The God Who is not Superman

It's that moment when you're falling....the bottom's dropped out and your fingers try to grab onto anything close, but every ledge, every fire escape, rushes by too fast. The street below gets bigger and bigger. Any minute, you're going to hit bottom.

And then it happens....

You feel strong hands under your shoulders and behind your knees, the ground stops rushing up and you're swept instead into midair...safe at last.

Who else could it be? Superman.

Oh, I do like that moment....the feeling of rescue. The fear as it drains away and you wrap grateful arms around his neck. 

What is is about that guy, anyway? I'm pretty sure it's not the cape. It's not the muscles or that cute curl in the middle of his forehead. In fact, I'm pretty sure I know why the Man of Steel appeals so much, at least to me.


It's that in giving in to Superman, I'm admitting a secret vulnerability.
I mean really.
When was the last time any of us had to be rescued from anything? 
In general, we are capable, intelligent, and self-sufficient.  I don't fall off buildings. Bad guys don't chase me. No one needs to rescue me. Not really.

And a good thing too. Because Superman isn't real. I know that. *shrug*

But here's the rub. 
Sometimes I still feel like I need rescue. 

Everybody seems to be calling my name at once. The washer breaks on the same day as it snows 15 inches. Three of our children all get the flu at the same time and we don't have insurance. Somebody hits the only car we own. Somebody we love betrays. Somebody we love dies. 

I'm not falling off a bridge, but it sure feels like it. Superman may be fiction, but my feelings are real. I'm hanging alone at the end of my rope. I've done everything I know to do and I'm still going down for the third time. No man, super or not, is coming to help.
There's only one thing to do--and I cry out:

Rescue me, Oh Lord, 
Make haste to help me...
Free me from the snare they have set for me... 
Come quickly and answer me. 
Do not turn away from me or I will die...
Psalm 40, 31,143

And He does. God rescues.
Not like Superman. Not with cape and tights. But like God. 
The God Who is not Superman. 

And there's a big difference.

This is what God's rescue looks like:
When I prove my holiness among you, I will gather you from all foreign lands; and I will pour clean water upon you and cleanse you from your impurities, and I will give you a new spirit, says the Lord. --Ezekiel 36:23-26

He just doesn't fold us into His arms, carry us to safety, and then fly off to the next crisis.
God completes the job. He makes us holy.
He doesn't pat us on the head and let us straighten our skirt and go our way. He cleans us from the inside out.
He doesn't give us a pert little salute. He gives us a new spirit.

He has to and, better yet, He wants to.
Like Moses who had to take off his shoes before he could approach God in the burning bush, like the Israelites who had to believe God before they could enter the promised land, we have to be prepared. God's rescue isn't a one-step process.
He wants to reclaim all of us, inside and out, and that takes time.

That's real rescue. 
God plucks us out of danger by showing us our sin and guiding us to the firm ground of repentence.
God takes us to high ground by gifting us with faith and hope.
God puts out his hand, helping us stand every day in growing the fruit of His Spirit--kindness, meekness, self-control, and all the rest.

And, when He is done, He brings and keeps us near, made new in confidence in Him, leaning on His shoulder, depending on the only sure rescue there ever was and ever will be.
And there it is, the fear draining away as you wrap grateful arms around His neck...
Do not be afraid. I have ransomed you. I have called you by name. You are Mine.--Isaiah 43:1

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Picking Up Sticks

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Sometimes, I just don't know what to do next. 

I mean, the instruction book for life is pretty plain--worship God, repent, pray, hope, help others, look for heaven.

But sometimes, it's not enough.

I worship but God still seems far away. I repent but the list of my sins grows. I hope but it fades in the face of living. I help others but what I do rarely seems to have any lasting effect for either them or me. As for looking for heaven--well, I can barely manage earth.  Sometimes, it's just not working for me.

Then I realize that it doesn't matter.

It doesn't.
My disappointment, after all, is all about my feelings. I get dissatisfied because as much as I pray, as much as I hope, as much as I love God and understand what He's done both for me and the ones I love, there's still a huge gap between God's best and my reality.
A crevasse. A desert. A black hole. And it's not going away.

I can't create the heaven I want on the earth I'm given. And in the end, there's only one thing to do.
Pick up sticks.

