Category Archives: Faith

In Quietness and Trust (Part 2)

29 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in Faith, Grace, Justice

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I wouldn’t usually kick off a blog post with a lengthy quote from Isaiah, but let’s remember where we were with the last post (which you can read here).

“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
    in quietness and trust is your strength,
    but you would have none of it.
You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’
    Therefore you will flee!
You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’
    Therefore your pursuers will be swift!
…

 Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
    therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.
…

… you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. (30:15-19, NIV)

The passage explains that salvation is found in repentance and rest, and strength is found in quietness and trust. But, like us, the original audience didn’t want that; they wanted to provide their own solutions.

I want to look in more detail at this passage, because I think it reveals four very important truths that are part of the healing that God offers us.

1.He Gives Us A Guide, Not A Map

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. (30:21)

When I was a kid, I liked maps. I liked to open up a good old atlas and plot my imaginary trip across the country, following the freeways and imagining my journey through exotic locales such as Council Bluffs, Iowa.  There is something about a map that speaks of adventure and possibility.

What about a guide?

Back in the olden days before GPS, my mom was queen of the maps. When she and dad planned a trip, she was the navigator. She had a map, and she would guide, turn by turn when needed. Dad kept his eyes on the road; mom provided the guidance.

Sometimes I want God to give me a map and let me Get. There. Myself. (On my speeding horse from the last post. Sigh.) But here is the miraculous deliverance: the Lord has not given us a map. He has given us a guide. And that guide is himself.

He isn’t giving me 5 Steps to a Fulfilled Life, or A Complete Plan for the Rest of Your Life. He’s saying, “Take this step. Now right. Now left.” He has established a path in which we might walk.

It requires sensitivity to the Word and attention to his way. It will involve missteps and picking yourself back up and listening again. You can’t run ahead when you don’t have a map. You have to wait for your guide.

2. The Guide Enables Us to Reject Idolatry

Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images.You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!” (30:22)

 

We walk step-by-step with our Guide. And as we learn to follow up, he becomes more and more precious and real to us than or idols have been.

Why do our idols hold sway over us? Why do we turn to a long-established habit or method of coping? It is real. It is so real to us, and we have turned to it so many times before.  And it does appear precious to us–these idols are overlaid with silver and gold plating. We find some measure of comfort or control or solace in our idols. But when we start walking step-by-step with Jesus, honestly and consciously rejecting our idols and listening instead to his voice, the idols start to show themselves for what they are: worthless, deceptive, impotent. We are angry with them, angry with ourselves for turning to them, and it fuels our repentance. They are bright and shiny, but we are no longer seduced by their false promises. We see them for what they are, and was “scatter” them and say, “Be gone!”

But notice–this is only after we see our Teacher (30:20) and start to listen to him. We don’t cast aside our idols and THEN follow the teacher. It is only once we start listening to our Guide that the idols are exposed for what they really are.

My takeaway? Jesus doesn’t expect me to figure this out on my own. He is jealous for my attention, yes, and he hates my idols. But it is only after I repent and rest in him and start listening to him, that I will begin to hate my idols like he does.

 

3. The Lord Brings Restoration and Healing

And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures, and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork.  And on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow. (30:23-26)

Let’s start with the final thought “…in the day when the Lord binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.”For what purpose would the Lord bring wounds?  He cuts away the deep infection of sin, leaving deep wounds. But it is he himself who binds our wounds, serving not only as our surgeon but as the Great Physician as well.

This healing takes place in a greater context: one of total restoration.

Rain. Bread. Rich. Plenteous. Large Pastures. Brooks running with water–not infertile valleys, but even on mountain tops.

The earlier passages were of defeat and war. But now they experience overwhelming fruitfulness. In a desert culture, large pastures and running brooks were lavish, above and beyond any expectation. And indeed, abiding in the Vine himself, we begin to overflow with good fruit. We cast aside our idols, and we reap what is real and good. We are freed to experience the goodness that the Lord prepared in advance for us.  It is a picture of Shalom.

 

4. We Were Made for Worship

We might think that the Shalom wholeness of God would be the end of the story. And, in a sense, it is, but it has one more dimension: Worship.

