Psalm 51

(An excerpt from my journal this morning.  i had time, or i made time, to truly break down a passage.  Use it if it helps, toss it if it doesn't.  Grace and peace.) 

“Be gracious to me,”  Petition.  Ask.  Right to the point.  Grace.  Unmerited.  He knows he is asking for that which he does not deserve.  He is asking for a positional response.  A pose.  An attitude toward himself from God Most High.  YHWH.  The Almighty.  The Holy, Holy, Holy one.  To me.  Personal.  Not corporate.  He believes God Most High can be approached by something as lowly and sinful as men, and more, as a man.  Each of us may come.  He will listen.  He hears.  He cares.  He is willing to turn His face to us and extend open hands to us, why?“according to Your loyal love.”  Because it is His predetermined position.  Because He has promised to.  Covenant.  This is His sworn attitude, sworn by Himself since there is nothing higher than He to swear by.

“According to Your abundant mercies,” all of this presupposes knowledge.  God has revealed Himself to us so that we might know of His works and His nature and base our faith upon this rock, this unchanging character of God.

“blot out my transgressions.”  And because we know He is Holy, we know our sin is offensive and a complete hindrance to our relationship with Him, and that He is the only one who can effectively deal with them and because of His nature, we can trust that He wants to.  And so we appeal to Him.  

“Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and from my sin cleanse me.”  Sin stains.  Sin is repugnant.  Sin needs cleansing.  Metaphorical.  For sin also needs uprooting.  It goes deep.  But we are cups to Him.  He can wash both the inside and the outside.  

“i, i know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.”  Now.  i was not so aware of them before when i was doing them.  i might have been if someone had pointed them out then or slowed my roll but here we are and i have done the vile deeds, the unforgivable deeds.  Indeed!  i cannot ever seek forgiveness from Uriah for i have had him slaughtered by the hands of immoral enemies of God.  O wretched man am i, who will save me from this body of death?!

“Against You, only You, i have sinned and have done this evil in Your eyes,”  all sin is against God.  He takes all sin personally.  He so identifies with Uriah that in essence, David murdered God’s son.  He so identifies with Bathsheba that David raped God’s daughter.  Jesus so identifies with His people, that David raped and murdered Jesus.  David has set God’s children on a dangerous path.  David has corrupted the head of God’s people, what can the body do?  David has polluted the whole loaf.  God’s bread is rotten.  

“so that You are correct when You speak, You are blameless when You judge.”  No one can accuse God of wrongdoing.  Of overreaction.  Of sticking His divine nose where it does not belong.  There is no line between the sacred and the secular.  There is no private and public sphere.  There is nowhere, nothing that God does not see and declare as His own.

“Behold, in iniquity i was born, and in sin my mother conceived me.”  Original sin.  Born of a sinful race.  There is no need to speculate that David was illegitimate or some other such thing.  All humans are sinners from birth, doomed by Adam.  Doomed to the same fate as Adam.  Condemned under the law.  This is why God can order the death of children and be guiltless.  How does that then jive with every man dying for his own sin?  Again, Father, is a child innocent up to the age of reason?  How do you judge children?  How do you judge the unborn dead?  Are their children in heaven?

“Behold, You delight in truth in the inward parts,” repentance and worship start within.  

“and in the hidden parts You make me to know wisdom.”  God sees the heart.

“Purify me with hyssop,” usually used in levitical rites to sprinkle blood of sacrifice.

“and i shall be clean.  Wash me, and i shall be whiter than snow.”  The purest form of water.  White.  Pure.  Holy.  Clean.  Jesus.  

“Make me hear joy and gladness;” cuz right now i am in despair.  Everything is dark to me because i am not right with You.  Everything is evil to me because i have lost communion and right relationship with You.  All is ruined.  All is fallen.

“Let the bones You have crushed rejoice.”  Agony to celebration.

“Hide Your face from my sins,

and all my iniquities blot out.”  Cuz this is the issue.  

“Create a clean heart for me, O God,

and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”  i used to have these things.  i used to enjoy fellowship with You.  i used to think first about You and meditate upon You and enjoy You and delight in You and somewhere i became darkened in my thinking.  Low.  Bestial.  Again though, this isn’t something i can do for myself.  i need You to do it.  You did it before.  i didn’t deserve it then.  Let it come again.  

“Do not cast me away from Your presence, “even though it burns me.

“and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.”  For i need it!  i must have it!  Do not forsake Your child, daddy!

“Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,”  when i delighted in Your favor, i knew why, i had been saved from hell, i had been chosen of God, i had been raised up from death to live with the Holy One of Israel in His palace temple as His beloved child.

“and with a willing spirit sustain me.”  Keep me alive, keep me going, keep me cheered by Your presence, by Your reciprocal spirit within me.

“Then i will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will turn back to You.” because i will be an example to them of Your forgiveness and mercy and love.

“Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,” in case anyone doubted i knew what i had done and what the consequence and justice of the deed demanded.

“the God of my salvation,” in case anyone doubted i knew what i was asking for and from whom.

“then my tongue will sing aloud of Your righteousness.

O Lord, open my lips,

and my mouth will proclaim Your praise.”  i am hoping for a new song to sing.  i am desiring to add not just verses to songs of my knowledge of You from before but entirely new songs because You have revealed so much more of Yourself to us in this salvation than we knew before.

“For You do not delight in sacrifice or i would give it.”  You do not delight in the death of the wicked. You are not bloodthirsty.  It is not in blood of animals, beasts, sinners in which Your wrath is quenched.

