His Back is Enough

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Moses wanted to see God.
He did. Or thought he did.
He'd been up on the mountain with God's presence and with Him in his tent in the Israelite camp.
The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.--Exodus 33:11

It didn't really happen that way, though. Not literally. I know this because God also said to him:
I cannot show you my face, because no one may see Me and live.--Exodus 33:20

We're not talking about the skin and bone face--the one our eyes and nose inhabit. We're talking about a metaphorical face, an entity that exhibits our emotions and helps us communicate. And we have more than one face like that. There's an old saying that a man has three faces: one he shows to the world, one he shows to those closest to him, and one no one but himself ever sees at all. So God must have faces, too. Like the one He shows without showing it--the one Moses saw on the mountain, the one that friends see. But it's not God's literal face. No man gets to see that and live.

So when Moses wanted more of God, he declared,
Now show me your glory.--Exodus 33:18
And he got it. God said,
You will see my back, but my face must not be seen.--Exodus 33:23
His back. God turned His back on Moses.

Now, as I think about that, I wonder whether that isn't the part of God I see most often, too? His back. God going away. God after He's finished doing whatever it is that He wants to do in my life. God stepping back, saying, "See--I made this."
See! I am doing a new thing!--Isaiah 43:18

It isn't easy to see what God is doing while He's doing it, you know. While God is doing something, I'm usually looking for Him somewhere else. When I'm looking for Him to heal my friend, He's increasing her faith instead. When I'm looking for Him to open the way for a new job, He's arranging a raise for my husband so I can volunteer instead. When I'm looking for Him to save my son's marriage, He's planning for a daughter-in-law who loves Him. I never see it coming. Never. 

And why does this surprise me?
Eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has not entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him.--1Corinthians 2:9

What God has planned is better than what I have planned. Period.
So, if all I get to see is His back, well, that's OK. After all, how bad can it be? So what if I don't see it until it's all over? So what if He leaves me scratching my head, saying, "So THAT'S what You were doing."

So what if all we get to see is God's back? His fingerprints, His trailing, glorious echo. I'm good with that. His back is enough.

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!

Discipline: Punishment or Consequences?

credit: wiki-crunch.com

 

I love the story of the centurion in Matthew 8. Jesus has been healing as He walked along His way--those with leprosy, with demons, a paralytic, and in Capernaum, a centurion approached Him. Now, centurions were fierce dudes--not only soldiers, but commanders in the most proficient, and most deadly, army on earth. I have no doubt that the Hebrews' most common contact with these soldiers was to be ordered by them to do something--to get out of their way or to pay them respect or to carry something for them. But not this time.

This centurion's servant was dying. He was paralyzed and suffering and, whether the soldier fretted because he was losing his investment or whether he had genuine affection for the man, he nevertheless asked Jesus for a favor, the only recorded incident of a Roman soldier doing so. And, knowing what would happen next, Jesus says that He will go to the soldier's home to heal his servant.

This is where it gets good.

The soldier replies,
Lord, I am not worthy that you come under my roof. Only say the word and my servant will be healed.--Mathew 6:8

Lord, I am not worthy, he said. 
And neither am I. Not worthy that Christ forgave me. Not worthy that Christ healed me. Certainly not worthy that Christ lives in me.
I know I deserve to die. Now. A long time ago, in fact. And it hasn't happened.
I am stuck here. And I am not worthy.
I am not worthy of life, the life that God gave me, the life that belongs exclusively to Him.

So now what?

Now, like the centurion, I have to understand my position.
Yes, I deserve to die. I deserve to be cut off from God forever. So what is God going to do about it?
He will discipline me. 
Yes, He will. One way or another, I will know the result of what I have done, and that can happen in one of two ways. I will either experience the consequences of what I have done, or I will be punished.

They are not the same thing, you know. Consequences and punishment. They are different.
It's like this:
If my child starts a fight with little Joey at school, I am going to have to do something about it. He would know consequences when I march him back to school the next day, have him face Joey on the same playground in front of the same kids who watched him fight yesterday, and let them see and hear him apologize and admit to Joey that what he did was wrong. But he would know punishment if I called Family Services and told them to come and get the little violent monster and take him away, that I didn't want him for a son anymore.

See the difference? Consequences teach and preserve the relationship, keeping the love intact, but punishment ends the relationship, withdrawing the love.

God does the same thing.

