be fit for heaven, but we are definitely fit for earth.

We were meant to enjoy God’s creation and to manage it for Him and with Him. We were designed to hypothesize and to question and to discuss these questions with Him. I’m not sure that He answered all of Adam and Eve’s questions directly. If Jesus’ interactions are any indication, He may have often answered them with another question that spurred their investigation rather than answer them straightforwardly. You see, He also created us with the capacity for growth. We obviously grow physically, but our intellectual and spiritual growth is more subtle and less apparent. Our environment contains all that we need to stimulate and encourage our growth, if God is a part of it. God is always a part of it, but we are not always aware of Him and even more rarely seek or welcome His input or perspective.

When Adam and Eve decided that they would be better off seeking knowledge apart from God, they began the idolatry that still afflicts their children today. We placed our trust first in a serpent, who cunningly encouraged us to trust in ourselves to know the best, and planted the seed of doubt about God as our father. He is the father who delights to give good gifts to His children, but we don’t believe that. Like Adam and Eve we believe that He is holding something back that is good for us. He is denying us knowledge and experience that we want or need, and so we greedily grab the fruit from the tree and eat it, only to discover that it is sweet in the mouth but poisonous.

The world that was so perfectly designed for us, and us for it, becomes not just the location but the source for our idolatry. We make life on earth or various aspects of life the center of our pursuit, the objects of our worship, rather than delighting in them as gifts from our Father that turn our hearts back to Him. It is so easy to fall into making this world our home and focus, and this is a testimony to what a great job God did in fitting us for this world. We were made for this world, but we were meant to enjoy it in relationship with God, and we are incapable of truly reveling in it apart from Him. He has given us all good things to enjoy, but instead of enjoying them rightly, we long for them, we lust for them, we make them our god.

This is obvious when it comes to sex, power, drugs, alcohol, or even food, but is less obvious in other areas. This is all complicated by the fact that we have become masters of self-deception and rationalization. We call something a virtue that is really a vice. The scriptures call this iniquity. Iniquity is a perversion of perspective; it is calling something that is bad, good, or something that is good, bad. It’s not just missing the mark, or even willfully missing the mark, the first is sin and the second is rebellion. Iniquity is deeper. It is a twisting of our perception that warps reality for us, and we no longer deal with what is actually true, but rather with our own personally or culturally defined reality.

As Christians who are striving to follow God and to work out our salvation with fear and trembling we must be on guard against our own self-deception as well as that which comes from the world around us and the devil, the old serpent. Anything that makes this present world, or anything in it, myself included, the center of the universe is wrong. I find that some of my own ministry is man centered or self centered rather than God centered. I do many things for the wrong reasons and label them as good. This doesn’t make them inherently bad, but the more I do this the farther I slip down a slippery slope. Is it bad to build schools to educate illiterate children? No. But the real question is, “Is this what God would have me do?” Anything that is not from faith is sin. When we go through life as practical atheists, with no real relationship to God, no humility or submission to Him, then we are unrepentant idolaters regardless of how much we read the scriptures or how orthodox our theology is. God, must be the center of our lives and we will be most human and alive, and most able to enjoy the world He designed for us when we are living in humble submission to Him.

Learning and Seeking

I spend a lot of time reading. I like to think and analyze. When I have the time, and sometimes even when I don’t have the time, I spend hours reading news. I try to stay up to date on what is happening in the world. It is interesting to see the various reports about what is happening in the world. There are so many reports from various corners of the globe, so many forces at work and so many theories about what produces or controls these forces. I want to understand. I want to know what is happening and to understand why. I think that on some level I believe that knowing and understanding will allow me to control or to anticipate the future.

We are driven to understand and to seek control. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao all agreed that history was moving inexorably toward a communist utopia. They constructed a system that they felt encapsulated the scope of human history and explained why everything happened. They predicted where it was heading and then decided to cooperate with history and nudge it along towards the “inevitable” conclusion. Unfortunately, they were wrong. In the process they destroyed the lives of millions.

