Hit Me

So I'm playing blackjack and I'm dealt 15 points.
The smart money says that I take another card, that 15 points will probably not be enough to win.
But the next card might be another seven, or it might be a a jack.
And I would lose.
I scratch my head and hesitate.
I don't know what will happen next. I wait. I think. I ask "What if...?" until finally I squeak out, "Hit me."
And the dealer does.

Fact is, we don't know what will happen next. 
Not in cards, not  in life.

We are always looking at the hand we are dealt today, looking at the decisions we must make, and determine whether to hit or hold based on only part of the information we need.
I don't like that.
In fact, I like it much less in life than I do in an inconsequential game of cards.
Life brings much, much higher stakes.

But it's OK.
I don't have to know the next card. 
God knows it.
And because he does, we don't have to hedge our bets.

When Abraham went to settle in Gerar, he tried to hedge.
He told the king that his wife was really his sister so that they wouldn't get thrown out.
He already had 17 or 18 points in his hand, but he wanted to win, no matter what.
"Hit me," he said.
Only the next card was the king of hearts.
Abimilech took a fancy to Sarah, thinking her single.
Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

However, unlike Abe, Abimilech did not try to guess the next card.
He, in this situation, displayed more trust in God than Abe, and God rewarded him by watching his back.
Abimilech, looking at his hand, held, like he was supposed to do.
And God protected him from the sin he might have otherwise committed.

And God said to him, Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart, for I prevented you from sinning against me, therefore I suffered you not to touch her.--Genesis 20:6

We don't have to know the next card the dealer will slide off the pack.
We don't have to agonize over every decision.
There are rules, and we just have to follow them and trust God to take care of us in whatever He deals.
Hit or hold,  win or bust, the point is not the game itself--it is how we get to the end of it.

Who Are You Looking At?

Do you ever wonder how God wants us to pray? I do.
I am not satisfied with most prayer. 
It seems self-serving, not God-serving.
It sometimes sounds whiny, like "This is what I want, God. Would you help me out and give it to me, please?"
Prayer can also sound like the person praying has too little faith to even know what, or more importantly, who to ask. Like "I am so overwhelmed, God. Please help me. Please bail me out. Don't let me suffer like this."

I know that God tells us to ask for things.
And I also know that He understands when we get in so deep we can't see the way out.
But when these prayers of rescue or favor-granting become our standard fare, when our daily prayers consist of fearful flailing and endless lists of I-wants, I am sure we are not in the place God wants us.

To confirm that, I look at John 17:
After Jesus said this, He looked toward heaven and prayed...--John 17:1
He looked toward heaven, not toward His concerns on earth.

Glorify your Son so that your Son may glorify You.--John 17:2
He asked only for what would benefit His Father, not Himself.

I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me.--John 17:9
Jesus confined His prayers to what His Father had already indicated as concerning Him.

May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.--John 17:21
He prayed for the success of the plan His Father put in motion through Him.

Jesus does not once here pray for His own concerns--His coming suffering, His earthly friends and family, or His own strength. He trusts God for all of these.

If I pray for a thing, then my goal is clearly the thing, not God.
If I pray for a relationship, I am more interested in the relationship than in God.

I cannot even pray for new motivations, or emotions, or will. Those are my part.  God will not control me. I must control myself and dealing with my own will and emotion and motivation is how I do it. My obedience in emotional self-control is what I bring to the party.

And we wonder why our prayer is not answered.
God does not give His favors to relative strangers looking for a new toy.
Proper prayer, however, God always answers, and we find it in those rare moments when our will intersects with His own.

Prayer is answered from a place of union with God only.

Do Not Forget

God does not forgive, much less forget.
At least not in the way we most often think about it.
Just saying.

He never makes our sins just go 'poof!' and disappear. 
He does, however, move them.
I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist.--Isaiah 44:22
...as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.--Psalm 103:12
But He does not make sin disappear until somebody dies.

When we know we are guilty, He does not forgive.
When we repent, He does not forgive.
Only after somebody dies does God forgive and, for us, God wants that person to be Jesus.