Like my love for Joey, we are given God's love unconditionally. I could kick Joey to the curb for his transgressions, and God could do the same thing to me. I've earned it, after all. But, just like Joey acknowledges my place as parent in his life so that I can administer consequences rather than punish him, God allows me to stay close to Him, even when I don't deserve it, as long as I love Him back. 

Yes, you are unworthy, God says to me.
And I say the same thing to my children. They did nothing to be born and do not deserve any of the love and care we lavish on them. But they get it. They are unworthy, too.
Yes, you are unworthy, God says. 
But I love you.
Get over it.

Our Father, Who Art in Heaven

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Father. Our Father. Father God.
It rolls off the tongue. So easy. So natural. So....well, true.
God is our Father. He made us. He nurtures us. He loves us.
But not for everyone.

I got a real eye-opener recently when I heard the story told by Scott Hahn* regarding the discussion/debate he had with a muslim cleric about God. Actually, Hahn didn't want to engage in the debate--he was convinced by his sister and brother-in-law because he was the only person they knew who was theologically educated well enough to even try and, well, the cleric wanted to. After all, it wasn't an opportunity that presented itself every day.

And, actually, it started out pretty well. They agreed about a lot of the attributes of God--His perfection, His majesty, His sovereignty, His might. They agreed about many of His works--His creation and sustenance of the world, His destruction of mankind through flood and their preservation through Noah,  His liberation of the Israelites through Abraham, and more. But the trouble started when Hahn first referred to God as 'Father'.

The first time Hahn called God Father, the cleric slammed his fist down on the table, shouting that he would not tolerate any more blasphemy. Blasphemy? wondered Hahn. For calling God 'Father'? Apparently. For a muslim, it is blasphemy to ascribe any human characteristic to God. God, to him, is not Father, nor is He a Son. He does not love with a Father's heart, and He does for forgive with it, either. 

Then what, Hahn asked, is God if not Father?
"Master," declared the cleric. "God is Master."

Master--as in slave master. Master--with complete authority but no obligation to affection. Master--owner and source of all sustenance, but with no need of mercy. Master--user, ruler, absolute commander. Worshiped and followed without question, unforgiving of failure, not hesitating to deservedly punish. God.

And that was the problem. God the Father loves. God the Master rules.

If this sounds unduly harsh, maybe we shouldn't be too surprised. We were warned of this. Sarah, Abraham's wife, made it obvious:
Get rid of the slavewoman and her son, for that slavewoman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.--Genesis 21:10

Ishmael and Isaac, both Abraham's sons, would not share the same inheritance. Ishmael would forever be a slave, but Isaac would inherit all of Abraham's riches--his herds, his wealth, the best of what Abraham had to give. Ishmael would never again know his father's love. And neither did the cleric, the spiritual descendant of Ishmael. God was not his father.
He never heard this--
So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.--Galatians 4:7

As Christians, we will never fully understand the yoke under which some people have to labor. God is, after all, our kind Father, who, when we stray, waits at the gate for us with open arms. He forgives. He has storehouses of blessings He is saving to shower down on us. He guards and protects and nurtures. He quite literally holds us in the palms of His hands. Not so for everyone, however.

The cleric eventually stormed out of the restaurant where he sat with Hahn, having warned Hahn for the third time that he was not to use terms like Father or Son in relation to God. He'd had enough. God was not, and would never be, his Father.

I admire the cleric for his clear understanding of God's exaltedness, but I have never had to associate God with harshness or with a supremacy that exercises itself without mercy. What terror would God bring without love? How would He use His infinite power? It scares me even to think about it. In the end, though, I am so glad for this perspective. It uncovers the real depth and privilege of the prayer that Christ, the Son of God Himself, gave us. It illustrates vividly the boldness and the favor with which we say,
Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name...

*Allah or Abba, Lighthouse Catholic Media

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.

Where are You?

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I'm wondering--
Who prayed the first prayer?

Simply defined, prayer is conversation with God.
But something else may be implied here, I'm thinking.
After all, Adam and Eve kept company with God in Eden, and that company was, presumably, easy and companionable.
The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day.--Genesis 3:8

It sounds an awful lot like Adam and Eve often walked with Him, that they conversed with God, who showed them the world He'd created for them. Maybe they discussed heaven. Maybe they talked about what each fruit tasted like. Maybe they tossed around names for the animals.
But those conversations weren't prayer, were they?
I'm thinking not.