“With a burnt offering You are not pleased.”  As if burnt flesh and hair could mask my sin.

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;”  truth in the inward parts.

“A broken and contrite heart,

O God, You will not despise.”  Right position and attitude toward You.  True honor and humility.  True knowledge.

“Do good in Your favor toward Zion.”  The place where God dwells with men.

“Build the walls of Jerusalem.”  The holy city where God dwells with men.  The people of God.

“Then you will delight in righteous sacrifices, burnt offering and whole burnt offering.”  True worship.

“Then bulls will be offered on Your altar.”  We cannot get You back with our offerings.  It is only when You have come to us that there is any point in our worship.  Our worship is a response, not a bargain.  Not a ransom.  Not a bribe.  But a celebration.

On war.

 *Authors note: i had thought my next post was going to be a defense of the first Adam but other topics rose to the fore and so instead, here's an open letter i wrote to my eldest son in response to a conversation we had last night about Israel and Hamas.  i don't know if it's wise or just an outdated, antiquated viewpoint of a fading generation, i only know it's what i think.

Ah, thoughts that come in the middle of the night.  Ah, answers that come long after the conversation is over.  :)

A few thoughts on war and the nature of war.  Wars are not only and some would say, not really, won on the battlefield.  They are won in the will.  Yes, soldiers go fight but they must have the collective push, they must feel the people they represent behind them leaning with them into the traces, the whole nation must be willing to do what it takes to win.  Sacrifice to support the effort, not give up till its over, believe in the cause.  This is why the narrative is so vitally important.  This is why governments curate the information.  Censorship and propaganda.  What news gets out.  What news do we give.  Keep this in mind.  It is key to understanding much.

In the forties it was much easier for governments to do this.  It explains why Hitler and Hirohito and Mussolini were able to create cults of fanatical people convinced of their own racial superiority and therefore right to rule and were able to start the war in the first place and why they were able to keep fighting the war even when the tide turned against them and it became defensive.  It explains why when we were finally able to take the war to these nations and show their people what the awful cost would be, they, eventually, lost their will to keep fighting.  But it was atrocious.  

The other thing to keep in mind is that war is evil.  All war.  It is the unleashing of hell upon the earth in order to achieve a goal.  All sane men try to limit that unleashing but there is no way around it, it is pure violence.  To break the will of the people, we use violence (and propaganda) to change the narrative of their leaders.  Which means waging war on the general populace.  We annihilated Germany.  We razed Japan.  The fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo were horrific and killed thousands of civilians.  Women.  Children.  But unlike the Italians who read the writing and surrendered early, the Germans and the Japanese were more fanatical.  More trusting of the narrative.  The Germans were sending nothing but old men and underage boys to the front by the end because that is all they had, they would have fought to the last man or so they thought, and so we had to wage total war on them.  The Japanese were even more culturally convinced of their need to fight until their own annihilation due to bushido and the samurai cults.  And so we let loose the ultimate destruction on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  And their will finally broke.

But here’s the question to ask yourself: would we have had the will to do all of that, to win the “last just war” as people call it, if the modern free press and television, and smart phones and the internet had existed then?  If our people had seen the suffering of the people of Hamburg, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hiroshima, would they have had the stomach to finally eliminate the armies and leaders that had started the war no one asked for and committed the death camps and the rape of Nanking?  i don’t know, but what i do know is that news and media changed war.

The other thing about this is winning the war MUST be followed with winning the peace.  After WWII we did not abandon Germany and Japan.  We used our own resources to rebuild them.  We won over their people with our care of them and our true intention of helping them.  And the crazy thing is that it worked!  Those nations did not become fermentation beds of future wars.  They became stable nations in an increasingly global world.  And its interesting to see how this contrast played out in Berlin and Germany.  Divided between the Russians and the West.  The same generals and airmen who once bombed Germany into oblivion were tasked with trying to airlift enough food to feed a besieged city when Russia tried to starve out West Berlin!  And they did it!  It’s an amazing feat to this day.

But the stage was set now for the Cold War, and we see now how wars changed from Korea to Viet Nam, the first true war showed in living color on American tv sets every night.  How the government no longer controlled the narrative and even the attempt to do so made them look like the bad guys in the eyes of many.  Guys like Nonno to this day still don’t know what happened.  We were America.  We were the good guys.  The police of the world, so convinced of our own power and the nobility to wield it for the right reasons that we must.  And here he was being shipped home to a nation who hated him, called him baby killer and the such.  Who slammed doors in his face when he tried to visit the relatives of the friends he lost there.  There will probably never be another war that can be fought with such monolithic fervor as the ones of old.  But maybe not if they are won quickly as in Afghanistan and Iraq.  There we lightning fast won the war but never had a plan for the peace and so it dragged out into an occupation.  One in which we are all holding court over every little nuance and detail that makes it out, not knowing any better than our ancestors which ones are true and which ones are spun or even entirely false.  The media savvy ones will win the will regardless of who wins the battlefield.  Hearts and minds control the purse strings.  A people who no longer believe in their government or their cause will not join the military.  In this kind of arena terrorism makes sense in its own pitiless economy.  And they have convinced enough hearts and minds of their own to support their cause.  It’s not just that some men want to watch the world burn, it’s that, yes, they do, but maybe more importantly, they also know you don’t.  

Independence Day

 (From my journal this morning.)

2023 07 04,

Independence day.  