That's right. Pick up sticks.
In those days, Elijah the prophet went to Zarephath. As he arrived at the entrance to the city, a widow was gathering sticks there; he called out to her, "Please bring me a small cupful of water to drink." She left to get it, and he called out after her, "Please bring along a bit of bread." She answered, "As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked; there is only a handful of flour in my jar and a little oil in my jug. Just now, I was collecting a couple of sticks to go in to prepare something for myself and my son. When we have eaten it, we shall die." 
--1Kings17
  
This woman knows she is dying. The country has lived through years of drought and she has no more food. She has enough left for one more meal for her and her son and along comes Elijah.

Elijah said to her, "Do not be afraid. Go and do as you propose. But first make a little cake and bring it to me. Then you can prepare something for yourself and your son." --1Kings 17

What? "Oh, by the way," he says, "You're dying anyway. You might as well give me some of your last meal. It won't make any difference in the end."
Thanks a lot, bud.

I can't imagine she was thrilled with what Elijah, who spoke for God, told her to do, and sometimes, neither am I. Giving him that little she had left was not going to solve anything.
But she does it.
She goes and gathers the sticks, builds the fire, bakes the bread, gives some to Elijah, and then something happens--
She left and did as Elijah had said. She was able to eat for a year, and he and her son as well; the jar of flour did not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry.--1Kings 17

She has enough. Just like that. Not enough just for that day or that week, but for a year. Enough until the drought ended, until her season of starvation was over.
That's what God does. He provides enough. When we finally come to the place where we have nothing left and know we're going to die without Him, He brings enough.

I wonder what would have happened if she didn't gather the wood, didn't make the fire, didn't bake the bread and share it with Elijah? I don't know for sure, but I suspect we wouldn't be reading about her today. She would likely have died, and her son, too. Starved for the lack of doing the one thing that was left for her to do. Because, when she did that, the only thing she could, God did the rest. God did what she could not.

And that's what I have to do.
What I can.
No matter how things look. No matter how I feel. 
Because that is when God shows up with flour and oil that never run out. 
That is where I find the cup that, in spite of circumstances, overflows.

Credit: holdfasttowhatisgood.com

No matter what else is going on, no matter how hard or sad life gets, no matter how many things there are that I want to change and can't, there is always one thing left that I CAN do. And that is all God asks of me--to do what I can so that He can do what I can't. As long as there is one more thing for me to do, God is waiting for me to do it.

So, excuse me please. I'm needing God and I still have some sticks to pick up.

The Creation Test

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OK--Here's another test. (If you missed the first one, click here)
This is the creation test, and again consists of only one simple question:
What was the first thing God created?

Are they running through your mind? The plants, the animals, the cosmos?
Maybe you are thinking this:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.--Genesis 1:1
How can anyone argue about that?

Well, not so fast.
Have you ever seen this?
The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old.--Proverbs 8:22

Oh really? And what was this that God made before he made the rest? Go back a few verses:
I, Wisdom, live together with good judgment--Proverbs 8:12

It's Wisdom. God made Wisdom before anything else.
Wisdom. God begat His own Consciousness and Word. He gave them His sound and utterance.*
His own Consciousness. God's awareness of everything.
How great a gift is this? Well, you answer that.
By Wisdom we hear God's voice.
By Wisdom we can know right and wrong.
By Wisdom we have the capacity to discover.
By Wisdom we recognize justice and freedom.

Without Wisdom, God could have made the whole world and we would be completely clueless about it. We would know no inspiration, no curiosity, no wonder. Without Wisdom, we would never come to realization about the greater meaning of anything.
Look at your pet. That is creation without Wisdom. Sweet, loveable, and clueless.

Wisdom had to come first because, through it, God made a way to know Him.
And how did we figure this out?
By using God's gift of Wisdom.
Thank you, Lord.

*Tertullian, (c. 200), Adversus Praxean, 6

Time's Up, Death

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There are some people I have a hard time just being around. I'm not sure why, but some folks just make me edgy, like I have an itch I can't scratch, or like I'm sitting on a particularly uncomfortable lump. When I'm around them, I just have to MOVE....preferably to somewhere else.