When we repent and believe, our sins are moved to Jesus' back, and He died for them, all of them. 
If we don't repent and believe, we are stuck with our own sins, forever, all the way into eternity, where we must do the dying for them.

Imagine that, every time we lie, a soldier drives another nail through Jesus' hand into the cross.
Every time we cheat or betray or love the world,--another nail, and another and another.
Don't kid yourself.
If you expect forgiveness, this must happen. It must. Either that, or you hang on to your sins right into hell.
The only way out is to stop sinning, which we should probably give serious consideration.
But forgetting may not be such a good idea.

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

Jew for a Day

I am trying to imagine myself a Jew today.
Or a Buddhist, or a Mohammedan, or a Muslim.
I know that God exists.  
He made me. His power drives the world.
Somewhere, from up high and far away, He influences my life.

I try to serve Him. I try to obey Him. I reach out to love Him, to draw near to Him, but He is too terrible, too far.
He speaks to men sometimes, but they don't benefit much from the conversation.  They are too flawed themselves.
Such men have stood so near God as to hear His voice in thunder and whisper, to feel the heat of His fire, to witness His blinding brightness, but even then, they fail.
They smash His personally engraved tablets in a fit of anger.
They fear their king so deeply that they tell him their wife is their sister.
They sleep with their captain's wife, then kill him to cover it up.
No, these men, though they have spoken with God, do not help much at all.

And, because I am a Jew, there is no Jesus.
God shows no gentleness, little mercy, no offered fellowship, no shared humanity.
I long for God, but know that He will not share His heaven with the likes of me.
I can never know my God.

Then I remember Simeon:
Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared for the face of all people; a light to  lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of your people Israel.--Luke 2:29-32

He saw Jesus on the day of His presentation in the Temple.
One look.  That's all it took to change an impossible contradiction into hope and a future.
One look.
Not a God far away, but God in my own skin.
Simeon, a faithful Jew, but as sad and impatient as the rest, had waited for the promise.
And it came.
It came to him in the same way that it comes to everyone--in one moment.

I look up and He is there.
My Savior lives.

We, the Needy

OK, so you aren't rich.
Most of us aren't.
Or are we?  I mean, rich compared to who?
We might not be rich compared to Bill Gates, but how about compared to someone living in the Middle Ages, who feared plague or walked in cow dung every day? Or in Renaissance Europe, when courtiers carried perfumed hankies because people and places stank so badly? Or modern Ethiopia, where starvation kills thousands of people every day?
We are, in fact, richer than we ordinarily think.

Admit it.
We live in a place and time of comfort and privilege.  No one dies of starvation here.  We do not wake to the sound of gunfire. Our lives are luxuriant beyond that of ancient kings.

But are very poor in one way.  We can no longer see God.
We are the ones Jesus spoke of when He said,
Blessed are they who have not seen, yet believe.--John 20:29

We have not seen.
Moses, Abraham, and Noah have long ago died. The burning bush is extinguished.  The voice on Sinai is silent. Jesus does not walk among us.  We cannot, by word of mouth, learn of something He did just yesterday in the next town.

We need one thing those poorer people did not.
If we are to know God, we must have faith.
No earthly privilege will bring it.
No wealth can buy it.
We will not stumble upon it hanging on a cross in the town square.

Still, God made us for this time.
Faith is part of our intended destiny and, indeed, it is our privilege.
Because we cannot see, we must believe.

My Lord and my God!--John 20:28
The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth.--Psalm 145:18

Waaaaa!

What do you cry about?
Be honest.
Sadness, loneliness, loss, physical pain, emotional hurt?
More often then not, this is the audio to that:  "Me. Me. Me."
Even empathy for someone else transfers from our own remembered pain.
Our tears are almost always all about us.
I do it, too.

We begin at birth with a cry of outrage when life smacks us with cold and discomfort, and we wail at its first assaults.
And they keep coming.
And, when they seem too much, we cry.