Father, on a certain day, i do not know the day, You made me independent from sin and this world.  On a certain day, i do not know the day, You bought me out of slavery.  On a certain day, i became free from death, an everlasting death which i was doomed to by my father’s sin and by my own.  But my independence is not freedom as the world sees it.  It is a new kind of slavery.  It is a new kind of service.  It is a new kind of being owned.  i have a new master.  i came out of the Republic and entered into the service of the King.  The King who adopted me.  i am not just his slave, i am His son!  By the death of His Son, in the power of His resurrection, i am free!  Kill my body and my soul will fly to Him.  And on a certain day, i do not know the day, my body will be freed and my soul will rejoin it and they will be recreated into glory.  Free from the grave, free from sin, free from sickness, free from pain, free from loss, free from misery, free from evil, free from suffering, free from hopelessness, free from confusion and angst and worry and hate and greed and selfishness and wretchedness and unrighteousness and anger and woe and lust and envy and coveting and pride and ignorance and murder and theft and adultery and godlessness and idolatry and violence and poverty and discharge and leprosy and uncleanness and suspicion and hiding and wrongdoing and war and rape and grime and filth and parasites and sweat and stains and misunderstanding and decay and defecation and deformity and ugliness and judgment and tiredness and exhaustion and lethargy and weariness and the enormous crushing, soul-dragging weight of everything there is to do here which cannot possibly be done and yet is expected.  i will be free of other people’s expectations.  Mom will be free of Alzheimer’s.  Abby Ledford will eat, and digest, and not die, her own body will stop attacking her.  We will be free of doctors and physicians and nurses and needles and machines that beep incessantly.  We will be free of lawyers and legalese and contracts and disclaimers and fees and the protection of words on paper.  We will be free of cheating and taking advantage and usury and predators and vileness and miserliness and money.  We will be free from misunderstanding each other, the Gospel, You!  We will know You.  No one will claim the office of prophet.  No one will claim the office of priest.  No one will claim special revelation.  We will be free of self-aggrandizement.  We will be free from politicians and megalomania and monomania and power seekers and back room deals and covert ops and spy agencies and lobbyists and special interest groups and political action committees and parties and patrons and donors and corporations and syndicates and unions and bought influence and bribery and slander and lies and lies and lies.  We will be free from need and hunger and thirst and the harmful effects of the sun and cancer!  We will be free from impotence and barrenness and childlessness and stillbirth and miscarriage and sudden infant death syndrome and suffocation and mental illness and no bone will break, no skin will bleed, nothing will cut us or stab us or rupture or break or tear or rend or break down or strain or pull or stretch or cease to function.  We will be free from apathy and lack of love and though i’ve said it before, it bears saying again here, selfishness.  We will be free from a lack of empathy and sympathy and pathos and we will never again sit in another’s presence desperately wanting to connect with them and know them and care about them but have no words.  We will never meet a stranger we do not love and want to know all about.  We will never again be a stranger whom no one notices.  We will be free from loneliness and isolation and awkwardness and cliques and teasing and bullying and power struggles and bias and prejudice and distrust and pariahs and fear and xenophobia and alienation and desertion and neglect and being cast out, cast away, cast off or the wrong caste.  We will be free from our misunderstanding and wrongful ideas of love, for we will know Love.  God is love and perfect love will drive out our fear and our false loves and we will be free of them.  Free to love.  Free from all impediments, fears, hesitations, self-defense, wariness, caution, reasonable safeguards, boundaries and fences and walls and fortresses and hurts and wounds, emotional, physical, spiritual, free from abuse, free from trauma, free from the word trauma, free from psychology and psychiatry and drugs, illicit and prescribed, free from escapism, free from coping mechanisms, free from the desire to flee, free from false utopias, free from narcissism, self-loathing, self-absorption, insecurity, overconfidence, personality disorders, self-care, self-help, self.  Free from self.  For nothing will surpass the all encompassing delight of knowing You and being in Your Very Presence!  There, there true freedom resides.  That is our future and our hope.  That is our ultimate destination.  That is the reality that puts the lie to this world.  That is true independence!  Let freedom ring!  Come Lord Jesus!

Duo Equinoxia: Part 2: Herald the Dawn

 The Vernal Equinox.  Light overtakes darkness.  New life.  New year.  Rebirth.  Resurrection.  Night retreats.  Days lengthen.  Snow melts, rivers swell, farmers plant, flowers bloom.

We have a dry erase calendar in our kitchen to mark events.  Usually it just has dates and birthdays and upcoming appointments.  The other day though, i looked at it and was struck by the quick succession of blessing upon blessing we had made note of in bold, vibrant, multi-colored all caps, one for each week.  As surely as September had been rife with pain, March has been joy upon joy, blessing upon blessing.

Only two days into the month my dear friend who had suffered so much including the seizure last September was quite unexpectedly and suddenly released from jail!  He was sent home on house arrest and work release when such things that we had so prayerfully hoped for at his sentencing seemed entirely off the table.  He was home before letters i sent were able to get to him.  He was in only long enough to develop a heart for the men inside and sense a new calling on his life: prison ministry.  Though he'll wear an anklet and be severely limited in his freedoms, he will gladly serve his time knowing when this ends, the sword that had been hanging over his head for years, incarceration, uncertainty, a chain around every plan he made, every dream he dreamed, every hope he had, will be gone.  The prisoner was called out of the dark dungeon into new life!  Glory be to God!

The following week my wife and i celebrated our thirtieth wedding anniversary.  We didn't do anything special.  We had a good meal in a nice restaurant but otherwise it was just a day off.  But what the day represented, the fact that we were still married to see it at all is a miracle only the God of Grace could pull off!  Behind us are years, YEARS of strife and anger and tears and talk of divorce and pain and misery.  But God being rich in mercy and according to his great love for us is able to do more than we ask or imagine, and here we are, not just together but in love!  The sweetness being all the more dear for the long dark years we have walked, limped, crawled through.  i cannot thank the God of redemption enough!