Prayer implies separation, a conversation held with effort across a chasm. 
Prayer started after God's question,
Where are you?--Genesis 3:9

They always knew how to find one another before that. Adam, Eve, and God, walked easily together before, but this time,
...they hid from the Lord among the trees in the garden.--Genesis 3:8

And God said to them what He is still saying to us--"Where are you?"
We are still hiding, still in the process of finding and being found.
That's where prayer begins, I'm thinking.

That's why it's so hard to pray, so slippery.
God is out there somewhere, and we hear Him sometimes, hear His sweet invitation in the cool of the day, but can't quite get there.
Maybe we're still afraid.
Maybe we're unsure.
Maybe we're still so mortified by our sins.

It doesn't matter.
Prayer is our connection to God for now, but not forever.
Some day, we will see Him face to face, clean and easy again.

Those will not be times for prayers, for not-quite-connected communication.
Those times will bring the same sweet fellowship Adam and Eve once knew--up close and personal.
That is God's biggest promise--Himself.
Your eyes will see the King in His beauty...--Isaiah 33:17

DAD! What are You Doing?!!

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It was hot that day, like most other days.
Nothing special, except that Dad told me we were going to take a trip.
He got me up early, and we took two of our servants, some axes, and went to the grove.
I liked these days. For so many mornings of my 33 years, we had come here to cut wood. The axe felt natural, and its swing so familiar, almost like an extension of my own tight muscles.
And today we would go to Mt. Moriah to make an offering to God, my father and I.
Yes, a good day to begin.
Mom waved to us, smiling, as we walked down the road, and we walked three days before the rocky crags of the mountain rose before us.

Stay here, Dad said to the servants, while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.--Genesis 22:5

The boy. Certainly, I was a man by then. Dad never did get that.
And it took men to climb that mountain, especially with our burdens, the wood and the firepot. But we were missing something.

Father! The fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?
God himself will provide the lamb, he told me. --Genesis 22:7-8

So we laid the fire, then Dad asked me to climb onto the wood pile, and to lay down on it.
The sun was high and bright, and I closed my eyes for a few minutes. The walk had been long.
I heard Dad murmur and when I opened my eyes, I saw it...his knife raised high right above me.
Dad! Dad! What are you doing?

And then that sound...the booming echo and the blinding light. I never saw anything, but heard it:
Abraham! Do not lay a hand on the boy. Now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.--Genesis 22:11-12

And the knife fell--not into my own flesh, but onto the ground, and my dad beside it. He did not look at me while I climbed down from the pyre, but looked up only when he heard the bray of the ram suddenly come out of the brush.

We had worshiped--we had both obeyed--and God had indeed provided the sacrifice.
Now, every time that I present my own sacrifice to God, I see again the upraised knife ready to pierce my own heart all those years ago. And I remember.
Dad dropped the knife because his own heart was already pierced, so he did not have to cut mine.
And I worship anew my God who is the Lord.

His Good Gifts

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I miss my friend Vera, God.
Ten years ago, you gave her to me as one of your sweet blessings and until April, she taught me with the sweet love of a mother. She loved me, she cautioned me, she worried about me, she prayed for me. Oh, how she prayed for me.

Then you took her back, and still, she has not stopped giving.

I am looking at her prayer journal, on the page where our names appear, written in a crabbed hand, hesitant with arthritis:
JoAnne and David Potter

But, further down on the page--why did I not see this before?
Her prayer for herself:
Good health
Good night rest
Strength and energy
Saintly wisdom
Buoyant spirit.

And you gave it to her, God. You gave it to her.
All of it and more. Until that very last day.
And with it, Your witness, through her, that You listen.
Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.--Mark 11:24

Can You Feel It?

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Expect miracles.
That sounds good, like something worth doing, but what, exactly, does a miracle look like?
It's easy, really.
A miracle is the place where God injects Himself into our world. 
It's the place where He touches us, where He lets us get a glimpse, where He is, well, Himself in a world that is so not like Him.
And we should expect Him. He's here, all around, just waiting.

Lord, I have heard of your fame, I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our time. Make them known.--Habakkuk 3:2

This is not only a plea. It's an expectation of wonder, of revelation.
"Make yourself known," we say.
"With pleasure," He says, and then He reaches down.

We are God's people, and God is great. Why not expect great works from Him?
He loves us. Why not expect His touch?

The world will not change much. It will continue to disappoint and to fall into decay. We know that.
But God did not create us to drop us on our heads.
He has something wonderful for us in Himself. 
Anticipate Him.
Can you feel it?