Did Jesus cry at birth?
He felt the pain and cold, too, but did He cry?
He wept later, but in very specific circumstances--over the sins of His people, and again at Lazarus' grave.  He wept for the death of people he loved. In no recorded instance did He cry over personal loneliness, insult, betrayal, or desertion.
Not like we do.
Jesus' flesh felt every body blow as deeply as our does, but He did not cry over them.
Why not?

Think about Him at His weakest moment--in the garden, sweating blood in an agony of anticipated suffering.
"Let this cup pass", He begged, but it would not.
He had come to the end of His human resources, but He did not cry.
I cry because I do not master my flesh.
Jesus, Master of all things, did.

He felt every pain, every hurt, as deeply as I do, but He did not give in to them.
Why not?  What was the difference?
He knew Himself.
He knew His Father.
He had already won.
I am supposed to know this, too, and in this knowledge, self-pity has no place.

Can I hold His kind of mastery over myself all the time?  No.
But in this, like in all things, Christ says,
"Follow Me."
"Be holy."
"My yoke is easy."

From the very first ones, all of my tears have been selfish.
Yes, tears sometimes come as a release, too, and I will still shed these, but I have no real reason to cry. Not ever.  Not really.
My Savior lives. He loves and cares for me.
What could I possibly cry about in the face of that?

Shedding the Weight

"How do I get to heaven?" she asked.

I was proud of myself.  I knew the answer.
"Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved."--Acts 16:31

"So, I just have to believe in God, I'm saved?"

Hmmm...I knew that wasn't quite right.  I went back to the drawing board.

I know that, to get to heaven, God must forgive my sins.  That's the business He transacted on Calvary--forgiveness for all men--all.  
I also know that not everyone goes to heaven. 

Jesus arranged forgiveness, but what happens after that?
How DO we get to heaven? 

I thought of the parables Jesus used to explain heaven: the ten virgins, the farmer sowing seed, the prodigal son.  Then I thought of that woman--the one who embarrassed the Pharisees at their own dinner table by crawling on the floor anointing Jesus' feet and crying.  She was going to heaven.  What was special about her?

Her many sins have been forgiven, for she loved much.  But he who has been forgiven little, loves little.--Luke 7:47

This woman knew without doubt that she was a monster sinner, so she clung to her Savior.  She clung, and cried, and touched Him for the sheer relief and wonder of it.  She loved Him with abandon because, of everyone there, she alone understood.

Then I understood, too.
We are all that woman.
We all bear the same dreadful weight of sin.  But some know it, and some don't.  Those who know it go to heaven. 

We are saved when we know we need to be, really, achingly, desperately.  We are saved when we know that no one but Christ can usher us into heaven, that our own good deeds are dirty rags, that we are lost, literally lost, without Him.

Some became fools through their rebellious ways and suffered affliction because of their iniquities.  Then they cried to the Lord and He saved them from their trouble.  Give thanks to the Lord for His unfailing love and His wonderful deeds for men.--Psalm 107: 17, 19, 21

Christ lifted the weight of sin from all men on Calvary, but He does it individually for each man only when our eyes at last meet His and we see.

Look In My Eyes

It happened again.  When will I learn?  Just when I trust, just when I relax into a relationship or circumstance, BANG!  The thing goes bad somehow. Thoughtlessness, carelessness, ill will, or just plain bad luck brings it all down in an instant.  I hate this part.  I really do.

Then God reminds me that this all happens because I let it.
Listen to me.  Who are you that fear mortal men? Awake as in days gone by. Do not fear the reproach of men. Clothe yourselves in strength, O arm of the Lord.--from Isaiah 51: 1-16

I am the arm of the Lord.
Not in the sense of administering His punishment or judgement, but in that He provides the strength with which I face my life in this world, whatever that life brings.
I am He who comforts you.  The cowering prisoners will soon be set free.  The ransomed of the Lord will return.--from Isaiah 51:1-16
Is anything too hard for the Lord?--Genesis 18:14


God is already acting on my behalf and I do not see it.
You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways.-Isaiah 64:5
All nations will be blessed because you obeyed me.--Genesis 22:18


When we want our children to listen to us, we gently turn their face to ours and say to them, "Look in my eyes."
What does God say?
Listen to me.--Isaiah 51: 1
Effectively, He says, "Look in my eyes."
Remember what I have already done.
Remember what I have promised.
As I have done, so will I continue to do.