The very next week, still days away from the equinox, my eldest son and his lovely wife welcomed into the world their baby girl!  My very first grandchild had to be cut out of her mother but God is good and mother and baby are doing great and we are overjoyed!  We could not love her more and just the image of her every time i open my phone is enough to set my heart to skipping over mountains.  New life!  New joys!  New loves!  Thank You, Father!

What does it all mean?  i surely don't know.  i have no great theological points to draw from these two months and these events.  i just feel like God was drawing my attention to them in the ways they were ordered and clumped together.  Drawing attention to what He was doing.  He was faithful and true and good in the dark, he was near, we sought him in our tears and in our laments and in our confusion and storms and He was there, He was our Rock and our Refuge and our Comfort and at times even lessened the blows from what they could have been.  i am reminded we have no right to expect good from this world or this life, we have not earned it, nor do we deserve it.  Death comes to us all and sometimes before it does we get tastes of it, glimpses, previews.  Sin has made all darkness and unless the Light come into the world, the dark would swallow all.  

But the Light has come!  And built right into the rhythm of the seasons and the rhythm of life are the story line of the Gospel!  Redemption and forgiveness not in spite of death, not as a consolation alongside death, but right through death itself!  Christ used his own undeserved death, the only man who did have a right to expect nothing but good from God, took the wrath we deserve so we would not have to!  So we could enjoy the good things He deserves and expect even more!  And here we are, coming up on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox, the time of Passover, the time when the Lamb of God without blemish, His only begotten Son, was sacrificed for us and then rose again to show us who He is and what He's doing, making all things new!  Come Lord Jesus, Come! 

Duo Equinoxia: Part one: The gathering dark.

 The Autumnal Equinox.  The dying of the light.  The day on which Night overtakes Day for supremacy.  The darkness grows and dawn takes longer and longer to arrive.  The Sun retreats to the horizon and can only seem to shine weakly for what little time it has.  As the Equinox approached last September, my family received shock upon shock, we knew it at the time, we were aware that it was a hard, dark, pummeling season but even looking back on it we marvel at how many painful things happened in so short a time.  

At the beginning of the month, my brother made a rare trek up from North Carolina because we were becoming aware that my mother was exhibiting signs of Alzheimer's. We were aware that she was forgetting.  That's how i had always thought of Alzheimer's: as forgetting.  We went out to dinner while my brother was here and mom's credit card was denied.  She always handles the finances for her and my stepfather so we assumed that she had forgot to pay the bill.  But in looking over the statement, my brother discovered she had been giving away thousands of dollars to scam charities and political action groups for months and when we tried to talk to her about it the rational, reasonable, college educated, intelligent woman we have always known, the rock of our family who raised us became an angry little girl who could not tell reality from delusion.  We had thought she was forgetful but we had no idea how the disease had warped her inner dialogue.  How it had become full of imagined conversations she had with people she'd never met.  In a moment when we thought we were losing our mother, the correction came like an axe in the middle of the table, our mom, the mom we knew was already gone.  Two men who had grown up together but never grown together were suddenly closer, maybe clinging a little harder as they felt the loneliness of losing our family.  A child is never too old to feel like an orphan when their parents are taken from them.  We strategized, made a plan and the reunion turned out to be a sweet time for each of us.  A gift of memory and redemption i would have cause to be amazingly thankful for in only a few weeks.

Days after my brother went back home, i got a text at work.  It was a picture of my son's truck and the front end was nearly torn off.  My eldest runs a lawn mowing business and he and his brother and a friend of theirs were all in the truck on their way to their first yards of the morning when a man ran a stop sign and broadsided them so hard it my sons's brand new, full size, crew cab, F-250 and trailer loaded with two zero-turn mowers, did its own zero turn 180 degrees in the span of an intersection to end up facing the way they came.  i cannot fathom the force that takes.  A tragedy worthy of Job was mitigated by God's grace and as it happened, the man who hit them got the worst of it, he was unconscious and we never found out what happened, who he was, why he was out running stop signs at seven in the morning, all we learned was that he had no insurance.  My sons and their friend were left with bumps, bruises and burns, sore joints that linger even still, the loss of a vehicle but compared to what might have happened had the impact point been the passenger door... i dare not even contemplate.

Days later, literally, we were still in only the second week of September, at Bible study a dear friend and brother in Christ started appearing ill and calmly informed he was going to have a seizure.  Now i've heard of those all my life but never actually saw one till then and i'll be very happy to never see another.  Here was this man who's life already defines affliction and tragedy losing control of his own body and there's nothing we can do to help but hold his hand and witness and pray.  Truly this world is broken, Father, come quickly Lord Jesus!  The seizure has its way and does its violence and passes on like a storm with nary a care for the life it tosses in its wake but if it shakes me just to witness it, what must it do to the helpless victim?