The Baby Will Come

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In 1972, pregnant with my first child, I asked my mother, "How much will it hurt?"
"Don't worry," she told me. "You forget about it after the baby comes."

She was wrong about that.
I didn't forget--not then, and not through my second delivery. I still remember.
I remember the urgency.
I remember the  intensity.
I remember the whole, round, bigger-than-me desire to have the whole thing over with.
I remember how much, partway through, I wanted to give up the whole job.
But, once begun, I was stuck.
Once conceived, once carried, and so long anticipated, the baby would come.

The earth does the same thing.
God implanted in it the perfection of Himself, the pregnancy of His promise, and that child will, with or without our permission, be born.
And we groan in the waiting for it.
Every day, we feel how things ought to be and long for them.

Why do we know so much evil when God is so merciful? we ask.
Birth pangs.
Why do poverty, and sickness, and injustice continually plague us? we ask.
Birth pangs.
Why can't men and women just get along? we ask.
Birth pangs.
Every day, the earth swells with expectation of God's return, it leans into its own pangs of wanting, it opens the way and says, between cries, 
"Come, Lord Jesus!"

Creation was subject to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one Who subjected it, in hope that creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as if in the pangs of childbirth right up to the present time.--Romans 8:20-22


Do you remember your own pangs of childbirth?
Do they give you any insight about the world's imperfections and what joy might still be in store?

What He Gave Me

Most people grow up with an expectation of disappointment or an overriding attitude of fear.
It's true.
I didn't know it for a long time but when I started to ask, almost everyone told me this.
Disappointment and fear: is this how we are meant to live?
No, of course not.

I grew up with an expectation of wonder. And I got it from my dad.
When we were young, Dad took us out for rides on Sunday afternoons (gas was 25 cents). He never told us where we were going, so we looked with anticipation around every corner, asking "Are we there yet?"  When we finally arrived, always at a place Dad had found just for the occasion--a waterfall, or a pristine sledding hill, or a remote Hopi village--he presented it to us with a flourish as if to say, "Isn't it wonderful?" And it always was.
And that was our framework for life.
He showed me what a really fine tomato tastes like.
He marked out the profile of the man in the moon.
He plunged my hands into yeasty, rising dough.
He rolled me down a hill fragrant with just-cut grass.
He stood me in front of President Lincoln and told me to think.
He showed me what the world looked like from the sky.
And it was all wonderful.

My father told me to be smart and careful, but not to be afraid.
And, more importantly, he taught me to LIVE. 
And, without meaning to, he taught me about God.

Do not fear, for I am with you--Isaiah 41:10
For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity--2Timothy 1:7
I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.--Psalm 27:13

In Company with Songbirds

The came in silently, some with shuffling steps, some with walkers. They found the right pages with practiced hands, and looked to casual eyes like a hundred elderly ladies ready for a meeting.
Then they began to sing.
And I realized that I was in the company not of retired nuns at St. Francis House in Dubuque, Iowa, but with songbirds.

"We come to share our story...." they sang.

Their stories not so much as retired nuns, but as redeemed children of Christ.
The story that brings them so much joy, regardless of number of their years or the condition of their flesh:

"We come to break the bread..."

The bread of life, the cup of salvation,
the soaring redemption they all share regardless of their background or origin.

"We come to know our rising from the dead."

They may have trouble sitting, or standing, or walking,
But they know that amidst it all, they rise with Christ.

They taught me this.
Thank you, little birds.

Let Me Do the Weightlifting--Being a Child (Part 2)

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Ok, there are some things kids are not made to do....like lift weights.
And, we are supposed to be like little children.
God says so:
Truly I tell you, unless you change and be like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.--Matthew 18:3
(Click HERE to see Part One)

So, as a child, I can do some stuff, and some stuff I can't.
How do I tell the difference? How do I know when I am lifting too much weight?

So, I made a list--

What I can do:
Let's see....
Chores and jobs, the things I can pick up right now. Yes, I can do those.
I can control my immediate actions and attitudes. Yes.  Don't like it much, but I can do that.
What else?
Not much, as it turns out. 
I can deal with myself and this moment, but otherwise, I'm pretty much out of luck.