I'm not proud of this. Whoever they are, God, after all, gave them life, just like He gave it to me. My life is not better or cleaner or more presentable to God than is theirs. They are flawed. I am flawed. And, deep down, I pretty well know that Jesus does not love me any more than He loves them. We are joined by our common, and commonly imperfect, humanity. 

But I just don't like them.
Period.

I occurred to me, however, that although Jesus loves us all equally, there are some things He simply cannot abide, either. 
Like Death. 
Yes, Death.
Jesus hated death. He warred against it. He undid it. And eventually, He defeated it.

The last enemy to be destroyed is death.--1Corinthians 15:26
He Himself also partook of the same that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, Satan.--Hebrews 2:14
I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades.--Revelation 1:18

This is no gentle Jesus. This is the guy on the white horse, the one with the sword, the one so bright I can't even look straight at Him. This Jesus is a warrior and every bit as powerful and terrifying as His Father. This is the Jesus who walked out of the grave and confronted Death himself.

And it was no contest.
Why?

Because Jesus didn't really have to fight at all. He just had to show up. The conquering didn't require any hewing and hacking. The outcome was never in doubt. All He had to do was to withdraw His permission.

Death existed only by God's express permission, but when His time was up, it was up. Jesus put His perfect thumb on our side of the scale, and Death fell off the other side. All done.  Death had already obeyed His command a number of times in full view of anyone who happened to be around. He chased Death away from Lazarus, from the son of the widow in Nain, from Jarius' servant and, of course, from Himself. Death has been warned. Christ will not allow it to exist either in His presence or outside of His express permission.

Why is this so hard to understand?
Maybe because all of life's other terrors happen while we still live. Yes, we get sick, but we usually get well. Yes, we might lose our job, but the possibility of getting another one is still open to us. But death, well, we just END. We disappear from the face of the earth. Death is a lot scarier for us than misfortune or hurt or loss. 

But not for Christ. They are all the same to Him--one cause, one temporary tolerance, and one permanent solution. Death to God is no stronger than a bug to us. Swat it and it's gone.

And He's done it. Our body may still die, but we will live. We will live with Him and laugh at Death. You know the old taunt:
Where, O Death, is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?--1Corinthinians 15:55

Talk about a knight in shining armor...

Trapped by Mammon

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What exactly is mammon, I'm wondering? Whatever it is, it's important enough for God to talk about it:
No one can serve two masters. He will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.--Matthew 6:24

Well, whatever mammon is, it's opposed to God. That's probably important.
The Greek for mammon, strictly speaking, is money. So I can't love both God and money. OK. I get that. But look at the context....the verse cited above falls in a section that discusses far more than only monetary wealth.

Do not worry about your life--what you eat or what you drink or for your body, what you put on...Which of you by worrying can add one moment to His life? ...Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.--Matthew 6: 25, 27, 33

So it's about more than money. It's about everything around me, all the props of my life.
Seek first the kingdom of God, He says. Not anything or anybody else.
OK. I get that, too. But how hard can it be? I know God is more important than anything else, don't I? I can get by without a lot of money, or a closet full of clothes or even a long life. No problem.

Not, at least, until I think about the one thing I can't get by without.
Me.
I am why I want all that stuff in the first place. 
I am taking care of me. I am finding security. Security outside of God.

And that's the problem.
It never was the stuff. It's me.
If I have that stuff, I don't need to depend on God. I get to depend on me.
All the stuff of life, all the money and everything else, make good servants of God, but poor masters. And the same principle applies to my own body, my own desires.
If I give them up, I'll shortly become hungry or cold or bored, but if I'm honest, it's not the hunger or boredom I mind so much. It's the weakness. It's the vulnerability. It's the loneliness. 
I mind that a lot.

Why do I do this? Why do I spend so much effort taking care of myself, using the stuff around me to build a big wall of protection?
I know this--if I'm protecting myself with my stuff, that means that I am not trusting God to do it.
Period.
There's no other answer that makes sense.

I have to learn to trust Him. Him alone. Without the stuff.
He challenges me to this:
Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see whether I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be enough room to store it.--Malachi 3:10
And there's only one way to learn this.
To stop protecting myself. That's what the stuff was doing in the first place. It was shielding me from hurt or want or disappointment or failure, but that's the problem. It is in only those places that God can show me His power. In depending on everything else, I'm preventing God from doing the one thing I want Him most to do.