Scripture teaches us that humans were created in the image of God and were endowed with power and authority to be his stewards on the earth. We were meant to understand and cooperate with the movement of history. We are his ambassadors, his regents. We are co-heirs with Jesus and are Sons of God, fit to reign with Him. However, we lack perspective. We cannot possibly understand the scope of history. We do not understand where we have come from or where we are going. We were meant to be stewards not kings.

Only God created the heavens and the earth. Only He knows the end from the beginning. Only He knows what happens to each sparrow and what transpires in the hearts of presidents and prime ministers. The forces at work, both natural and human, are complex beyond our imagining. Our efforts to understand, while a noble reflection of the original design and stewardship, are also too feeble to reach the ultimate conclusions. We are dependent on Him for revelation. He has given us general revelation, the world around us, and there is much that we can comprehend if we humbly pursue right understanding, but we also need specific revelation. There are many things that we simply cannot know without the all knowing One revealing them to us. We need Him to reveal Himself to us, and we need Him to guide us into truth and to show us the way that we should walk with Him as individuals and as a community called by His name. Once we were not a people, but now we are His very body on earth. The as the body takes its orders from the head, so we must be in touch with and controlled by the Head.

We must not treat God as a principle at work in the world. We must recognize Him as a person. As much as I seek knowledge and understanding, I must seek Him even more. If I want to know truth I should pursue the Way, the Truth, and the Life. If I want to find my place in this world I must seek the One who created me and the world. Only He knows why I am here and the good purposes that He wants to accomplish through me.

He is weaving a tapestry and every life is a strand within it. Only He knows the pattern being followed and the design it will create. His aesthetic is different than ours, and the beauty is deeper and richer than we can imagine. In the end we will see His glory and our good woven together. He knows how to use the dark strands to accentuate the bright colors. He knows what He is about. We must submit to His hand and we will find joy in the journey.

Being Who We Are

We humans really are funny creatures. I can’t think of any other creature who tries to be something other than what he is. I don’t see a hyena trying to be a lion, or a fish trying to be a bird. I don’t see leopards trying to change their spots. No, to attempt to be other than who we are is a particularly human foible. We have such a hard time learning to be comfortable with who we are, and it seems that so much in our world is bent on encouraging us to be discontent or to hold up some model with which we should conform. Literally from the time that we are born, we are measured and compared and found wanting in some way. We have percentage charts for height and weight and numerous other ways of measuring and comparing our attributes. In every culture there are preferable hair, skin, and eye colors, or other qualities that are valued or devalued. We compare ourselves to others and we feel alternatively good or bad about ourselves based on how we measure up to these standards. It is a source of false pride, or equally false debasement.

Scripture tells us that each one of us was knit together in our mothers’ womb and was uniquely designed and created by God. We are each one of us, His workmanship. The Potter has formed us with an exact design in mind, and He didn’t make any mistakes when he was shaping and forming us. He created us and endowed us with just exactly the qualities that He wanted us to have so that we could do exactly what He wants us to do. Not only did He create us, but He also prepared good works in advance for us to do. He has good plans for us, good work for us to do, a contribution for us to make to His Kingdom, a unique contribution that He has designed us perfectly to accomplish.

He also designed us for relationship with Him. It’s not just that He has something that He wants to do through us; He wants to do something in us. We are each formed in His image, and He is in the process of restoring and refining that image in each of us. Humans were never designed to be independent. We are inherently dependent creatures. We are needy. We need food. We need drink. We need shelter from the elements. We need relationships. We need things outside of ourselves to be fully ourselves. Our most central need, the one most needful thing, is God. There are many things that we can busy ourselves with, even using the gifts and abilities that God has given us, but only one necessary thing. We were never intended to live apart from God.

When Jesus lived on earth, he demonstrated this total dependence on God. Jesus repeatedly taught through His words and actions that He marched to the beat of the divine drummer. He was not dominated by culture, expectations, methodologies, or strategies. Instead, He carefully cultivated the habit of attentiveness to His Father. Jesus said repeatedly that he did nothing and said nothing except those things that the Father wanted Him to do and say. There is no independent streak here, no rigidity, no pride, no insecurity. He simply listened to His Father’s voice and went about His Father’s business.