See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up.  Do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert.--Isaiah 43:18-19

Life does seem like a desert sometimes, but God has already redeemed it.  Neither man nor circumstance can harm me in any real way if I have believed God.  He has already shown me, and bids me remember.  I must remember how He strengthens my arm.

This strength is what belief looks like.
Hurt, misfortune, intentional harm.
When I look into His eyes, it all fades.

Seeing Red

I can't get her out of my mind.
I keep thinking about that tender woman in the crowds by the lake at Galilee, bleeding out, slow drop by slow drop.
Weak, pale, outcast.  She crawled through the crowd, propelled by a faith born of desperation.  Desperation.  But it was enough.  She reached out.

Then, unbidden, with the touch of grace and power that He wrapped around Him like a sweet cloak, Jesus stopped her bleeding.
Facing His own passion, His own blood sacrifice, He spared hers.

Daughter, your faith has healed you.  Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.--Mark 5:34

That's the way it works.  Freedom is purchased by the blood of one for the benefit of another.  So it did that day, and so it does for us. Just as for all the blood shed for freedom through long ages of men, as it flowed from one, it stopped for another. 
The woman did contribute something, however.
She contributed faith.

Today, we remember that much blood has flowed for freedom and still does, but as it does, it causes us to yearn for a day when, like for this woman, another exchange for freedom awaits. The Lord of the universe promises an end to the bleeding.  Rather than life's blood, we long to offer faith alone and be freed from suffering.

His blood flowed once for all, but our blood continues to stain the world.
Someday, we will know freedom from that, too.

Annoyed and Overwhelmed

Emotional words bear layers of meaning.  Take 'annoyed' for example.  When I am annoyed, I experience irritation--a rough, edgy state because I must deal with a trivial situation or unreasonable person.  That is the first layer.  The second layer, however, is realizing that my annoyance always begins with a feeling of selfish superiority, a state in which I believe myself too wise or too important to deal with that person or circumstance.  Once I know that, also know that I am not only annoyed, I am in sin.
Therefore:
      Annoyed = Selfish Pride

So, too, are the layers of declaring that I am overwhelmed.  What is overwhelmed, anyway?  Strictly speaking, being overwhelmed means being swept away, like the damage wreaked by a tornado or tsunami.  But when we say we are overwhelmed, we are rarely truly defeated, and never dead. Why, then, do we say we are overwhelmed?

Maybe the answer lies in the second layer of feeling here, too.  Jesus illustrated this second layer when he met a man feeling overwhelmed by his son's epileptic-type seizures.

"How long has he been like this?" Jesus asked.
"From childhood...If you can do anything, have pity on us and help us!"
"If you can?  Everything is possible to him who believes."
"I do believe.  Help me with my unbelief!"--Mark 9:21-24

We believe, but like that father, our belief is incomplete.
Jesus said the man felt overwhelmed because he lacked belief. He would say the same to us.
Therefore:
     Overwhelmed = Unbelief


Belief is God's gift to us...His gift and His promise, and the key to heaven.
You are my witness and my servant whom I have chosen so that you know and believe me and understand that I am He.--Isaiah 43:10

That is the grace of it.  We flail around in sin, like when we feel annoyed or overwhelmed, but God is always so close, so close.  If I concentrate, I can usually feel His sweet breath--and feel Him push aside my own pride, my own agenda and desire.  It is then I reach out to Him, where there is no reason to be annoyed and no room for being overwhelmed.

How Good People Lie

The Bible says that Abraham was righteous, but describes how he lied about his wife.  It says Moses was righteous, too, then relates that he killed a man and ran away.  Then it says that the Pharisees, who revered and followed God's law to the letter, were not righteous, but vile, stinking, empty tombs.  What?