But without my stuff, I panic.
I have spent all my effort in building my own reputation, paying my own way, bearing up with my own shoulders.

St Francis taught us a prayer that can help strip away our layers of protection:
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.

In the end, this is what God wants me to say:
The Lord has become my protector.--Psalm 18:19
But He hasn't become my protector, has He? I have been my only trusted protector. Otherwise I wouldn't care about stuff so much.
Me. My stuff. My own. I have to, somehow, come to the end of it. And when I do, if I have no more strength, maybe I can, finally find God's.

No Baggage, Not Even a Carry-On

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Pack light.
We get that advice everywhere, and not only for vacations. Did you ever try it? It's not easy.
Even Jesus gave that advice to His apostles:
These were His instructions: Take nothing for the journey except a staff. No bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals, but not an extra shirt. --Mark 6:8,9

Well.
Now that's something to think about.
Nothing to eat. Nothing to wear. Nothing to spend to get either of them.
Why would He tell them to do such a thing?
Not because they wouldn't need them. They would. They would need to eat and find a place to sleep and, eventually, change their clothes.
Maybe He told them not to pack anything because the things they brought would hinder them.
No baggage, He told them. You may bring no baggage.
Not even a carry-on.

They were going out on their life's journey, accomplishing the task Jesus set them to do.
Well, I'm doing that, too, aren't I?
Maybe I don't get to pack anything for the trip, either.
Nuts.
And I thought I was doing pretty good, limiting myself to a single carry-on for a vacation, one junk drawer, a half a clothes closet. Guess not.

Take nothing for the journey, Jesus says. It's only stuff. 
That's true, but I don't think He's talking only about stuff.  I think He's talking about other baggage--the crippling guilt from my past, a sad longing for childhood or where I used to live, a petrifying desire to regain what God has clearly removed--situations, friendships, jobs, even loved ones.
Leave them behind, He says. You'll be OK. Honest.

Let the dead bury the dead--Luke 9:60
See, I am doing a new thing--Isaiah 43:19
Don't worry about anything--Philippians 4:6
Consider the lilies...--Luke 12:27

So what do I need?--a staff and sandals. What does that mean today?
It means, I think, the stuff, both interior and exterior, that facilitates my walk.
It's not another pair of shoes or another book or even another Bible study or community event--it's what I get today that helps me gain a firm hold on Christ right now.

Christ has appointed a way for every one of us. What are our own staff and sandals? What brings us closer to our goal?
We need to figure this out, because we're not supposed to take anything else.
For one of my friends, her day care business is her staff and sandals. That is what takes her before the Lord, both physically and spiritually. Through that, she not only ministers, but is ministered to. Not only children, but entire families, see God's light through her.
Another of my friends, a widow, is putting on her staff and sandals by selling her house and moving closer to her grandchildren. There, she will finish the work Christ has so evidently begun in her as a helper, a mentor, and a companion, but also provide a platform from which she is loved.
Both of these women are leaving behind the freedom that comes with maturity and investing where God has pointed them. Both are leaving behind lots of easier choices, opening themselves up to a life over which they have less control, not more. In short, they are dropping what supports an old world, leaving each known thing behind and picking up an unknown. They are emptying their bags of stuff, both physical and emotional, and in the process, I watch them both being changed and changing the world around them.

And, in the process, what they get is Christ.
Leave it all behind, He says, and you'll still have me. 
Leave it all behind. Eventually, you won't even miss it.
I am a light burden. You can carry me in your heart.
 

No Wonder It Hurts

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The burden of life is impossible.
Always.
Every day.

Sometimes we know it.
We know it when we are losing our job and the baby is teething and it's fifteen degrees below zero and the babysitter cancels and the hot water heater breaks and the car won't start and our best friend's husband is leaving her.

And, although when things are going relatively well, we quickly forget, life is still impossible then, too.
There's a lot more that we can't control than we can.