The more I minister to and with people the more I see the distinctiveness of each person. God has truly created each person uniquely and there is no one else like any one of us. I am coming to the understanding that the abundant life is cannot be separated from a life of service. Oneness with God means listening for His guidance and doing the things that He has designed us to be. We cannot separate our pursuit of Him from our service to Him. It is folly to think that we can be disgruntled about our design and be pleased with the Designer. We must learn to embrace who He has created us to be and look for opportunities to serve with and through His Spirit. By working with Him we learn about Him and grow closer to Him.

Climbing Toward Wisdom

Have you ever wondered how we came to eat certain foods and to avoid others? How did we discover that olives contained oil? How did we find out which berries were edible, and which ones were poisonous? Someone had to eat it to find out. That information was passed down to those that came after. Someone tried different ways of preparing or mixing different foods together and those recipes were passed down. Today, we have available to us a dizzying array of information, we have more information available to us than ever before. Our knowledge of our bodies and the world around us is increasing exponentially. Unfortunately, our wisdom is not increasing at the same rate.

Wisdom is more than just knowledge. We say that “knowledge is power”, and that is true, but wisdom knows how to use that power. We must learn from those who have gone before us. This is true in all aspects of our lives, but especially so in spiritual matters. It’s not only arrogant, but foolish to contemplate the way to find God in isolation from those who have pursued Him in the past.

Christian history is filled with stories of those who have pursued Him. How did they go about it? What were their lives like? Were they successful? Did their lives show evidence of the Spirit? What was the impact of their lives on those around them? We don’t have to discover a “new and improved” way to find God, or to find fulfillment for our lives. The way is mapped out for us in history, and even more clearly on the pages of Scripture.In the New Testament alone, we have a battery of stories and instructions about how to find the way to God and how to stay on the path during the rugged ascent to the City of God. It is a difficult path, and one that few find, and even fewer ascend. I believe that I am on the path. I know that I am on the lower slopes of the climb, but I can see the foot prints of those that have gone before me and I am determined to go up higher.

Finding the path was joy unspeakable, but that was the beginning of the journey and not the end. As I climb the trail I see those who have set up camp on the slopes. They are not far from the path, but they have decided that they have gone far enough. Not content to stay there alone, they invite others to join them in their camp. Some have set up stands where they are selling their wares, and their ideas. They say that the ascent is a myth. There is nothing ahead, nothing worth climbing for. This is the promised land they say. These lower slopes are the destination. It is true that there is some beauty here, and they are nearer to the One than they were before. There is some reflected radiance from the Divine Sun, but they have settled for something less than all that He has for them. If only they would climb up higher! They would see the vista start to open before them. They would see that more is offered. The climb is worth it.

I try to show them map that I carry. I show them the ancient map of ascents, but they claim it is out dated or unreliable. The map is too old to be trusted in this day and age. The risks are too large, the climb to dangerous to trust an old map. Life is good here, why move on to what we don’t know when there are so many who we can live with in comfort here. I tell them about my guide. He will safely see me home, but they can’t see him, or don’t trust him. They say that only fools and crackpots would risk life and limb for a treasure they have but glimpsed through a glass darkly. Look there is water here to drink from? Why would you want to climb up to the source when we have water here? I want more than tepid water from a stagnant pool or broken cistern. I want the cool, clear, fresh water from the fountain of life. I am dismayed that so many who have found the path are satisfied with something less than life with the guide. For the secret is that the guide is also the source. There is joy in the journey and the journey, though arduous, is worth it. Or so say the prophets and apostles. So I climb on.

Not Mute Like the Idols

In the last few years I have been repeatedly brought to the realization that God wants to speak to us. He is not mute like the idols. As I have grown in my desire to hear His voice and to enter into a real conversational relationship with God, I have been surprised by the resistance to this idea that I have received from people. What has been more disturbing is that the resistance has come from within the Body of Christ. Many have discouraged me from this pursuit, assuring me that what looks like a road toward Him is really a blind alley. Some have argued from scripture that since the Bible has been completed that God doesn’t speak to us personally. Others have cautioned me that He might speak in extreme circumstances, but that we shouldn’t expect to hear from Him frequently or regularly. Others have been worried that I was “going off the deep end” and would spend my life in a fruitless pursuit of “more” when I should be content with what God has already revealed.