No one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law--rather through the law we become conscious of sin...Righteousness from God comes through faith...--Romans 3:20-22

Over and over, God's Word tells us that only faith justifies, only faith saves.  But that is not enough for us.  We want to DO something.  And doing good is healthy and pleasing to God...until the doing takes on more importance than the believing. 

The tipping point comes when we equate doing good with being good, when we believe that our ability to follow the rules makes us right in God's eyes.  This is where the Pharisees went wrong, and so do we.

The Jews had their law, but we have ours, too.  Every time we say or hear "But he's a good person!" to justify salvation, we witness a lie.  No one who tries to follow good behavior into God's lap of forgiveness will reach his goal.  Neither Pharisaical law nor a pretty, shined up life lead to heaven.

God does not change.  He does not flinch.  He saved by faith then, and saves by faith now.  Moses and Abraham believed, and were made righteous.  We believe, and He does the same for us.

And because believing includes recognizing God's supremacy and perfection, faith leads to repentance, and all the pieces come together.  The very last--the last--is the doing. 

We can't change a faithless, but proper, life into a saved one any more than a broken vase can be made into a perfectly new one.  We can only present our broken pieces to the Lord of all by faith, and let Him do what we cannot.

Reaching In

God's most frequent admonition for us is to believe.  "Come to me," He says.  "Know me."  "Trust me."  And we do for a little while, but then the days come when we do not.  Heavy, dark days.  Lonely days.  Days when we know He has died and been buried and we don't know what to do next.  We heard that He had risen from the grave, but we haven't seen Him.

He has instructions for these times:
Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.--John 14:27
Do not worry about your life--Matthew 6:25
Cast your cares on the Lord.--Psalm 55:22

We try, but the sadness persists.

That is when our sweet Lord offers us His side.
Put your finger here.  Reach out your hand and put it into my side.  Stop doubting and believe.--John 20:27

He is real.  He had died and risen.  He has rescued us from death.  No matter how we feel, we must know that His wound  has bled real blood so that we can know peace, so that we can be free.  And when, on some days, the knowledge of these is not enough, we can reach our hand into His side, feel His pulse, and know, really know.

 He does not shrink back from our touch.  We cannot shrink from His.
I am with you always, to the very end of the age.--Matthew 28:20

Feeling My Way

Some days, I know that God is near.  And some days, I reach out for Him and can't grab on.  I feel nothing, encounter no reassuring presence, no supporting pressure from the everlasting arms.  These are the times, the times when senses fail, that I must remember.

It was not their sword that won the land, nor did their arm bring them victory; it was Your right hand, Your face, for You loved them.--Psalm 44:3

God is there when I do not see His face.  He is there when I cannot sense Him near.  Just like trying to maneuver around familiar surroundings in the dark--I put one foot in front of the other in the direction He last showed me, confident that He has not changed.  I know where I last saw his footprints, last beheld His face.  That is where He still waits for me.  

Many are asking, who can show us any good?  Let the light of Your face shine on us, O Lord.--Psalm 4:6

You shine on us when we cannot see.  You love us when we cannot feel.  You guide us when we cannot acknowledge Your nudge.  

If those who believe but do not see are blessed, equally blessed must be those who know but cannot feel and whose steps remain resolute in darkness, sadness, loneliness, pain, and doubt. His right hand still holds us.  His face still shines on us, for He loves us.

Am I Not Sending You?

I always felt kind of sorry for Gideon.  Bible stories tell us that he was a mighty man of valor, but they sure seem to exaggerate.  Gideon cried, and cringed, and complained.  He questioned his mission at every step. He performed every act of 'bravery' sneaking around at night.  And I don't blame him. 


God gave Gideon an nasty job, then took away every tool he needed to perform it.