We can't control our bodies. Our physical systems depend heavily on one another in ways we never see.
We can't control our relationships. The people we love do what they will without our permission.
We can't control our surroundings. Our comfort depends on complex agencies and services like transportation, power, and waste treatment over which we have no say or most of the time, any awareness at all.
We can't control our safety. Our security depends on men and women who guard us both locally and internationally whom we never even see unless something goes wrong.
These kinds of things fail so rarely that we have no idea what it is like to be truly alone, truly hungry, truly without resources, and we never will.
We kid ourselves about this every day.
When the house is clean and my family is content, and the bills are paid, and the snow shoveled, and the laundry done, and the boss is happy, I think I've done well. I am capable. I have used my intelligence and skill profitably. And I have, as far as they go.

But I have forgotten what I cannot accomplish.
I can't make my heart beat.
I can't stop a random bomber.
I can't deter the lethal work of a drunk driver.
I can't stop my friend from cheating on her husband.
I can't even guarantee that my groceries are free from taint or poison.
All these are completely beyond my control.

I keep forgetting that I do not bear up the world. 
In fact, I must fail to do so.
I must learn that if I fall, the world will not, and fall I must if I am to come to understand even a part of God's power and love.
Yes, I am desolate when life spins out of my control, but that is when the clarity of my place in the world comes most vividly.
And  good thing, too.
God holds the world in His hands. I cannot hold the world. I can only hold God. 

For the Lord is a great God, and a great king above all gods. In His hands are the corners of the world and the strength of the hills is His also. The sea is His and He made it and His hands prepared the dry land. O come, let us worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is the Lord our God. We are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.--Psalm 95: 3-7

Believing It Will Rain

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Noah. Almost everybody knows his story.
God told him to build a boat and, in it, put all the animals two by two because He planned to flood the earth. And Noah did.
It wasn't an easy job, though. The boat had to be one and a half football fields long. It took Noah 100 years to finish the job. His neighbors made fun of him, of course, but he remained faithful to the task.
I always thought Noah was an example of perseverance, but I was wrong.
Noah is an example of faith.

By faith, Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, took heed and constructed an ark for the saving of his household; by this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness which comes by faith.--Hebrews 11:7

Remember, faith is believing in what we have never seen. So what was Noah's leap of faith?
He had never seen rain.
In his experience, water had never fallen from the sky.
Now, that gives the whole boat building thing a new twist. How could he explain to anyone--his wife, his kids, everyone he knew--what he was doing? There was no way. It would make more practical sense for me to build a rocket ship in my backyard. At least I'd be able to point to the sky and the stars and say, "See? I'm going there!"  Not Noah.

So that begs the question, if Noah is an example of faith, what is my ark? Where is my promise of rain?
That is easier.
A God I can't see. A heaven I can't touch. An inner knowledge I can't explain.
My ark. My rain. My faith.

Why Do They Get all the Good Miracles?

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A pastor in Libya is rescued from a firing squad.
A child in Zambia is healed overnight from tuberculosis.
Christ appears to a man in an Egyptian jail who comes to believe.
BUT
Here, my sweet, believing friend dies from cancer.
Here, my father dies before acknowledging the truth of the gospel.

WHY?
Why do they get the miracles and we don't?

Hm... maybe because we don't need them in the same way.

After all, God gave us, here in the U.S., different stuff.
We have relative safety.
We have abundant wealth.
We have good health care.

The people in Libya and Zambia and Egypt don't. They have active war, and famine, and poverty, and rampant disease. I don't know why, but it's true.
So when they look for God, where do they find Him? In the places they need Him most.
And He shows up there.

And how about us? Where do we need God most?
It's not in the same places.
My friend who died got excellent medical care because God made that possible. And she didn't die in a fly-blown grass hut, alone and in excruciating pain. She died in a nursing home surrounded by caring nurses and loving family.
My father did not grow up in a Muslim nation that executed Christians, but in a place where the truth of Christ poured out all around him from nearly every member of his family, and by which he was consequently well-loved his whole adult life.
My friend and my father did not need the same kind of miracles.
And they didn't get them.

So where do our miracles come? 
Where do we most need God to intervene?

Consider the lilies, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. Do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, or be of anxious mind. For all the nations of the world seek these things; and your Father knows that you need them. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.--Luke 12: 27, 29, 32

God gives us what we do not already have because there we will be most likely to see Him and His kingdom.
Only when we come to the end of our own resources will God make a miracle.
He has already given us gifts and expects us to use them.