The more I read scripture the clearer it has become to me that relationship with God is the central theme. We were created to have relationship with Him and since the fall, the restoration of this relationship has become the defining quest of God on earth and occasionally of man. It is in relationship with God that man becomes fully human and the restoration of the marred image of God begins. It is in through this relationship that we get what our hearts desire and God gets glory for Himself.

God speaks to us! He does this in many ways, but one of the clearest and most trustworthy is His Word. The Bible is the only objective standard, the unchanging revelation against which we can measure our other, more subjective, experiences of God; but it is more than that. The Word of God is active. The Bible contains the logos, but the logos is not limited to the Bible. God’s Spirit is the key to hearing God’s voice. It is the Spirit that guides us into all Truth. It is the Spirit that illuminates our minds and allows us to rightly understand scripture. It is the Spirit of Christ that pierces our hearts and cuts us to the quick. He is the one who holds of the mirror of the Word and uses it to show us ourselves and the areas that need to be attended to. He wields the Word like a surgeon to lance our Spiritual infections and to cut out the cancerous growths that threaten our life. It is telling that the only unforgivable sin is to blaspheme the Spirit. Without the Spirit there is no life in us, no new life in Christ.

The last two weeks I have had a very interesting experience during the Sunday morning worship service. In both cases the simple reading of scripture was used by the Spirit to pierce my heart. Last week as I sat and listened to Eph 2:11-22 being read, I was suddenly aware of the implications of verses 14 for my life. Christ came to abolish the dividing wall of hostility, but in my heart I still harbored prejudices against certain peoples. It was as if a spotlight shown into a dark corner of my life, suddenly exposing the filth that I had hidden there. I had rationalized and excused my perspective and had found many in the Body willing to be co-conspirators with me. We subtly reinforce the rightness of our disobedience, and in the process grieve the Spirit of God. As I sat there I was suddenly doing business with God. It wasn’t something that I had planned on, or had been expecting. I hadn’t been ruminating about this beforehand. The only explanation is that the Spirit decided that this was the time to clean out that corner. God spoke to me by His Spirit and His word.

This week in church Eph. 3:1-20 was read, and again, I felt like God suddenly intervened through His Word to speak to me personally. As I read about the ministry that God has entrusted to Paul, I was suddenly aware of my own attitudes about ministry and my unworthiness to be used by God. As I saw Paul boldly proclaim both his status as “the least of all God’s people” and his role as the minister of an incredible mystery, I was deeply touched. I realized that I have been afraid to accept all that He might have me do or be. I have not felt worthy. As I told this to God in the quietness of my heart, He reminded me that no one is worthy. “Am I worthy?” is the wrong question. “Am I willing to obey?” is the right question. I find that like Moses I argue that I am not the right person or am not gifted enough to do what He asks me to do. But God is gentle and kind to rebuke me when I need it and to remind me that He is God and that He knows the good works that He has prepared in advance for me to do. Who am I to talk back to Him and to explain to Him what He ought to do? I am the clay, and He is the potter. But more than that, He is my Father and my King, and I am His child and his servant. He parents me and speaks to me. This is what He offers, if we will but listen.

Letting the Paradox Stand

God is sovereign and He is good. He is in control of all things and yet there is so much in scripture that speaks to human responsibility. I don’t know how to reconcile these two truths. If God is sovereign then how can we be truly free? If God is orchestrating world events, and to a great extent world events are shaped by the choices that humans make as individuals and as groups, then isn’t the freedom of the will simply an illusion? We only appear to be free to make decisions, but in fact our decisions are predestined by God.

If that is true, then how are we responsible for the decisions that we make? Our decisions are influenced by innumerable factors both external and internal, and if God is the one orchestrating these factors then he is controlling us in ways that are too subtle for us to understand. This would make God a masterful manipulator, but where is the righteousness and honor in that.

On the other hand, scripture clearly assumes that each person is in fact free to choose the path that they take. There are blessings for those who choose God’s path and curses for those who do not. Often, the prophets and apostles lay before the people two options and ask people to choose between life and death. Is this all just a shell game, a con where we are asked to choose the cup with the ball beneath, when in fact there is no real choice? No matter what we choose we either win or lose at the will of the one running the game. Some he chooses to win, while others he chooses as the perennial losers.