When God freed the Israelites from their bondage in Egypt, it was for a specific purpose: that they might worship him. “Let my people go,” God said through Moses, “that they may serve me.” We were made to worship.

This worship is in the context of a festival that starts when the sun goes down: “You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel.” (30:29)  That doesn’t seem so surprising; walking with Christ, the destruction of our idols, deep restoration, Shalom, festival, celebration!

But the context might make us wonder:

You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel. And the Lord will cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst and storm and hailstones. The Assyrians will be terror-stricken at the voice of the Lord, when he strikes with his rod. And every stroke of the appointed staff that the Lord lays on them will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres. Battling with brandished arm, he will fight with them. For a burning place has long been prepared; indeed, for the king it is made ready, its pyre made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it. (30:29-33)

A festival with…total destruction? Devouring fires and storms and hailstones and the slaying hand of God accompanied by “the sound of tambourines and lyres?”

We are more comfortable with passages about praise and worship than about vengeance and destruction. But here we see them pictured alongside each other: his people celebrating his abundant grace, and also his justice in defeating their enemies. It is a celebration of the justice of God as well as the mercy of God.

The Lord says repeatedly to his people that they need to be still. He will fight for them.

Would you trust someone if you were unsure whether he could win?

God lays every fear to rest. There will be justice. We are right to rest in and trust of God, because he will right every wrong, vindicate the oppressed, secure justice, and conquer evil. His people are shown in joyful celebration of his victory over sin, sorrow, pain and death–over the enemy. Shalom is complete–wholeness includes every aspect of creation. And, as fellow people of God, we are invited to celebrate, too.

In repentance and rest you shall be saved;
    in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.

 

 

 

 

In Quietness and In Trust (Part 1)

29 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in Faith, Grace, Process

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Have you ever had a Bible verse rattle around in your head for years, divorced from its context, wreaking an insidious havoc?

It might be a promise lifted out of context which makes you question whether God really meant such things for you because your circumstance seem to prove it false. It may be a voice of condemnation which, separated from its passage, calls to you when you are at your lowest.

Sometimes they seem innocuous, and maybe you even knew the context at one time, but over the years only the ten-second sound byte remains, and it isn’t the whole truth.

“In quietness and trust would be your strength, but you would have none of it.”

At least that is how I remembered it.

It’s a verse from Isaiah 30, and not necessarily drawn from a passage that you want stitched on a sampler. It’s a passage with Assyrians and war, a passage that also refers to “an oracle on the beasts of the Negeb,” the kind that you might hop over as pertinent only it its original audience. But there are some (okay, many) parts of the passage worthy of any good Scripture memory program, and I also love Isaiah, so that’s probably how that one little partial verse got in there in the first place.

It starts off hopeful, in my mind…”in quietness and trust would be your strength.” I mean, who doesn’t want that kind of solid, secure, dignified strength?  Strong, dignified, trusting, quiet, that kind of simmering courage that is the stuff of world leaders.

Then the second part, as I remembered it: “but you would have none of it.” It’s not that part that isn’t correct; that’s the translation of the NIV.  There were two problems with the verse in my memory: the loss of an additional first half of the verse, and the use of “would” in the first part.  As in, here you go again, you would have all of this fabulous quietness and strength, but you blew it. You would have it, but you simply wouldn’t have it, and now you’re just going to have to fend for yourself. And even though I’m a pretty solid student of Covenant Theology, there is enough orphan left in me that lets that condemnation sit and rot.

So today I looked the verse up in all of its oracle context, and the Lord showed me something astounding.

That disembodied verse is only the beginning of the story.

Let’s start there, at the beginning, with a little more context, and let’s use the correct verb tense this time. And just for clarity, let’s quote from the good old ESV:

In returning (repenting) and rest you shall be saved;
    in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.
But you were unwilling, and you said,
“No! We will flee upon horses”;
    therefore you shall flee away;
and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”;
    therefore your pursuers shall be swift.

Three critical things. First, a quick aside: it all starts with repentance and rest. Kind of forgot about that part. But man, is that important. More on that in a moment.