Four days later again a morning at work was interrupted by my brother's (yes the same brother, i have but one) wife calling to tell me in the matter-of-fact voice of a person in shock and holding on to the hard facts they know to keep from thinking about the future they no longer have any assurance of, that my brother is being airlifted to a hospital with a trauma unit.  He had borrowed a friend's brand new Harley to ride to work and was just getting out onto the two lane and up to highway speed when he ran headlong into a deer, was flung from the cycle, his head, neck, shoulder taking the brunt of the landing.  Life went on hold.  i finished the day but the next we were in the car heading south.  A trauma ward, a coma, again, a body no longer in control of itself.  Eyes fixed at nothing.  Unable to breathe without machines.  Sudden arrhythmia that would shake him and make his vitals drop.  We kept watch by my brother's side, holding a hand that had the warmth of life but none of the vitality or motion, not knowing if he would ever wake.  And if he did, to what would he wake?  What would the damage be?  Who would he be?  

Equinox in North Carolina.  Night overcomes Day.

He ain't heavy...or is he?

 In a world where everyone is a sinner there is no possible community, true, loving community, without dying to ourselves and laying our lives down for the good of the other.

There is no possible way to die to ourselves and lay our lives down for another without pain.  Without loss.  Without absorbing and being willing to absorb damage!  Innocent as doves, yet being willing to be afflicted both for and BY another in order to gain them.  In order to love them.  In order to one day see them and the community healed, whole, shalom.  To sometimes suffer long years in silent service for nothing more than the hope that God may use it to change their hearts or simply because we love them, and we would rather be hurt ourselves than stand by while they hurt themselves.

Are we willing to jump on a grenade for ...anyone?  Who do we love enough to sacrifice for?  Our family?  Our church?  Our neighbors?  The kids down in Sunday School who need teachers?  The "difficult" guy or girl that few people like?  Our sibling who still just doesn't get it and keeps dropping grenades in their own lives?  

Our society is largely rich enough to make many historic forms of suffering a choice now.  If you have enough resources, you can quite often avoid wholesale many forms of pain and trouble and hard work that our ancestors took for granted and therefore learned how to live with!  We lost a lot more than the ability to suffer when we became unwilling to.  We may have even lost the ligaments of community.

My version of Imagine

 "Therefore, I urge first of all that petitions, prayers, requests, and thanksgiving be made on behalf of all people, on behalf of kings and all those who are in authority, in order that we may live a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable before God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and human beings, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all, the testimony at the proper time, for which I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am speaking the truth, I am not lying—a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger and dispute." 1 Tim 2:1-8

Oh that it should be so, Lord! Oh that your people were of one mind, one heart, one body! Oh that we with one breath, and that of the Spirit, plead with you for the lives of our families, the lives of our neighbors, the lives of our nations! That we would beseech you on behalf of all people everywhere! The small and the great. The servant wench and the general. The head of state and the lowliest beggar child. The leper and the supermodel. The athlete and the lame. The junkie and the CEO. The billionaire and the single mom on food stamps. What if we all, with one voice, cried out to You and tore our clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes and fasted and denied ourselves until you heard from heaven and it rent your heart and you could not bear our sorrow any longer? What if the church actually was the church, your voice here on earth, your heart here in the midst of the people, in the midst of a lost world? What might You do then? What miracles might we see in our day?

This is my version of that inane song, Imagine.

Saved alone. What shall i do?

 Horatio Spafford was a successful Chicago businessman and elder in a Presbyterian church.  His lovely wife Anna and he had five beautiful children, a son and four daughters.  In 1870 their son died of Scarlett Fever.  In 1871 their business was wiped out by the Great Chicago Fire.  In 1873 they decided to holiday in Europe for time but business concerns held up Horatio so Anna and the girls took ship before him and the plan was he would take a later one and catch up with them presumably in France.  

On November 22 at 2AM, the Loch Earn, an iron sailing ship, collided with the Ville du Havre.  In the darkness, the Ville du Havre broke apart and sank in twelve minutes taking 226 passengers with her.  Four of those were Horatio and Anna's daughters.  Pulled from the water unconscious, Anna was taken to Wales.  Stricken with grief and paying by the word she sent this telegram to a husband who probably only knew the ship had sunk and was desperate for news:  "Saved Alone" "What shall I do"

Horatio immediately booked passage to England.  It comes down to us that during that voyage, the Captain of his ship called Horatio to the deck one day to tell him that they were over the resting place of his children.  The nature of steam and sail travel is time.  Time we don't usually have or take these days.  Horatio, a lawyer by profession, used this time to pen a poem. 

Horatio and Anna would have three more children as the years went by.  One of these would die of pneumonia.  They seemed to live a life Job would understand and one would be inhuman not to ask God why?  Why one family so much suffering?  

i don't know why.  i don't know why every day millions of people ride motorcycles and never strike a deer.  i don't know why every day millions of people have terrible accidents and are hardly bruised.  i don't know why my brother is in a coma or when he will wake or what his life will be like after.

But i do know that i am so very thankful that Horatio, my brother in Christ whom i never met, did not waste his grief or that idle time spent on  his voyage.  For almost one hundred and fifty years after he did, sitting in a lovely, shady little courtyard underneath the room where my brother's body lay in a hospital, his mind sank deep where none but God can go, i was able to sing Horatio's poem and find comfort in the God who knows all things and Savior who descended deeper than hell to rescue me.

When peace like a river attendeth my way

when sorrows like sea billows roll

whatever my lot Thou has taught me to say

it is well, it is well with my soul

Though the devil may ruin, dark trials will come

let this blest assurance control

that Christ has regarded my helpless estate

and he shed his own blood for my soul.

It is well

with my soul

It is well, it is well with my soul.

My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought

my sin, not in part, but the whole

is nailed to the cross and i bear it no more

it is well, it is well

with my soul.

And Lord hast the day when my faith shall be sight

the clouds be rolled back as a scroll

the trumpet shall sound and the Lord shall descend

even so, it is well, with my soul.