No, this can’t be it either. Why even include the book of proverbs in the canon if there are no real choices, if wisdom makes no difference? No, I must take God at His word and believe that I really will reap what I sow and that I have full responsibility for the seed that I sow. I sow where I will but I will also reap the consequences, good or evil, for my choices. So, here I find another paradox that I cannot resolve without discarding or disregarding one portion of scripture for another.

Humans are troubled by paradox. We need equilibrium. We need to know the answer, to resolve the tension. Here in lies one of our tragic flaws. We are driven to create systems that explain away the problems and the paradoxes. We ponder and deliberate and tighten our systems down until even the truth is squeezed out, or at least one part of the truth is squeezed out in favor of another more palatable part. Of course our palates are different and so we create systems or gravitate toward previously created systems that resonate with us and then we argue with each other about the systems and use scripture to make our case. Historically, we have even done violence to each other in defense of our “biblical” positions. This flies in the face of a clear teaching of Christ, that they will know us by our love and unity.

Is not all of this also a factor of our pride? In the garden our desire to know good and evil made us susceptible to the Serpent’s lies. We decided that we knew best about what we needed to know and when. So, we sinned, and we have kept on sinning by setting ourselves up as the arbiter of truth. It is not wrong to desire knowledge or to pursue truth, but it is wrong to insist on knowledge and on the timing of revelation. Our position as creatures demands that we submit ourselves to God and trust Him to share with us the things that we are prepared to receive. There is a progression to revelation; only He knows what we need to know and when. We must let the paradoxes stand and let them drive us to Him rather than away from Him in search of knowledge apart from Him.

Suffering and Sovereignty

I find myself struggling with reconciling the goodness with God with the news. I read scripture and I see that God is good and that He is worthy of praise of Trust. He is the anchor of our souls and our only hope. The central message of scripture seems to be that He is and that He can be trusted. But how do I reconcile that with the constant barrage of tragedy and evil that comes through the news. A constant stream of evil and the resulting suffering in almost mind numbing variety flow from every news outlet.

God’s children are not immune from these things. God’s own children are victimized by evil men along with others in their communities. They are subject to extortion, racism and other systemic evils as well as those more personal but no less invasive attacks against their person or property. They have traffic accidents and get cancer. They are stolen from and burglarized. They are molested and raped. They are mugged, beaten and murdered. So where is the ever watchful eye of God the Father caring for His children when these things are happening?

I know that some sacrifice His sovereignty for His goodness. But I don’t see how that solves the problem. How can we make him more worthy of praise by diminishing his power and ability? How can we feel better about Him by ignoring, or doing violence to, the revelation of Himself through the scriptures? No, that can’t be the answer. He must be sovereign because He says He is, and because if He isn’t then He isn’t worthy of our worship. If Yahweh isn’t in control then I am worshiping the wrong deity.

It is true that my life has been a good one. I have had very little suffering up to this point, and I am truly grateful for that. I can see His goodness and care in so many aspects of my life and I am humbled and grateful. What I am struggling with is how to trust a God who isn’t tame. I am realizing how much of my theology has been built on my relatively pleasant experience. It’s easy in the comfort of my home, surrounded by those I love, to believe that God is good and sovereign. The hard part is that there really are no guarantees. I want to know what I can do to be secure, to make sure that my kids have a good life, a comfortable life. How can I protect my kids? How can I trust a God who doesn’t promise to protect my kids?

I was taught and believed that if I did the right things and applied biblical principles to my life and parenting that everything would turn out in a predictable and pleasant. The longer I live the more I see that life doesn’t work that way. It isn’t enough for me to practice principles and wait for the desired results. Wash, rinse, and repeat and you will have bouncing and behaving hair. But what if the product doesn’t perform as advertised; with biblical principles results may vary! The frustrating fact is that we are not in control, and the One who is in control doesn’t promise that our lives will turn out as we want them to if we just follow his 10 step plan.