God found Gideon sneaking around threshing wheat in his father's winepress so the Midianites wouldn't find him.  Then, when God told him to cut down his father's pagan worship sites, he did it at night so no one would blame him for it.  When God told him to defeat the Midianites, he said, "Who, me?" and whipped out a fleece to see whether he could get out of it....twice.  When the day finally came to do the deed, and he snuck up (again) on the Midianite camp with his pitiful 300 soldiers, they wielded flares and trumpets rather deadly weapons.

God  heard Gideon's weak whining, but ignored it.  Frankly, I'm surprised that Gideon didn't give it all up as a bad job.

Gideon had to take his piddly army into a sad kind of battle saying only, "God told me."  He must have looked like an idiot.  What if he was wrong?

God, of course, had something clear and plain to say to that:

The Lord turned to him and said, "Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand.  Am I not sending you?"--Judges 6:14

Visual:  [Slap upside the head]

"Am I not sending you?  Am I not the God of the universe?  Did I make a mistake?"

Of course not.  God says 'Defeat the Midianites' or 'Build the temple' or 'Kill the giant,' then proceeds to tell us that we don't need anything but what little strength we have and Him.  It's about Him.  It's always about Him.


Gideon didn't need any equipment greater than his faith.

Fortunately, he did have that.

God has given us a job, too.  He is sending us somewhere without equipment or soldiers or bravery.  Is our faith strong enough?

Petting the Tiger--Long Arms are Harder to Bite

Sometimes we forget that teeth and claws are dangerous. Yesterday, my sister related her latest adventure at an exotic animal rescue facility. The day she visited, they had three tiger cubs she got to pet and play with. Still too young to have teeth or claws, they frolicked like any other kitten--jumping, rolling, cuddling. She remembered, luckily, that in a matter of weeks, these little balls of fur would mature into the wild cats they were born to be and the kind of play she enjoyed that day would become impossible, but for then, she could relax in the company of a wild beast.

I couldn't help thinking about the dangers we, as Christians, sometimes toy with.

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.--1Timothy 4:1

If you study the Scriptures, you know that these are the last days. The dangers described surround us now, and in growing measure as years pass, every bit as dangerous as a tiger's teeth. We tend to think that we are safe in church but, as Timothy tells us, we are not. Believers today are not immune to the same temptations suffered by pharisees and pagans in Christ's time. Sanctified zealousness easily becomes crippling legalism. Yearning for the Spirit develops into charismatic idolatry.

We embrace appealing leaders too tightly, even in the church, if Christ is not in place as our only head.

We strain our ears to hear a word from God, so eager to share divine knowledge that we fail to adequately test what we hear. We trust experienced men and women of faith to lead us toward God and sometimes they do, but sometimes they do not.

Anything that comes through the lips or pen of another human being is suspect, and grows more so with every passing year.

Unfortunately, our love for God often becomes too entwined with our love for His people and the vine that should be Christ's alone eventually takes on other faces.

When this happens, be ruthless. I have to sift everything I hear from everybody through what God says in the Bible. No exceptions. It's not easy. I want to believe what God's people tell me. In the end, though, looking to one another rather than standing side by side and looking together to Christ always brings calamity.

Just as a longer arm more easily holds a soon-to-be-dangerous tiger cub at bay, so does our longer spiritual arm when it reaches past a dear and familiar world directly to God. He wants us to do this. He wants us to look directly into His face and to say, like Samuel,

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.--1Samuel 3:10

Paul's Secret

The apostle Paul said that he was content in all circumstances. Well, I am not. I do not like sickness, trouble, or outright adversity. I do not like bad weather, hard days, or crabby people. Frankly, I do not think that he did either. Nobody does.

So what exactly did he mean?

I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation...Philippians 4:12

Paul needed to learn a secret in order to achieve this contentment. Well, Paul, give it up, will you?

I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus as my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.--Philippians 3:4

His secret was knowing Christ. He gave up everything for this secret. He began life educated and influential, met Jesus, and left it all behind. Without money or power, Paul leaned only on faith in Christ, and he found it plenty. This was his secret.