It is well,

with my soul,

it is well, it is well with my soul.

"Everything i have is yours..."

If it doesn't hurt, it's not generous.
If it doesn't cost you, it's not a gift.
If you don't absorb the debt, you didn't forgive.

If you don't lay your life down, then it isn't love. 

Covenant

 Grace.  Unmerited favor.  Undeserved blessing.  You initiate the covenant with us.  The covenant.  i say it As if it was a thing that just existed and we all just fell into it, or a contract that you signed with us.  Instead it is the deepest form of relationship there is.  The most powerful form of intimacy possible.  And it started, it emanated, it begins in You.  For the Covenant is the expression of and essence of Who You Are.  You are love.  You bleed for us.  You ache for us.  You grieve over us even before we know you.  Even before we existed outside of your imagination.  You knew us and loved us.  You committed yourself to us.  So much so that you would become one of us, suffer as one of us, more than any of us, For you took the justice we deserved for breaking your covenant, breaking your heart, for dishonoring your majesty, dismissing your affection, rejecting your love, rejecting You. For love’s sake, you forsook yourself, to save your lambs, to fold us into your love, binding us to You eternally.  For what you love can never be lost.  What you love can never diminish.  What you love can never die.  We will go on and on, ever more filled with your love, ever more filled with You, Consummating, completing, never knowing lack yet always there is more, ever more, at last, able to love you.

just a thought

 Of course we understand that the Spirit uses the good news of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection to change lives but do we understand that the very way we live those lives for those of us who believe actually increases the believability and desirability of that message? By living generous, sacrificial lives, even we who are not gifted evangelists make the job of the preachers so much easier! For they will be able to see the proof of the preacher's claims in us and our communities.

Hey Jealousy

 "Cruel is wrath and overwhelming is anger,

but who can stand before jealousy?" Prov 27:4

"..for I AM YHWH your God, a jealous God.." Deut 5:9

The greater the love, the greater the jealousy. Harm or dishonor that which He loves and of course wrath must follow. Dishonor and fail to uphold His holiness. Harm and exploit His creation. Harm and exploit and disregard the poor. Harm and exploit and dishonor His Bride the church. And of course incur His wrath.

But even so, all of this can be forgiven. But how much more if you dishonor Him by rejecting, disdaining or even just ignoring His only beloved Son in whom He loves the most and His most true act of love which He has done to win you?

For a time such as this...Esther 4; Only took a year...

 "Mordecai learned all that had been done and he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes.  And he went through the middle of the city and cried out a loud and bitter cry; he went up to the entrance of the gate of the king, for he could not go to the gate of the king in sackcloth."  Esther 4: 1, 2

It's been a while so let's review.

• This is an interpretation of the Book of Esther from the viewpoint that it is a parable, an allegory of the gospel itself.
• The King is God.
• Haman is Satan
• Esther is the Son of Man
• Mordecai and the Jews represent us

Got it?  With me?  No?  Well, then, go back to February of last year and read those posts first.  Or just muddle through like you did in high school when you didn't read the assigned pages and everyone was discussing the chapter and you were like, i have no idea what is going on here and i dearly hope the quiz isn't today!

The word has come down from on high.  Those who have been deemed the King's enemies are to be executed, not right away, but at a later date.  Their goods plundered.  All is lost!  Those who understand are distraught; they are the dead men walking.  They put on sackcloth and ashes and mourn loudly.

"And as the angel of YHWH spoke these words to all the Israelites, the people wept bitterly.  And they call the name of this place Bokim (weepers), and there they sacrificed to YHWH."  Judges 2: 4, 5

"And when the king heard the words of the law,  he tore his garments..."  2 Chron 34: 19

"For all of the people wept when they heard the words of the law."  Neh 8:9

Astonishment, fear, trembling, despair, these are what the Law of God bring us if our hearts are responsive and our minds not blinded by our sin.  God's law is perfect.  God's law is holy.  There is none of us righteous, no not one.  

    "Who may ascend the mountain of YHWH?

    And who may stand in his holy place?"  Ps 24: 3

    "Who has ascended to heaven and come down?  Who has gathered the wind in the hollow of his hand?  Who has wrapped water in a garment?  Who has established all the ends of the earth?  What is his name and what is the name of his child?  For surely you know."  Prov 30:4

Mordecai cannot come into the presence of the King himself.  He cannot even come into the near presence of the king in mourning.  He cannot advocate for himself and his people.  Another must do it.  Another who has position he does not.  Another who has power he does not.  Another who has access he does not.  If they do not, he and his people will surely die.

But one does take compassion on him. 

"And Esther's maids and her eunuchs came and they told her, and the queen was deeply distressed..."

One from the palace does care.  One does identify so closely with him and his people that she will share his fate, the fate of her people.  

"And no one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven--the Son of Man.  And just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, thus it is necessary that the Son of Man be lifted up..."  John 3: 13, 14

"Therefore, since the children share in blood and flesh, he also in like manner shared in these same things..."  Heb 2: 14

"Who knows?" Mordecai muses to his niece/daughter Hadassah, his own flesh and blood, "Perhaps you have come to a royal position for a time such as this."

"For everything there is an appointed time, a time for every matter under heaven..." Ecc 3: 1

"But when the fullness of time came, God sent out his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order that he might redeem those under the law...." Gal 4: 4, 5

But Esther is no suicidal fool.  She knows the law.  She too may die in the attempt to approach the king and all would be in vain.  The journey is too great for her, she needs the favor of God.