So, if God doesn’t promise to give me what I want, why follow Him at all? I find myself with Peter responding, “Where else can we go Lord, who else has the words of eternal life?” I think that the secret must lie in the eternal life. God knows the end from the beginning. He knows what is best for us, for our children, for the world and everyone in it. He knows what He is doing, and it is far too complicated for us to understand. If this world were all that there was, I might well conclude that it is not worth it to follow Christ. Those who follow him often suffer in this world, my own experience and that of many Western Christians not withstanding.

So, I find myself standing on the promise that He is both good and sovereign. He must make it all right in the end. It’s just that I can see neither the beginning nor the end from where I am standing; thus the need for humility and faith, the twin pillars of my trust in Him.

Humility and Trust

Humility is the right relationship of creature to creator. Pride has warped our understanding of ourselves, others, and God. I still have SO much to learn about humility, and even more work ahead to grasp humility in my own heart and life, and yet I feel like I can see glimpses of the enormous importance of this, the root of all true virtues. I see how pride undermines trust. I can see how pride is the root of all evil and the opposite of faith. I always thought that unbelief was the opposite of faith, but now I see it differently. Faith is not just belief in the abstract, it is trust. The opposite of trust is pride. To trust someone is to surrender my good, my judgment to another. I see my children growing up, and while there are many joys along the way, I realize now that I am watching trust die before my eyes.

When my children were babies, they had no idea what was going on. They were utterly and completely dependent on my wife and I to care for them. We fed them, changed their diapers, and kept them safe. As they grew older we could enjoy more of the benefits of our investment in their lives. We could have more fellowship with them as they were able to understand more and to interact with us more intentionally. I can’t really capture the joy that filled my heart the other day when I asked my son what he wanted to do or where he wanted to go on a recent Saturday morning. I told him that he could choose anywhere and anything within reason. He paused to consider his options and with no guile or calculation he responded, “Dad, I just want to be where you are.” That is the cry of the heart of each of us for our heavenly father.

Moments like that are precious and they reveal much. Just as revealing is my son’s response when I tell him to stop playing with his favorite toy and to get dressed and ready for school. He is shocked that I would dare to prevent him from continuing to indulge in his pleasurable pursuit. He argues and sulks and generally lets me know that I can not possibly have his interests at heart, because it is obvious that if I did, then I would let him have his way. He has replaced trust with pride. He has decided that He is the arbiter of Truth and Goodness. He has ceased to trust me to know and do what is best for him. He no longer unquestionably accepts the things I do for him as good. Now he thinks that he knows what would be best for him, or at least what he would prefer. The problem is that he does not actually know what is good because his perspective is so limited.

It is sad for me to watch the blissfulness of early childhood slip away. The trust is being replaced by fear. The implicit belief that my wife and I are good and that we love him is gradually being stripped away and exchanged for the feeling that if he doesn’t look out for himself then he won’t get what he wants. He is starting to feel like he has to insist on his rights, his desires, and if he doesn’t get what he wants than he is somehow missing out or being cheated. His desires are being thwarted, and it is his desires, his perspective that are right. He knows in his heart that he is right and that anyone, even those who lovingly created him and care for him still, who would keep him from what he wants must be wrong and can’t be trusted.

The faith of a child is being replaced by the fear that is bred by pride. Pride is the belief that I am right. I am central. I am the one at the center of the universe. I think therefore I am. I am the existent one and all things revolve around me. God is good to the extent that he responds to me in the way that I believe he ought to. God is trustworthy to the degree that he keeps me safe and comfortable and comes through for me when I need him, or gives me what I want.

This is the foundational problem. Most of my faith struggles come down to this. How can I trust God with my children when I don’t know that God will keep them safe? The answer is that God never promised to keep them safe. How can I trust God when there is so much suffering? How can I trust God when I am suffering? If God doesn’t prevent suffering or injustice what good is He? How good is he? But our questions are wrong. They are all self-serving and self-referential. God is good because it is His nature. He promises to work even the pain and suffering together for my good and the good of all His children and, more importantly, for His glory. He is the central character in the story. It’s all about Him, not about me. When I switch that around I have started to kill my faith. I lack the perspective, the knowledge, the wisdom to know what is good for me or for others. I have to humbly trust.