So, how about a list of what I can't do?
Control the weather.
  Can I hang laundry? Can we go to the park?
Control my own circumstances.
  Will the butcher have good pork chops for tonight's dinner?
  Will the car stall out again?
  Will the neighbor's dog dig up my petunias?
  Will my husband keep his job for the next year? 
  Will our savings will last through retirement?
   Will I or anyone I care about live through the day?
Convince someone else to do or feel or believe anything.
   Will Jackie pick up his own socks today?
   Will Joanie know that I made her favorite breakfast because I love her?
   Will Johnny EVER come to a saving knowledge of Christ?
The second list, the one made of what I can't do, is much longer. Why am I surprised?

So, when God tells me to be like a child, what does he say to do?
He tells me to concentrate on the first list.
He tells me to let him do the weightlifting.
I just need to realize that I truly am a child--too little, too weak--whether I like it or not.
That's all.

I just need to do what I can and let Him do what I can't.
And remember that His list is longer.
Hm....maybe that's not so bad after all.

This is the Kingdom of Heaven--Being a Child (Part 1)

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God tells us to be like little children:
Truly I tell you, unless you change and be like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.--Matthew 18:3

So, we need to be like children to get to heaven.  
This is important to God.
So, what does it look like for us to become like a child?

Imagine for a minute.
Lay on your bed and open your eyes. You are a child.
You have no plans.
The day spreads before you without schedule or obligation. Free and exciting.
You brim with expectation, ready for surprises.

Days do not have orders. You do not keep a calendar. You do not check your messages.
What happens to the details?
Why, your parents take care of them, of course.
They take care of everything you cannot.
Simple. And all based on trust. You trust them to take care of what you cannot.

As for you, the first bird of the morning sings, your mother takes down your favorite cereal bowl and fills it, your dad, fresh from the shower, gives you a hug.
Later, you may have to make your bed, or help with the dishes, but the hard stuff is in their hands. You don't have to worry about where to live or what to eat or keeping safe. They will.

Your days live ripe with expectation of the unknown and you can do so without worry. Someone cares for you.
This is the kingdom of heaven.

For Part 2, click HERE

I Will Delight...

Delight.
That's it.
That's what is missing from my life with Christ.

But I have so much to do, so much on my mind. I don't have time to be silly...
"I know," says God. "Delight in me anyway."
 
Our life in Christ feels like work.
It makes us sober and steadfast.
We spend time praying and studying and meditating.
None of these makes us laugh.

But, like in God Himself, we can have so much more.

He says to us:
"Giggle. Run to me with abandon. See the wonder in everything. Touch everything.
Here I am. Reach for me.
I delight in you, too."

Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.--Matthew 19:14
Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.--Matthew 18:3
Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight.--Isaiah 42:1

Life does not always make me happy.
But, reaching for Christ, and the life He has planned for me in Him, well, how can I not smile?
Has God made you giggle lately?

Only One Journey

Everybody started with God, so we are all in the process of returning to God.

If we believe God made us, and that we are, at the bottom of all things, His, then we have to acknowledge not only that our yearnings always draw us back to Him, but that our failure to follow them is the root of all of our unhappiness.
“Their deeds do not permit them
    to return to their God.
A spirit of prostitution is in their heart;
    they do not acknowledge the Lord.
Hosea 5:4

We talk about being saved, but this is not a new experience, it is a returning.
We have already been near to God, so it makes sense that we should want Him back. Only one thing--only one-- prevents that.
Israel’s arrogance testifies against them;
    the Israelites, even Ephraim, stumble in their sin;
    Judah also stumbles with them.
When they go with their flocks and herds
    to seek the Lord,
they will not find him;
    he has withdrawn himself from them.
Hosea 5:5-6

Whether we know it or not, we are always seeking God. It doesn't always look like Him, but it is God nonetheless. He is farther away from some than others, but we are all on the same way. There is no where else to go. We must seek God. We were made for this and only this. We only have to admit it and go.
“Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces
    but he will heal us;
he has injured us
    but he will bind up our wounds.
Hosea 6:1 

Spitting Images Sometimes Still Spit

Two peas in a pod...
Frick and frack...
It's reassuring to be like someone. 
More than likely, your best friends are like you in many ways. It's how we get along.

But it's not how we grow.
God did not make a church of identical twins. Instead, He made complementary parts.
Just as each one of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.--Romans 12:4

But we don't like that.  We want people just like us. We want the minister to preach in a way that reaches us. We want the kind of music that moves us. We want a liturgy that is meaningful to us.
And we expect it to reach, and move, and be meaningful to everybody else, too.

