Humpty and the King

credit: shipwrecksoul.blogspot.com

I keep trying to understand why some people believe and some do not. It has nothing, apparently, to do with intelligence, because lots of very smart people have no faith in God. It has nothing to do with exposure, because, in this country at least, an overwhelming majority of people have heard about creation and Christ. It has nothing to do with behavior, because many very nice folks refuse to consider faith in God as the only logical reason to behave decently.

So what is it? Why do some believe and some don't?

The simple answer is that some have heard the call of Christ and some have not, and that is true. God is clear about that.
I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion--Exodus 33:19
Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God--John 8:47

But even that understanding does not satisfy. I look at unbelievers and they seem so....well....happy. They do. Life is often easy for them. I hear sometimes about how unhappy life is without Christ, but the evidence often does not seem to bear that out. In fact, it looks just the opposite. Once belief does come, the believer is plagued by a stubborn, inconvenient truth by which an unbeliever is not troubled. 

The believer knows he is broken. 
Irretrievably, unrelentingly broken.
And there is nothing he can do about it.
He's like Humpty Dumpty. All the king's horses and all the kings men can't put Humpty back together again.

And, in case you haven't noticed, brokenness is not fun. It makes none of us happy. And yet, that's the first step on the road to faith. It's a step down, not up.
What gives?

I remember a few years ago, when our parish priest was baptizing several adults, he told them that they were mistaken if they thought that their newfound faith would make their life easier. "It will make your life harder." he told them, "Do it anyway." And he was right. Faith does make life harder. I no longer measure myself against other people to figure out how I'm doing. I have to measure my behavior and motives against a holy God. And I always, always come up short. The unbeliever just has to look around to see whether he's doing better than the next guy, and that's not too hard.

We've all seen them. The alcoholic who is absolutely convinced that he's in control of his habit. The mobster who has a good handle on his life by declaring that "it's only business." The serial monogamist (of either sex) who knows that her life is OK because she's 'not hurting anyone.' They are happy, satisfied, undisturbed. And sometimes, I am jealous of their comfort. I don't get to have that. 

Instead, I'm laying at the bottom of the wall in pieces, looking up at a God I just realized has given me the dubious privilege of seeing the true state of my life and thinking, "Gee...thanks a lot. I could have done without this, God." And I'm tempted to think that He's the one who pushed me over.

But He's not. He just helped me to see. And he follows that sight with an immediate solution. He extends his hand with a remedy, the same one Peter extended to the cripple in the name of Christ at the temple gate:
Rise up and walk.--Luke 5:23
The man had been a cripple his whole life. Sure, he knew that he wasn't like everybody else but, well, begging may not have made for a bad living. It didn't require much effort, and no one expected too much of him. In some ways, it made for a pretty comfortable life.

Then, one day, he discovers he's broken...and there was Jesus.
Imagine his surprise.

Humpty never did get put back together again, but we can be. In the instant we know the extent of our brokenness,we are reassembled not only as good as new, but better than new. The King Himself does what all His horses and all His men could not.  
See! I am doing a new thing--Isaiah 43:19
And behold! The new thing is me!

You Can't Change Anything From Inside the Limo

photo: veemoze.wordpress.com

Things change.
They do. Always. I can't do anything about that.
I don't always like it, though. Like when kids grow up and move away. Like when parents or friends or spouses die. Heck, I don't even like it when a favorite restaurant changes their menu or skirt lengths go short again.
But sometimes...sometimes I just know things HAVE to change. And, even worse, that I'm the one who's supposed to help change them.

I can't even imagine how Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela felt. Yikes. They changed BIG things. My convicted changes aren't that big--not even close. But they're big to me. And, like those famous men, I have to figure out how to implement them. Whether it's school reform, or property taxes, or how my church runs their Sunday school, change sometimes calls me to work, and I am going to need a plan.

My first big experience with this came in business. I worked for a company top-heavy in wealth and privilege. The men and women who worked in our factory worked hard--really hard--and got none of the perks I saw handed out liberally to managers and executives--bonuses, both cash and non-cash. It wasn't right, I thought from my entry level office desk. If I ever got the chance to change that...well, I would.

Eventually, I got the chance.

When I got promoted to Vice President, I had big plans. I would shine a new light into the executive offices. I would make the changes I'd always seen needed making. But then, on my next business trip, the company paid for a limo to pick me up at 5AM and take me to the airport. Instead of sending it away and driving myself, I settled deep into the leather seats and napped. And a few months later, when I realized that the bonus I got that year would pay for my younger son's college education, I didn't cash the check and distribute it to those hard working men and women on the shop floor like I'd planned to do. Instead, I deposited into our savings account.