But, be careful in this. He did not find faith by the giving up of money and power. Practical trouble and poverty do not automatically usher in faith--they are not admission into the throne room of God. We do not become holy by experiencing privation. And yet...

Trouble does seem to follow believers, however, doesn't it? Sometimes seemingly more than for unbelievers. What's up with that, God?

It's really not that hard to understand. Simply put, adversity endured brings faith, not because we are rescued out of trouble, but because God comes to us in the middle of it to a degree we never otherwise see.

"Oh, God," we say when things are good..."You are powerful and mighty and faithful. I love you." And it's true.

But when times are tough, and the sun begrudges its rising, and we wonder why in the world God opened our eyes on another sad day, to say "Oh God, You are mighty and powerful and faithful. I love you," means something quite different. On those days, we know that we know, and something firm and strong is built in us, a bulwark that supports and carries with all the assurance the love of an almighty God brings.

We pray so often for rescue from our troubles, forgetting that God comes on the wing of trouble more vividly than any other time. Trouble is more than how we grow--it is where we meet the Living God, able to see His glory.

I have been reading Paul wrong. He was not content with nasty circumstances any more than I am. He did not enjoy his troubles, but he did enjoy what God brought through them--abiding faith that comes not from rescue from them, but from having met God in them.

Get Over It--From Faith to Forgiveness

I've heard it said that we live in an age of the perpetually offended. There's some truth in that, I guess. It certainly seems like we do a great deal of tiptoeing around, working too hard to avoid the unpleasantness of strong opinion or the disagreement of firm belief. Sometimes, I just want to scream, "Get over It!"

Unless, of course, I'm the one needing to do the getting over.

I do not like being hurt, ignored, or betrayed any more than anyone else, but it happens, and God has clear instructions for me when it does:

If your brother sins, rebuke him and, if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day and seven times comes back to you and says, "I repent," forgive him.--Luke 17:3-4

God says forgive. He uses small words and short sentences, but the task is not easy. After Jesus explained the need to forgive to the apostles in the above passage, they, during one of their rare moments of clarity, knew exactly what they needed to do it.

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"--Luke 17:5

It takes extra faith to forgive. While unforgiveness has its roots in self-interest and earth-bound understanding, forgiveness steps out of these and casts all of our lot into God's lap. That's why we need faith.

Unforgiveness keeps the focus on us. Forgiveness keeps our focus on God.

Forgiveness operates by the same spiritual mechanisms as obedience. I can neither obey nor forgive if I make earthly justice and my own way the goal. Obedience and forgiveness only happen when I see God rather than myself. I must forgive and obey not because I think I can, but because God tells me to.

Forgiveness and obedience may outwardly change nothing. They right no wrongs, ease no hurts. They do, however, draw me directly to the side of Christ and from there, all things are possible.

But Even if He Does Not

Ten years ago tomorrow, I began the day as I did every week day--leading the seventh grade in devotions. I remember that the students were a bit more agitated than usual because it was Jenny's birthday and as she was one of the first to turn thirteen, they all celebrated with her their own maturation into eventual adulthood. Yes, we would celebrate, but God had something to say to us first.

I opened my Bible. The reading for that day detailed the predicament of three young men in ancient Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, sentenced to be thrown by order of the king into a raging fire because they would not worship a golden idol. We read this:

O, Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and He will rescue us from your hand, O King. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.--Daniel 3:16-18

As we read it, the school secretary opened our classroom door and told us to come into the common room--something had happened. And, along with everyone else, we watched replays of the first collapse and then the second. The images of that day's smoke and fire echoed the furnace room in Babylon. Young eyes bright with terrible confusion asked "Why?" But You had already told us.

This then, was where the rubber met the road of our faith. You rescued Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the furnace in ancient Babylon. You did not rescue the men and women who died in New York on September 11, 2001. But, either way, You are still God, and this is how we discover whether we truly believe it. The point of this story lies not in the rescue, it lies in the bold declaration, "Even if He does not..."

Thought for today: Where is God testing the state of your faith today?