Looking for a miracle?
Look to that place where gifts end, where strength fails.
Look to that place where only hope remains.
There is the stage set for a miracle.

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

Why Not Broccoli of the Spirit?

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Fruit of the Spirit.
Why fruit, I wonder. Why not vegetables or meat? What is different about fruit?

Let's see--think of them.
Oranges full of oil and fragrance,
apples shiny and firm that crunch in response to our bite,
berries dark and fragile,
peaches that lie perfectly in the palm and so ripe that their juice runs down my arm.

Sweet, lush, over-the-top good.
Fruit.
Does their very excess connect them to the Spirit of God?
Maybe. But maybe it's something else.

Unlike vegetables that need repeated planting and cultivating, unlike meat that needs breeding and tending, fruit just comes. Plant a tree or bush once and it bears repeatedly for years. After the first year, even if I don't prune or spray, it bears. All I have to do is pick it--reach out my hand and pull it off, ripe and warm from the sun.
Like manna.
Like fishes and loaves.
Reach out and possess God's immediate gift, a glimpse of Himself.

Then the Lord said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day."--Exodus 16:4

Taking the five loaves and two fish, and looking up to heaven, He said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to His disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds. They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the fragments left over--twelve wicker baskets full. Those who ate were about five thousand men, not counting women and children.--Matthew 14:19-21

Perhaps fruit lies especially close to God because fewer human hands lie between it and Him. 
Perhaps fruit, by its very nature, comes more directly from Him than any other foodstuff.
And maybe that is why fruit tastes so sweet.

Holding Onto Dirt

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OK. Everybody has idols.
Things we hold onto no matter what.
Money. Kids. Job. Expectations. Dreams.
But dirt?

Yes, we do.
And I was reminded about this from an old song:
In our joys and in our sorrows, days of toil and days of ease,
Still He calls in cares and pleasures: 
Christians, love me more than these.--Cecil Alexander, Jesus Loves Us

We hold onto the things that bring us happiness and ease, but we also hang onto people and circumstances that hurt--offenses, old pains, bad relationships, a habit of sickness, the attitude of a victim, and more.
They bring us no pleasure, but we won't let go.
We don't know who we would  be without them and don't want to find out.
Idols...all of them. Nothing but dirt.

And they become stumbling blocks to our faith. Jesus told us this:
Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of the wealth, and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.--Mark 4:18-19

We don't hoard only life's pleasures, but its sorrows and troubles.
It doesn't matter what we hold onto.
If it isn't Christ, it is all dirt.

Walking on Broken Glass

Photo credit: www.telegraph.co.uk

It's been a tough week--husband in the hospital, and my spiritual mother taking her last sweet breaths...
And this morning, I walked barefoot onto a kitchen floor covered with broken glass.
Really.

During the night, one of our cats knocked over a wine glass I left on the counter, unwashed, from the night before and it broke into the kind of million scary pieces that only thin, fragile glass can. It fell right near the kitchen door and scattered everywhere.  
When I walked in, though, I didn't get cut by it. 

As I stepped into the room, my toe kicked the first piece, pushing it out of the way. Then I took another step. And another. And then (finally) I looked down. Broken glass surrounded the spot where I stood.

I couldn't NOT have gotten cut.
But I didn't.

And that was the point.
It wasn't only my kitchen that was full of broken glass. My life was full of it, too.
Potential hurt and danger on two of life's fronts that mean the most to me. Potential fodder for fear. Definitely.

But God was carrying me.
He held me safe on all fronts, watched me so that I would not come to harm.
And, as I stood unharmed, surrounded by broken glass, I knew why He'd made for me a little miracle.
I knew what He was trying to say:

I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go...I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.--Genesis 28:15
Indeed, the very hairs of your head are numbered.  Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.--Luke 12:7

Frank and Abe, Doing it Their Way

I would not have thought that Frank Sinatra and the biblical patriarch Abraham had much in common, but I would have been wrong:
And Abraham said unto God, 'Oh that Ishmael might live before thee!'--Genesis 17:18

Just when God was promising Abe everything--all he had ever wanted and more, children too many to number and a kingdom by God for God--what does he say?
No, don't do that.
Do it my way.
Don't make everything new. Do it with this stuff, this child I already know, people I already love.
Don't give me a new people, a whole new place.
I'm old, said Abe. I'm tired of new.
Can't you do it my way for once?
And God said no.
And He didn't.