Well, that is not God's plan.
We are different.  And we are stuck with each other.
We do not get to change other people to be like us.
And we do not get to divide ourselves from them because they are different.

The church is meant to be more like a family, complete with weird Uncle Ralph and crazy Grandma Mabel.  Or maybe a husband who just doesn't understand us. Or a child who has broken our heart. They are an intentional gift from God. We are supposed to learn to love them exactly as they are.

Spitting images get along pretty effortlessly, but we rarely have the opportunity to find out. More often, we share our lives with people very different from ourselves and have to figure out how to share in peace. It is good. God would have us make the effort.

Slaughter of the Innocents--Why, God?

Can you hear them?
Keening in the lonely nights.  Desperate clinging to what is no more.  Sweet, cooling flesh.
God did not stop them, the soldiers who came with swords.

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.  Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, for her children are no more."--Matthew 2:16-18

The children died without having lived, and they haunt us.
And it happens still.
We don't understand--not then, not now.

I don't know why this happens, but I hear the children's cry, the cry quieted forever almost before it is uttered.  And I weep for them, too--for all of them.
But at the same time, I know that they are spared.  They rest in the one place for which I still long.
They died too soon, too soon, but they will never know what we have to live every day--
the yawning separation, and the long, struggling creep back into God's arms.

Works for Me...

Forty years.
Why did God make Moses and his Jews wander around in the desert for forty years?  Why not twenty? Why not fifty?

What happens in forty years. anyway?
People die, that's what.  Two generations die.
In forty years, God knew that virtually none of the people who He rescued from Egypt would still be alive.  None of the ones who worshiped the golden calf.  None of the ones who complained about not having onions.  None of them, not even the babies.

 Your sons shall be shepherds for forty years in the wilderness, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness, until your corpses lie in the wilderness.--Numbers 14:33

After forty years, none of those Jews still living would have remembered anything about their life in Egypt.  They all would have grown up in the desert.  They would know nothing of lush harvests or emerald rivers.  They would know only sand and sun and manna and God.  And they would be grateful for the promised land.

God thinks in terms of generations. Men do not.
Even Hezekiah, who came to know God and to teach his whole kingdom about Him, didn't get that God does not just care about individuals.  He cares about legacies.

 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord Almighty: The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”

“The word of the Lord you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For he thought, “There will be peace and security in my lifetime.”--Isaiah 39:5-8 

In other words, Hezehiah thought, "It may suck to be you, but it works for me..."

God doesn't agree.

What damage does generational faithlessness produce?

Examine your own heritage. 

What did your grandparents do or know that has been lost?

Did a grandparent build or sing or sew or cook something that has disappeared forever?

Did they know how to survive without car or grocery store or telephone?

Does they have a heritage of faith that has dwindled from misuse?

Two generations and it is lost.  Gone, and irretrievable.

Forfeiting what was good from prior generations steals from our children.

We keep the faith of our fathers today not just because it benefits ourselves, but so that we can build an unbroken chain of those who know and love God for the future.

And you shall teach them your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house,
and when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.--Deuteronomy 11:19

Beyond the Bandaid

I am concerned about my son.
No--that's not right.
Just say it.
I'm worried about him.

Never mind why.  The reason doesn't much matter because he's a grown man and I can't do much about it.
But that doesn't stop the love.  Or the worry.

In fact, his maturity increases the concern because my ability to influence his situation decreases with his increasing age.
Unlike when he scraped his knee falling off a bike or when little Jimmy took a poke at him on the playground, I can't kiss away his hurt.
I can't fix it.
And parents are fixers.

So what do I do?  God has some advice:
This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Choose life, so that you and your children may live...Deuteronomy 30:19a

I want life and blessings for my children, but I can't get them by fixing their hurts and problems.  I do it by choosing God.

Can I bring my sons practical help?  Sure.  In fact, I should.
But that help is only a bandaid in the larger scheme of things.

My choosing God, however--walking with Him before my children and the world--gives God the opportunity He craves to do what only He can do.

How do I know this?  He told me:
Listen to His voice and hold fast to Him, for the Lord is your life.--Deuteronomy 30:19b

Choosing God first will probably alter the kind of bandaid I apply to my son's owie.
Choosing God first may open the wound farther so He can clean it out properly.
But choosing God brings real healing and everlasting life.
And that is what a mother ultimately wants for her sons.