"Esther replied to Mordecai: "Go, gather all the Jews that are found in Susa and fast for me; do not eat or drink for three days, both night and day.  I and my young girls will fast likewise, and then I will go to the king..."  

"And they came to a place named Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, "Sit here while I pray."  And he took along Peter and James and John with him, and he began to be distressed and troubled.  And he said to them, "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death.  Remain here and stay awake."  And going forward a little he fell to the ground and began to pray...."  Mark 14:32-35

 Just a crumb from reading Genesis 25 this morning...

Esau.  

Impulsive.  Crude.  Unrefined.  He eats, bolts down, slurps down, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and leaves.  Maybe he belches.  Maybe he doesn’t because he doesn’t feel like complimenting Jacob on his stew.  He does not think of the future.  He doesn’t hardly think at all.  He is like a beast.  A hairy red beast.  That is how the narrative wants us to think of him.  Interestingly appetite is the metaphor for both Esau and Isaac.  Appetite.  Men of their stomachs.  

How’m i doing, Lord?  How often am i not ruled by my stomach?  Forgetting even to thank you for my food before digging into it.  Fasting is ruling over the stomach.  Ruling over the appetites.  A beast thinks only of its next meal.  Survival.  A man can fast.  Can chose to forego the meal in order to seek something greater.  An infant screams because it is hungry.  A weaned child can sit calmly.  A man must rule over his appetites, desires and physical weakness.  Self-control.  A gift of the Spirit.  An attribute of Christ.  Man does not live by bread alone but by every Word which comes from the mouth of God.  Give us appetites for the Bread of Heaven.

And then God waited...

The last time God revealed himself to the whole world, there were only two people on it.  

God ordains the means.  This includes our ability to know Him.  Those two people were spoken to directly.  We know Cain was spoken to directly, oddly enough, we don't know if Abel was.  Enoch walked with YHWH, the rest of humanity walked away from Him.  Though all mankind should have had the ancestral knowledge and passing along of the true God, it is obvious they did not so that by the time God reveals Himself and His plan to Noah, only eight people, and seven of them probably not directly, have heard from Him and about Him.  A reset.  A reboot.  Through these eight, the race of men are given another chance to know YHWH and walk with him as one.  And as with Cain, it becomes painfully apparent right away that will not be the case.

And God is content to wait generations for one man and one barren woman.  Abram is chosen, among all the countless millions of people who were on the earth by that time, scattered by God himself at Babel, all with ancestral memory of the flood, all walking away from the True God.  Abram is chosen and renamed "Father of Nations."  Through Sarah and He, God would reveal Himself to the world...eventually.  And not even their whole family.  Not all of Abraham's children, but just the one, Isaac.  And not all of his children, but the one, Jacob.  In Jacob God chose to create a people for His own possession: Israel.

And so this one family, twelve clans, was chosen to be God's ambassadors, His representatives, His chosen priesthood of believers upon the earth and to the entire world.  And then God waited.  Four hundred years.

Taking no one's counsel but His own, when the time was right, God revealed Himself first to one man, Moses, then through the plea of prophecy and following, violent judgment, He revealed himself to both the nation of His sovereign election and their oppressors.  Upon leading them out of that land he led them to a mountain and allowed them to see just a hint of his holiness and glory.  And he gave them Words.  Ten words to live by, to know God by, and by obeying, to show the world what the One True God was like.  Then for forty years of wandering, He was manifestly in the midst of only one nation of all the nations and tribes in all the earth in a way they could physically see and hear.

And they walked away from Him.  Even while, literally, walking behind Him and holding His revelation in a box in a tent in their midst.  Their hearts, the box inside the tent of their bodies, the hearts of His chosen people, His royal priesthood of believers, were never with Him.  He let them die in the wilderness.  Their children entered the land following Joshua.  But where was the cloud?  It is never mentioned again.  Did it leave in a ceremony?  Did the presence of God fade away and none noticed enough to write it down?  After this there is only the revelation of prophets, chosen instruments of God's divine word.  And God waited.

And God is again content to wait for generations, four hundred years, for one man, a shepherd, David, whom he chooses from among the sheepfolds and makes king.  To this one, the one man and his one line, God will give a promise of eternal kingship.  His son, David's son, will build a kingdom that shall never pass away.  Of all the people, of all the nations of the earth, God has chosen this one man, of one tribe, of one nation to be His representative to the world again.  And then God waited.

No time for innocence

 It was small talk while we waited for an appraiser to tell me what i already knew, that my trade-in wasn't worth the electricity a crusher would take to make it into a manageable metal cube.  But it was interesting small talk.  Probably worth more than the truck i was considering purchasing.

The salesman was saying, given what he's seen in the world and the state of it now, back in '06 when he found out "we were pregnant" he was excited, of course he was excited and happy, but he.. he had reservations.  Was it right?  He didn't really want to finish the statement.  Perhaps he realized at that moment that he was talking to total strangers and sharing something intensely personal.  But maybe he left it hanging because there is a...there should be a.. a hesitation before voicing what so many of us may feel.  Is it right?  Is it good?  Is it ..moral.. to bring children into this world?

He was in perfectly safe company.  i had the same thoughts when my wife was pregnant.  i have the same thoughts now about my children having children.  i have those thoughts when i see all the new babies being born in our church.  What kind of world are we bringing them into?  What future awaits them?  My eschatology and my sense of the political winds agree that there are not just rough seas ahead, but rocks, and here there be dragons.  What kind of monster would hurl an infant child into that maelstrom?  

