Heaven's slings and arrows

When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army of horses and chariots had surrounded the city. "Oh, my lord, what shall we do?" the servant asked. "Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." And Elisha prayed, "O Lord, open his eyes so he may see." Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha."--2Kings 6:15-17

Most days, I want to forget that I am a soldier. As an apparently serene morning begins and I reach for a cup of fresh coffee and smile at the rising sun, I know in my heart that this day, so promising, will challenge me somehow. The challenges vary, they wear different clothes every day, but the real combatants never change. Whether I have to fight traffic, or experience unkindness, or discipline children, or pull a garden full of weeds, or encounter personal temptations, I often disregard what You taught me about fighting my fights. I am a minor player in them. I carry water or messages or at best fire a few feeble shots. You wield the real weapons.

In Roman 7, Paul bemoans his inability to live as he knows he should. He knows what is right and doesn't do it. He knows what is wrong and though he doesn't want to do it, he does it anyway. I understand his frustration. Just as he found, I am never strong enough, never clever enough, never prepared enough to fight real evil. And that's OK. I have You.

Elisha knew this when he showed his servant the real army. That army fights for me too, as long as I ally myself with its side. My real job isn't to fight, it's to choose. Yes, I have to enter swinging, but it is not me who determines the victor. As I desire You and Your good, You engage the fight. As I yield to evil, evil takes back ground in my life. Just as Paul lamented, evil already has a foothold, a wedge, in my life. I can let it in further or let You help me slam the door in its face.

You force that choice daily through circumstances and people. You show constantly the enemy gathering at my gates. You stand beside me with holy weapons at the ready waiting for me to look up from my knees, pleading for help. The instant I do, you fling them and enemy retreats. Then, when the battle is won, I don't just have a victory, I have You.

Nits and Tittles

Nineteenth century painter George Seurat was a pointillist--he created his works of art not by lathering up a broad brush and drawing it expertly across a canvas, but by placing thousands, sometimes millions, of tiny dots, precise in color and position, side by side so that up close, they look like beautiful grains of sand, but from a distance, they blend into something much more. One of his paintings, called A Sunday Afternoon, hangs in Chicago's Art Institute. It is huge, taking up most of a whole wall and when I had the chance, I lingered there sometimes. The painting had as much to say in its parts as it did as a whole. Individually, I admired the dots for their perfection and precision. Together, I never failed to marvel at how they gradually merged into something lovely, complete, and cohesive.

Seurat's paintings remind me of Your Word.

He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code with all its regulations that was against us and stood opposed to us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross.--Colossians 2:14

For the Israelites, You were never near. They approached You only through priest and sacrifice, even those times filled with fear for their lives. Moses and Abraham rose above the rest because You talked directly to them, but for everyone else, all most men knew of You were Your laws. As a result, they held your law, every tiny detail, as the closest they could get to You. By obeying every regulation, every little nuance, they came near to You, loved You. You gave them this opportunity through giving them the law and they loved You for it. In those times, they stood close to the painting, handled each little dot with reverence, and were careful to replace them exactly. Rabbis still do this, arguing over tiny points of Torah, and glorying in the argument because it brings You closer to them. The King James Bible calls these little points jots and tittles, and warns us not to change them. We call the same practice nit picking, but the idea is the same and the warning well taken. Even Seurat's paintings would change in the whole if someone altered the color or position of the dots.

You never changed the dots, either. Every tiny portion of Scripture remains just as You ordained it. You did something else. You nailed it to the cross. You killed it. Just think of the image of that. Paul wrote this verse around 60A.D., when ordinary citizens still saw people tortured and murdered this way. They saw these victims scream and writhe in agony before dying. You put the old law, the law Your people loved, on that same cross, and it goes out kicking and screaming, too.

Our Scripture gives detailed step-by-step instructions regarding how to approach You. To better understand it, I still pick it apart, separate all its nits and jots into pieces small enough to understand. This respect for detail pleases You, I think, but also leaves me in danger of missing the whole picture. When I concentrate too long on the individual parts of Your newer law, the one you tore open the temple veil to expose, I can, over time, destroy the glue by which they form the new whole You died to create. Your new law takes all the little pieces, the finite instructions, and assembles them with the glue of love. When I disassemble them, and let them stay that way, the love leaks out and all that is left are little, lovely, disassociated dots.

I must not love only the dots in your beautiful Sunday Afternoon. Even while I love every single piece of Your Word, I have to ingest whole gobs of it, to dive into its whole ocean, read great hunks daily. You show Yourself in the smallest parts, but they are only parts. The Scripture is immense because You are. The pieces tell me what to do. The whole tells me who You are.

Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call on Him while He is near.--Isaiah 55:6

Slain and Singing

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.--1Thessalonians 5:18
Surely He took all our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him and afflicted.--Isaiah 53:4

I have troubles, troubles through which I am to praise You. My troubles fret You, too, though You allow them all. You really feel like a parent in this. This is why You call Yourself our Father. No other god, either ancient or modern, does this. Other gods manifest as rulers and kings, powerful and frightful, one dimensional in their lofty separation, but not You. They are flat, not gods at all.

But You, You not only carry me, but You carry my troubles too, lift them from my back and put them on Your own, ultimately bearing them all the way to the cross. If I think of them properly, my troubles constitute my sacrifice to You as I surrender them. To You I am to transfer all my earthly hopes, slain by my own hand by both command and necessity. They bleed all over the altar, then become You somehow: Your blood, Your pain, because I have slain what I most treasure for Your sake.

This must continue until I realize that You have told me to kill only what I do not need. You provide everything I need--raise it and kill it and raise it again in Your perfect will. And all the while, You do this not because You lack anything and need that sacrifice, but because I do. You die and resurrect by voluntary affliction, not as inevitable consequence. You do it through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. You continue to lay down among spilt blood and scattered crumbs, to split Yourself open again and again, then to rise up time after time until I see it all, grasp Your holy feet and give glorious thanks for my burden's assumption. and slaughter in You.

The Quality of Mercy

The prophet came to the King of Israel and said, "Strengthen your position and see what must be done, because next spring the king of Aram will attack you again."--1Kings 20:22

I have the hardest time understanding mercy. By its very nature, mercy implies the principle of subjection: I cannot show mercy unless the other party is under my power. I know that You are merciful, gracious and compassionate, and slow to anger (Joel 2:13). I know You save men purely on the basis of your mercy (Titus 3:5) and you delight in doing so (Micah 7:8). I also know that You command me to demonstrate mercy to others (Micah 6:8, Luke 6:36, Matthew 5:7). But, then, there are those times....

Like in 1Kings 20, when you commanded Israel's King Ahab to attack the blasphemous King of Aram and he did, but then showed mercy to him at the end. Ahab recognized the attacking king of Aram as his brother, sympathized with him, and You punished him for it. And You certainly did not show mercy on the Pharisees in Matthew 23. You called them every name in the book, Your book, condemning them for their own blasphemous behavior. You did not immediately destroy the pharisees, but the Romans did about thirty years later, when they destroyed the temple, leaving only the rabbis. These two instances of withheld mercy tie the Old Testament to the New Testament, bridging the old law and the new, the supremacy of the law to the gospel of grace. I have to find some common ground here.

I think your lesson in the application of mercy lies here: Both the King of Aram and the pharisees denied God's power: the King in words, the pharisees in action. That was bad enough, but they had something else in common. They also both held positions whereby they each wielded authority over others and, if they went unchecked, would continue to harm them. The Tanach, my Hebrew Old Testament, says this: "Mercy to the evil is in itself a manifestation of cruelty, for the surviving evildoer will cause others to suffer." This is the principle you define in 1Kings 20:22 above when Your prophet tells Ahab that, if he doesn't eradicate the evil before him, it will return.

If this idea had remained confined to Old Testament judgement, I might not consider it so compelling, but it didn't. You continued to demonstrate it in the New Testament when you specifically accuse and condemn the pharisees for corrupting those under their care (Matt 23:15). Like Ahab, I also recognize my brotherhood with some who blaspheme your Name. Mercy, however, belongs to You and my sympathy and feelings for someone against whom You send me to war cannot supersede Your clear instruction. Mercy comes from and belongs to you.

I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."--Exodus 33:19 and Romans 9:15.

Caught

Many years ago, when my youngest son was a toddler, he fell down the stairs. The stairway was a short one, only seven steps, but a long and dangerous enough way for a little one. When it happened, I was standing at the bottom talking to someone with my back turned but, as he teetered over the edge, I turned around just in time to see him, reached out both arms, and scooped him up in mid-air, before he had a chance to hurt himself. I have thought of this often since then, as an allegory for my relationship to You, and am thinking about it again today.

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?--Psalm 139:6

Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all you who remain in the house of Israel, you whom I have upheld since your were conceived, and have carried you since your birth.--Isaiah 46:3

You have carried me since my birth, and even before. You, who are mighty, created me, and before I was flesh, created the idea of me. You, who know the end from the beginning, declared men good, and watched as our ruin unfolded, carry us as children and catch us before we hit bottom.

Remember the former things, the things from long ago. I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times what is still to come. I say, my purpose will stand and I will do all that I please.--Isaiah 46:9-10

Yes, you catch me. In fact you have always caught me, still catch me, will always catch me. I am simultaneously falling through mid-air and lying safe in your arms because time, the linear progression of events, occurs for me but not for You. You live in eternity, where time has no meaning, where events exist side-by-side, all equally in the present. You have always created. You have always declared yourself God. You have always provided rescue. You always return in glory. The beginning and the end occur simultaneous in Your sight.