Abe and Frank, who would have thunk it?
But I want my way, too. And I suffer from the same shortsightedness they did.
If he'd gotten his way, Abraham would have missed so much just because he had no imagination for it.
Please, God, let me want your way.

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.

Cries in Ramah

It's nearly Christmas.
We are not supposed to be crying.
But we do.
Horrible things happen and we do.

Sometimes, we cannot muster up the requisite Christian joy.
But for those times, God gives us hope.
Hope: the gift God gives when we believe, in spite of circumstance, that He loves us.

"Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage.  Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.--Augustine of Hippo

So, if there is no joy for the moment, hope bears us up. And later, joy will come.

On earth you will have many trials and sorrows, but take heart! I have over come the world.--John 16:32-33 

Sin--It's Not Just Evil Anymore

Murder. Adultery. Lies. ---Sin.
I recognize them.  They are evil.  All of them.
God says not to do them.  I get it, and generally, do pretty well at it.
But somehow, in the niggling back of my mind, I knew I wasn't done.

Christ showed me why.
He did it in the desert.  Alone, hungry, weak, and bedeviled:
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.--Matthew 4:1
And how did the Master Tempter beguile Him?
...tell these stones to become bread.
...thrown yourself down.
...all this I will give you.--Matthew 4:4,6,9

Satan tempted Jesus with food, with rescue, and with the power He already possessed.  By itself, none of these things were bad.  Christ, in another situation at another time, could have reached out and taken any one of them without sin. 
But not then.  Not there.

And so it is for us.
Sin does not come only in the footsteps of evil deeds like murder or deception or betrayal.
It comes at the dinner table, at our desk, in our bed.
In perfectly innocent-sounding activities, but ones God has forbidden in that place and time.

We fast by God's command and forsaking a fast is sin.
That donut, or that nap, or that good-looking charitable activity, is not evil by itself, but today, it might be sin.
Even Jesus had to look at something He wanted in His flesh, something He might have the next day or the one after that but right then, He, like we, had to look it in the eye and say,
Away from me, Satan!--Matthew 4:10

The beauty of all this comes when we look away from the thing dangling before us, that temptation, and see what God wanted us to see in the first place, the whole point of the exercise:
Himself.


And, after we have seen, He sends His angels to minster to us.

Bread in the Desert

The desert. Hot, dry, desolate, stretching in seemingly endless, shifting dunes. Hunger and thirst in a sad place offering neither food nor water. A metaphor for times of trouble, but how much of a metaphor is it really?

It is true that, when life takes a difficult turn, when problems or illness or disappointment loom large, I feel like I am alone in a vast place of desolation, a place much like I imagine the Sahara. My throat dries, my skin burns, and panic can begin to descend. You call these times of testing.

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands.--Deuteronomy 8:2

But then You did something else...

He humbled you, causing you to hunger, then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.--Deuteronomy 8:3

You fed your children. You rained down food they had never seen, sweet flakes of bread like honey. You took them to a place that bore no food of its own and gave them food they could not mistake for something they had made themselves. No sweat from their own brows planted or gathered it. No scythe reaped it and no mill ground it. Manna just fell and lay there for them. And you didn't drop it in great hunks, to pick up in a moment, but tiny flakes, like snow, so that the gathering took time, time to think about its source. Manna was food, but it also brought humility.

And all of this happened in the desert. Flakes fell like sweet words from Your mouth. "Gather me," You were telling them. "Eat and know that I am God." The heat and desolation never relented, but You came as morsels of sustenance every day. The desert magnified Your people's perpetual condition, a condition I share. The unadorned landscapes of desert or strife bring you into crisp focus. They hold nothing beautiful but You, no comfort but Your company.

My sustenance still falls from heaven. When I prop up my world with what I seem to have made or have done, it falls onto hot sand and disintegrates. Then You again drop your perfect manna. The bread is real. I eat it I am humbled, but restored.