Were these things evil? Not really. But they serve to demonstrate something I learned the hard way then and in the long years that followed. Even after I'd stopped joining the excess and started fighting it, the big boys didn't care that I didn't want to play with them. It didn't matter to them at all, as long as I didn't interfere with their fun. And I didn't interfere, but not because I didn't want to. I didn't stop them from their greed because I didn't have the clout to do it. They couldn't care less what I thought or did. To them, my example was not eye opening--it was, maybe, faintly amusing. Finally, I did the only thing I could decently do. I gave up and got out.

This is what I learned: real change does not generally come from the inside.  Not unless the changer is also in charge. Kings can exert change. Sometimes very disciplined presidents and CEO's can. But not the rest of us. If we want to change something, we have to step out of it first. I saw this in business, but I also saw it in the school where I later taught and in the church we attended. There, too, we tried to enact change from the inside and found that it couldn't be done.

God knows this, too.
Example: Right after Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem to waving palm branches and cries of 'Hosanna', what did He do? He marched right over to the temple and chased out the money changers for the second time.
It is written--My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves!--Matthew 21:13
And what happened?
The scribes and the chief priests heard it and sought out how they might destroy him.--Mark 11:18

Jesus didn't become a temple honcho first. He came in almost incognito--a young guy from a small town, but with wisdom and a mission He thoroughly understood. He could see clearly from the outside, whether from heaven or from Nazareth or from the back of a donkey, the kind of corruption so rarely visible from inside.

Obviously, I am prejudiced by my own experience. The hierarchy surrounding my own situations chewed me up and spit me out. Just like Jesus. Well, almost.

And that's my takeaway from all this. The people Christ criticized destroyed Him, or tried to. When they were finished with him, He was certainly very dead. But the same as He did, I rose up from each of my experiences remade, better than I'd begun. And amazingly, in the process, some of the things that needed changing did change. Not directly from what I did, but they did change, and some are still changing.

Just like Jesus, I left each of these situations an outcast, but not untouched, unchanged. And I learned to trust that God will use my actions in His own way. I also now know not to trust reformers with a stake in the status quo, but only those who have nothing to lose by changing it.
They have the vision. They follow the right example.

Called to Dinner with Joseph

photo: www.momlogic.com

Fame. It's confusing no matter where it shows up. History. The evening news. Even the Bible. Everywhere we look, we keep hearing about people who did amazing things--statesmen who liberated a nation, firemen who save lives, soldiers who give their life for someone else's freedom, saints who heal the sick or were martyred for their faith, composers who wrote a symphony 500 years ago that we still love today, artists who bring visual life to the greatest events known to man.  We read about them and admire them. We want to be like them, to do something amazing. We're told constantly to aim high, that the opportunity is there and we should grab it.

But, for most people, it doesn't happen.

That's when I think of Joseph. Unsung, largely unknown Joseph. Oh, we hear his name all right, but hardly ever for anything he did himself. He had an average job in an average town. The only reason we know him at all is because he had a famous wife--Mary--and an even more famous son--Jesus. That's it. We don't even know what happened to him after the incident in the temple when Jesus was 12. He just disappeared.

And now the same thing is happening to me. I've gotten old enough now to know that I will probably never be famous. I am in the process of becoming, like Joseph, an afterthought.

Still, I have been called by God. I have. I know this because He has been gracious enough to hear my answer.

But called to what? Former Duke University professor and author Reynolds Price once said that "Few are called to anything grander than dinner." and I used to laugh at that thought. I'm not laughing anymore.

I used to look at famous people, the ones who are remembered not for sports or entertainment achievements, but things that really matter, and knew that if they could accomplish so much, so could I. But it didn't happen. I didn't end up doing anything great. I never even got my 15 minutes. What am I supposed to think about this?

I think I'm supposed to remember Joseph. I think I'm supposed to put God's teaching into perspective. I think that, when we pray "thy will be done", we need to mean it no matter what. There is no promise that our obedience will be noticed. When Christ said that:
The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve" --Matthew 20:28
He did not say we would get any praise for our service. In fact, He warned us of exactly the opposite.
If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first...John 15:18
In other words, don't expect any recognition, at least not the pleasant kind.

Most of us will serve in anonymity, with little reward, and no one will notice.