Second,  it’s not I would have been saved through repentance and rest and made strong in quietness and trust and NOW I WON’T. Instead, I “shall be saved.” These things “shall be my strength.” The orphan didn’t blow it; the adopted child is still safe and secure. She just went on a detour.

Third, let’s look at the alternative presented right here. Now, I’m not sure if there is a better picture of busyness than “No! We will flee upon horses!” Right? Do you ever feel like your schedule is fleeing upon horses? And I’m not talking about a nice canter along the ocean with a setting sun. I’m talking about, I got on the horse, and someone slapped it before my feet were in the stirrups and now I’m holding on for dear life. It’s totally possible that I’m being dragged along behind.

Do you ever feel like that?

Okay, now I’m going to ask a harder question:

Why?

A friend looked me in the eyes at the beginning of the summer and asked a pointed question: “Why are you so driven?”

It wasn’t a typical, “Hey, aren’t you overscheduling a bit? Hey, maybe you need a vacation.” It was deeper.

I could have laughed it off–“Yep, us firstborns, non-stop action!” Or I could have brushed it aside with, “Hey, I have a lot of interests, and there are some great opportunities right now.” Because that’s not what he was asking. It was about my core. And what I heard was, “What are you running from?”

And that really is the question, isn’t it?

Those being addressed in Isaiah were enduring actual war. They were trusting in their horses and chariots to save them, because they had an actual enemy bearing down on them. And they needed God to save them, but they were too busy trying to save themselves. So God let them see how that was going to go for them. He let them reap the consequences of their trust in themselves.

A lot of the time, our schedules belie either a deep trust in ourselves, or a deep need to avoid hard questions. Or both.

I took my friend’s question to heart. And now I’m going to ask you.

If you are in a life going a thousand miles an hour, what are you running from?

Is it a memory too difficult to work through? Patterns of thought that will require a complete reworking of how you deal with people and the world? Is it a lie you’ve been living with that is so foundational that you can’t imagine your life without it? Are you running from quiet and silence because your thoughts are too loud when you are quiet and silent, demanding to be dealt with?  Or are you afraid to stop long enough to find out what it is that you are running from at all?

I get it.

And that is what struck me this time when I read this verse again.

Because here is the next part:

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him…you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you.

He waits. He waits to be gracious. He waits to show mercy until we cry to him, and in that moment, he hears and answers.

We run around, dragged by our horses, filling our schedules with activity to avoid the silence where we would meet with God. But he waits. He waits with grace and mercy. And when we stop and cry out, he answers.

Which leads us back to the very beginning: “In repentance and rest you shall be saved.” Stopping. Turning away from sin–including our idolatrous coping mechanisms to which we turn instead of turning to God–and resting in the completed work of Christ. Is there a better picture of the gospel than that?

We stop. We cry out. And we receive.

All of that quietness and trust. It’s right there. Gifts, with your name, my name, waiting to be opened. Not just once, but time and time again as I repent, turn to Christ, and receive grace.

In repentance and rest we will be saved. In quietness and trust shall be our salvation. And the one who offers it is big enough to help us to deal with whatever may arise out of the silence.

And that is not all.

But that is part 2.

 

Thoughts on Joy and Sorrow

07 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by in Faith, Process

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Sorrow
Like a shovel
Digging up the tender earth of my soul
Exposing that which lay hidden
Enlarging my heart

I wonder
Whether joy can create this kind of cavern
An inner space to be filled or emptied
Like a cave full of ocean
Ebbing and flowing
Could happiness ever so expand my heart
As this sorrow? 

I feel it growing
Deepening
Until my chest strains with the pressure
Ready to burst
Forming in me this new emptiness
Then receding, leaving new chambers
Ready to be filled 
With compassion perhaps
Or hope
Or even joy

 

I wrote this poem many years ago. Today, our guest preacher Scott Moore used the same analogy–sorrow as a shovel tilling the ground of our hearts–in his sermon on the Garden of Gethsemane. His point was the same as the one that came to my own soul those years ago: sorrow prepares a space for joy.