This is one of the ways I know You are God. Your timelessness is incomprehensible to me. For me, life unfolds, but for You, it is always full present as seed, as emergent plant, in bud, in full-blown flower, and as withered remains. I sometimes express this as faithfulness, but this concept infers that you wait for some event, then act. For You, the precursor, the event, Your action, and its result occur at once without beginning or end. In reality, Your actions, from before creation until after your return full of glory, exist eternally beside all Your deeds through what we know as history, above, around, and through time. You will do all you please because You have already done it.

This is how I can rest in You. My future already exists in Your hands. For good or ill, You already know it, have worked it into your plan. Since You either will or allow all events, You surround me like air. You not only catch, but propel. I can close my eyes, pretend You are not there, and leap into the frightful darkness, but why? You own that wilderness, too. I am never outside your sovereign power.

Yes, I am caught, caught in the only place I can rest.

Glad Thorns

One of Your gifts to me is to show me my sins. As I am getting older, my physical limitations increasingly show themselves, but whether these rise to attention or not, my desire to do wrong remains. Part of Your mercy lies in the revelation of my weakness in the face of Your holiness. I think so often that Your mercy lies in rescue, but today I am not so sure. Today I think that a great deal of your mercy lies in Your constancy and in reminders that I am a human and You are God.

Every morning, I measure my new day against You. You are not in unflagging desert heat. You are not in the friendly sun. Cool clouds like today's do not bring You. You show Yourself only in startling fire, in thunderous rolling clouds. I stretch out relaxed flesh under sweet, mild days and in those times, am fully human, but You come only in ferocity of Spirit.

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassing great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my side, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.--2Cor 12:7

Paul said that the thorn in his side was a messenger of Satan, but it also came as a gift; he knew torment because it brought him to his all-too-human knees before You in constant humility. I don't like that, either. I want to stand before You, to recall my supremacy on earth, my rule over creation. You want me to kneel and acknowledge You, Creator of all, and supreme over all You made, including me.

When You made Adam and gave him dominion over all other creatures, you put him in direct conflict with Satan, to whom you had already given power on the earth. You always knew that Satan's resulting temptations would reveal man's most repulsive parts and thereby show Your greatness in sustaining and forgiving. All in Your plan. It was always all in Your plan.

So I glory in my weakness. Every time I hurt, I recall You do not. Every time I sin, I know You do not. Every time I miss the mark, I remember where to look to aim better next time. Every time the storm comes, I remember Your glory and ferocity in it. In the end, I do not want You to be like me. I want You strong and powerful, but once I acknowledge that You are, that difference lasts for all time. I will always be weak before you, but my condition's corollary is that I know You as You truly are. My thorns become my allies in this.

The Possibility of Perfection

I've been thinking about getting a new car. In doing this, my eye rarely travels to the middle of the pack, but to either end, where the eco-friendly transportation resides on the one end, and the whiz-bang, go-fast roadster revs up on the other. But I will not buy either, not only because they are both too expensive, which they generally are, but because they are both basically flawed, designed to fail. The one has batteries as an integral part, which will inevitably need to be replaced before the car, and the other has turbos, which also have a short life relative to the machine they are designed to power. In the middle, the boring middle, sits the car I will eventually buy. I know instinctively that obvious flaws do not result in wise choices. If I can find it, I want a perfect car.

So do You.

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.--Matthew 5:48

You gave no wiggle room in this. You made us to be perfect and when we proved our failure, You came wearing our own flesh both to re-make our perfection and to show us what it looks like. You have proven the perfect man so that we follow you back into it.

For those God foreknew He also predestined to be confirmed to the likeness of His Son so that He might be the firstborn of many brothers.--Romans 8:29

You came as a perfect human and if I have been called, my first calling lay in living like You did. You sympathize with my weakness and forgive when I fail, but do not share those weaknesses and do not accept when I yield to them. You show me that I can live without sinning.

We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.--Romans 8:28

Life without sin--this is the good, this is the purpose to which You call me. You do not expect me to be a perfect spirit, like You. You do expect me to be sinless man, the man you created in Eden. The desire to achieve this and the actions that follow it define love and You help and support me as I work toward it.

So, I cling to You and the sweet helps You have provided--Your Word, prayer, humility, obedience, and all the rest. As I take steps toward You, You reach out to me from the cross, affirming with Your own flesh and blood that I am worth the effort. Though perfection seems impossible, it's not that complicated. Much simpler than either a Prius or a Jaguar that taunt me in spite of their flaws.