But this is how it should be.
My first job, after all, is to love God and glorify Him, not to see myself glorified. And, if He calls me to nothing grander than dinner, well then, dinner it is.
Those He predestined, He also called and these He called, He also justifed, and those He justified, He also glorified.--Romans 8:30
Did you notice that God does all this? God does it, not history, not the world, not even the church. God. We show up, we obey, and He does all the rest. Him. Only Him.

So, what does that leave me?
To believe, to love, to follow. In the end, I have no idea what legacy I will leave, but only whether God will say:
Well done, good and faithful servant.--Matthew 25:23
Servant. And one who has done well not because everybody knows my name, but because He has written it in the palm of His hand.

Before the Tablets

Picture credit:www.fisheaters.com

Most of us know that God gave Moses the tablets of the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai.
But that wasn't the only thing God did there.
In fact, it wasn't even the first thing.

Before God gave Moses the Commandments, He gave Moses something to tell the Israelites.
God told Moses to tell His people what He expected of them.
And characteristically, His instructions were short and to the point:
Now, if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.--Exodus 19:5

He told them two things:
Obey me.
Keep your promise to me.
If they did these two things, God would open up the very heavens to them. He would make them His treasured possession. He would make them His. He would make them Holy.

Sure, He gave them the Commandments, but only as exposition of what He'd already said--words that exposed His heart of love and desire for His people.
God doesn't just want us to follow a bunch of rules. 
God wants us to want Him. 
That's the importance of the Commandments.  
 The Commandments are signposts to the heart of God.
And His heart is where He wants us to remain.

God offered to the Israelites a look at His own heart.
And God's offer to the Israelites is made to us, too--through Jesus, who said,
"Come to me...."--Matthew 11:28

That is the offer at the heart of the commandments.
Come to me.
God's commandments, first etched in stone, then the same message written in Scripture and preserved for all ages, are not rules. They are His very arms opened wide in invitation.
Come to me.

What We Should Be

A while back, the US Army ran an ad campaign that urged potential soldiers to "Be all You Can Be."
Good advice, I thought.  And not just for soldiers, but for anyone.
But maybe I was wrong.  At least some of the time.

After all, Jesus wasn't.
Christ Jesus, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death–even death on a cross!--Philippians 2:6-8

When He became a man, Jesus was not all He could be.
He is God.  He reached His potential when He created the world, when He defeated Satan, and will do so again when He comes back to finally reclaim this world.
As a man, Jesus was clearly underachieving.

So, in following Jesus' example, are we ever to do the same?
Maybe.
Why did Jesus do it, anyway?
...the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.--John 14:31

And if that meant to lay aside His Godhead and become a man, so be it.
What does that look like for us?
If I love God and He wants me to teach someone how to fish rather than do the fishing myself, I must.
If I love God and He wants me to lay aside my leadership or capability in favor of a husband or an employer, I must.
If I love God and He wants me to let someone fail rather than bail them out, I must.

God gave us all gifts, but we are to exercise them only as God commands.
I not only have to consider what I can do, but must stop to think whether I should.
Perhaps the right slogan should not read "Be All You Can Be" but "Be What the God You Love Wants You to Be."

Being Beethoven

"How do I know God's will?" she asked me.
"How can I be sure I am doing what He wants me to do?"
Good question.

Anything we do, God Himself can do better, so what, after all, does God want from us?
And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.--Micah 6:8

Yes, yes, I know that. But what to DO?
God gives us stuff to do not because He needs us to get it done for Him, but because He wants us to seek Him in it.

Seek Him first, last, and always...then do what seems right until we can't do it any more.

Don't concentrate on the result. 
As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.--Isaiah 55:9

Do what God gives us to do because He gave it.  
He manages the result.
I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.--1Corinthians 3:61
We cultivate devotion to God.  He brings in the harvest.

Beethoven was nearly deaf when he composed his ninth symphony.  He never heard it, but he wrote it, and conducted it, with such genius and fervor that almost everyone recognizes its Ode to Joy:

God asks us, too, to play the notes even when we can't hear the music.
My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast.  I will sing and make music.  Awake, my soul.  Awake, harp and lyre.  I will awaken the dawn.--Psalm 57:71
Play on, and our love for God becomes our true song.

The Company I Keep

We know that our life is a journey and that Jesus promised to show us the way to go.  It occurs to me, though, that there are different ways to travel.

Christ wants to be my companion.  He does not want to find me lingering on the path so that He has to walk ahead and urge me to get moving.  He does not want me to be preoccupied with my other companions so that I lose focus.  He wants me to stay close so that I can hear Him.