“For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right had of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)   Christ prayed in the garden that the scorn and shame of the cross would be taken away–yet having chosen this path from the foundation of the earth, he also prayed that the Father’s will would be done. He pleaded for another option, but he was resolute in rescuing those he had been born to save. Angels ministered to him, strengthening him for the task at hand–not to flee from suffering, but to enter more fully into it, pressing through to the joy set before him. He endured the suffering because it was the only way for the joy to be made complete.

We suffer. Truth-tellers do not try to soften this reality; the gospel has room for suffering. We live in a broken world, and are broken, sinning and sinned against. We may not always be able to agree on what is sinful, but virtually everyone knows in his or her soul that there is right and wrong, and we long for justice. We long for wrong to be made right, and for the sad things to become untrue.

When we suffer, we may find that we become more compassionate. We find ourselves better able to relate to others who suffer. We may experience God’s very specific comfort which ministers to a specific part of our hearts. We have a renewed perspective on what is important.  We see redemption, and it gives our suffering meaning.

But there is another truth that begins to hint at another role that our suffering plays: “This light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18) Pause for a moment. Consider eternity.

I know, I know. Whenever something gets too difficult, some well-meaning old aunt will offer platitudes about the life to come that make you want to tear your hair out. I get it.

But just consider for a moment: our lives, all of this time we spend worrying about this year’s problems, are just the tiniest fragment of the eternal span of our lives. All of the years combined are the shortest imaginable blip. And yet this is a highly significant time for those who are in Christ: it is the only time in eternity that we will suffer. It is the only time we have to trust God in the midst of heartache, to do the hard, deep work of identifying lies that we have believed and turn instead to the truth. This is the only time we have to pray, to bring our troubled hearts before the Lord, to know his goodness in the midst of our pain.

There is a story, and your story and my story are part of it. When the full story is revealed, it will take eternity for us to tell of the wonders, to share all of the details and chapters and characters. It will be beyond what any of us could imagine now. And somehow, in some way, our current suffering is preparing a weighty glory.

And here’s the thing: that weighty glory is breaking through. When we turn to Christ in the midst of our suffering, he draws us in to the quality of life which is the hallmark of eternity. After all, when Jesus prayed for us all before his death and resurrection, he defined eternal life not as a quantity of life, but as a quality of life: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3) That is something we can know now. And what makes this little chapter of our story different from the chapters to come is that right now, we can know Christ in the midst of suffering, and watch as he uses it to enlarge our hearts, as he redeems it, and as he fills those newly-made caverns with his joy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Most Important Thing

22 Friday Nov 2013

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On Sunday, my husband Joel preached his last of seven sermons on the seven letters to the seven churches in Revelation.  The final church was Laodicea, to whom Jesus says,

For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

These were rich, self-sufficient people.  They had designer wool for sale, special ointments and a renowned eye clinic, and lots of money.  Yet Jesus shows them the true reality: they are poor, and blind, and naked.  The words are not primarily of judgement, but reproof: I love you.  I’m showing you how you really are, not just telling you what you want to hear.  Be zealous about this.  Repent.

They had everything.  But they had nothing, because everything else was more important to them than Jesus.

And yet, he still said, “If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”  Because the point of his reproof is restoration, and the goal of restoration is real, true communion with his people.

What is the most important thing to me?

I mean, really?

I want it to be Jesus, the one who sacrificed everything for my redemption, who loved me from before the foundation of the world.  And yet I know in my honest heart when he gently holds the mirror before me that I am often distracted by many other things.  Buzzing about like Martha, when Christ has offered me Mary’s seat at his feat.

Tonight I was about to sing to my sweet five-year-old boy, when I noticed tears in his eyes.  He nuzzled his precious Blue Hippo to his nose, and then said softly, “If someone said I had to sell Blue Hippo to see Jesus, I would do it.”

I felt the holiness of the moment.  It was as if Jesus pulled back the covering of my son’s heart and said, “This is what I am doing in your son.  He is my son.  And he knows that seeing me is the most important thing.”

I am humbled.

It was an unexpected blessing at the end of the day, a reminder that the Lord is at work in my children even as he is at work in me.  And the work of his Holy Spirit is faithful.  It is sure.  And he will bring it to completion.

He is working in me.

I want to see Jesus, too.