I need to pay attention.
God will tell me where to go, but the voice I hear should come from behind me.
Whether you turn to the right or left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, "This is the way.  Walk in it."--Isaiah 30:21

Every day, I choose where to go and with whom.  I look down the various paths to see on which one Christ waits for me, but I err in this.  My Jesus should be constantly near so that He gives only a gentle nudge from beside or behind, not down some far off road calling, hoping I have ears to hear.

The journey we take with our God is not supposed to involve slowing down or catching up or pulling at a lead or lingering behind.  He wants us close enough so that we can know His arm around our shoulder and expect a  sweet whisper in our ear. 

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go.  I will counsel you and watch over you.  Do not be like the horse or mule which has no understanding but must be controlled by a bridle or they will not come to you.--Psalm 32: 8-9

We make this journey not as master and servant, but with Father, Brother, Friend.  We make it with the sweetest of companions.

Going Out to Fish

Like you probably do, I start each day with a fair idea of what I am going to do in it.  Even when I don't make a list, I usually know whether I will go to work or the grocery store or to lunch with a friend.

But God switches life up sometimes. 

Like a couple of weeks ago, when I started the afternoon visiting with a young mom and finished it in the emergency room.  Once the dust settles, you just kind of look around, shake your head a little, and wonder, "Now what?"

I think that Jesus' disciples  felt the same way during the weeks following the resurrection.  They'd been traveling with Jesus for years.  They knew what He wanted them to do every day.  "Follow me," He told them and they did.

But now they couldn't. Overnight, their life and mission evaporated.  They couldn't follow Jesus where He was going.  Most of the time, they didn't even know where He had gone.  The heck with it, they thought.

"I'm going out to fish," Simon Peter told them, and they said, "We'll go with you."  So they went our and got into the boat...--John 21:3

Why not?  They didn't have anything else constructive to do.  Jesus hadn't given them any other direction.  Might as well go back to the one thing they knew they were good at.

Jesus had told them once that He would make them fishers of men, but without Him, they didn't know how to begin.   Jesus had already accomplished salvation.  His work was done.  Was theirs done, too?

Then, just as suddenly as their work looked over, Jesus again lit their way.  Before the night was out, they had a boat full of fish and they were having breakfast with Christ again.  Even better, by the time they were done eating, He had begun to explain what they were to do.

Feed my sheep.--John 21:17

Peter and the gang were off and running again.  And it works the same way for us.

Sometimes, God shifts our gears and in the pause between, we feel at bit at a loss, somewhat out of focus.  But it won't last.  Just wait a bit.  At some point, He'll tell you what to do. 

And, in the meantime, you might as well go fishing.

Looking into the Bush

Days in the sheepfold stretched out long and peaceful. Moses listened to shy wind in the trees, watched mild sheep graze in long fields. Birds sang and, though his ears always rose attentive for the wolf, he brought his animals in and out in satisfaction. His wife waited at home with a hot meal and his children wrapped their arms around his legs in greeting when he walked through the door. He worshiped God in those days, and lived in as much harmony with Him as exile allowed. God gave him a good life and he lived it in gratitude.

Now, Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in the flames of fire from within the bush. God called to him from within the bush, "Moses, Moses!" Then He said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.--Exodus 3:1,2,4,6

The bush burned, but did not burn up. The flames crackled and their heat drove Moses back in fear. Their light hurt his eyes. And it did not extinguish. It lit the desert before him, illuminated Horeb as a backdrop. What moments before had been an ordinary day burned with glory that left him barefoot and shaking. He found no comfort here.

That day, You called Moses to more--more than shepherding, more than father and family, more than content Hebrew exile. You set him on a road that would eventually shred his old life, but one on which he would see you face-to-face.

You do the same for us. The leap we make when we initially set out eyes on Your road and start walking is only the first. At some point, You ordain a second. Some day, while we are peacefully attending our flock, faithfully seeing to the life You have given, studying, worshiping, serving, You call our name and beckon us to more. You set a bush aflame before us, rise up in new glory, and say "Here I AM!"

That day, You call us to worship only You--not an image of You, not an idea of You, not the motion of worship, not a reflection of You. You intend to shred our life, too, and fill the void with Yourself. That is the second moment of decision, and we face it in fear, because You have unmasked Yourself before us.

Thought for today: In what ways is God calling you to more than a well-managed life with Him? Where do you feel the fear of abandoning your life to Him?