But in that instant, when my instincts were to nod and agree wholeheartedly, a new thought entered my head: 

But that would mean we, as a race, gave up.  If all that is required, as so many well meaning folk say, for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing, then what kind of victory would evil have if all well intentioned folk simply threw in the towel and allowed themselves to perish from the earth?  There's a dystopian novel in that idea, i'm sure of it.  And i'm fairly certain for many reasons that is all it will ever be: fiction, the feverish dreams and nightmares of grossly over pessimistic authors.  And i think the reasons for that are worth dwelling on because they are reasons to bless God and to rejoice and to repent and to find hope in an otherwise hopeless world!

First, blessing, and what is a child if not just that?  Pregnancy is sometimes called a miracle.  New life.  Which only God can bring and God has blessed and God has pronounced as good.  If the world is dark then bring light to it!  Bring children!  Bring life!  "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth," was a commandment before, "Do not eat."  What we could do, should do was here before what we should not do.  God's plan for the earth is wrapped up in this.  As a pastor i used to listen to used to say, there are two ways to outnumber the pagans, one is to convert them but the other is to simply breed them out!  Have more babies!  Being fruitful is always tied to the blessing of YHWH.  

A baby is a gift, always.  No matter the circumstances, the child did not create them.  The child we know to be a gift from God and thanksgiving is always appropriate in the face of God's gifts.  Rejoicing is the proper response.  To do anything else is ungrateful and to judge God's gifts and timing and come out saying you knew better.  To discredit the gift is to disgrace the giver, to dishonor the child is to dishonor the image of the Living God in the child.  You cannot mourn the birth of the prince without angering the King.  Rejoice!  Rejoice that God's favor has not turned from men!  In the amazing movie Children of Men, all people have become sterile, no child has been born for almost twenty years.  The human race knows it is dying.  Even pagans would have to admit the judgment of God in such an event.  

But no matter what has happened since the beginning of time no such judgment has come!  When an armageddon of ice crept down from the north, and humans were pushed south, they carried their young with them.  When God judged the earth with water, eight people (and countless animals!) he brought through and made them all fruitful and repopulated the earth.  When a wicked king demanded that the people of God throw their sons in the river, God kept giving them sons.  Through war, famine, pestilence, plague, economic depression, refugee flight, through generations of serfdom, slavery and oppression, God has given people children.  No age was too dark, no time too bleak, no trial too fiery for mothers and fathers to bear their young through it all.  How arrogant are we to think that no, this time, this age is just too bad to bring kids into, this future too hopeless?  

And so repent, you who like me may have disdained, even in idle thought, the blessing of God.  The very hope we need in this dark age is symbolized in the signs of grace God gives us in new life itself!  We who are the firstfruits of the new creation should recognize this more than anyone!  We who know Who our hope is have no justification for losing hope!  For we must never forget that it is our very hope who is in charge! 

“Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have deported from Jerusalem to Babylon, ‘Build houses and live in them, and plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and father sons and daughters, and take for your sons wives, and give your daughters to men that they may bear sons and daughters, and multiply there, and you must not be few."  Jeremiah 29:4-6

Christians! On me!

 From my prayer journal this morning, a meditation on 2 Sam 10, Ps 60 and Ezekiel's visions of God's throne...

Then back to the campaigns of David with Psalm 60.  Which interestingly enough makes it sound as if they lost or were losing or the battles didn’t go as swimmingly as 2 Samuel makes it sound.  “You have rallied those who fear you round a banner out of bowshot, so that your beloved ones may be rescued.”  vs 4,5  A broken formation runs for its life as the archers pour arrow after arrow, as fast as they can knock, pull and release, into the lighter armor on the backs of the fleeing.  But then a banner raises up in their seeing.  It stands proud and tall and unfaltering and they recognize it and flee toward it.  And run beyond the arrows, re-muster, reform and gain strength and courage from their commander who reorders them for a second push.  Gathers the remnant to himself and forges it into a spear.  And now the enemy pursuers have lost formation, they have lost the integrity of their lines and each the help of his neighbor.  Now a hardened, orderly, cohesive phalanx can turn and break them into flight and cut them down on the retreat, one by one.

The banner, or better yet, your mobile throne, your chariot which Zeke saw, born up above the cherubim and the wheelwork.  If we were fleeing and saw this!  This would be the shadow we would gather under.  This would be the wings we would take refuge under.  “And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered because of the word of God and because of the testimony which they had, and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, holy and true Lord, will you not judge and avenge our blood from those who live on the earth?” And to each one of them a white robe was given, and it was said to them that they should rest yet a short time, until the number of their fellow slaves and their brothers who were about to be killed as they had been were completed also.”  Rev 6:9-11  Those slaughtered for your name are surely gathering under your banner and out of bowshot.

God is good, all the time.

 [Direct from my prayer journal this morning... i dunno, but it may be helpful to somebody.  Peace and the prosperity of God to you, brothers and sisters.]

“For I know the plans that I am planning concerning you,”  declares YHWH, “plans for prosperity and not for harm, to give you a future and a hope.”  Jer 29:11

A very famous verse and one that prosperity gospel gets its name from.  One often taken out of context by both those who love it and those who want to debunk it.  No, it was not written about modern americans.  But what Scripture is there that is not God breathed and useful for all teaching and instruction and admonition?  What prophecy does not have both a near and a far meaning?  It is important to note that the prosperity that You gave them was one or two generations growing up knowing nothing but life in Babylon.  That three generations later, the grandchildren of the Jewish exiles will see Babylon destroyed by Cyrus.  A traumatic event.  And some will remain to serve the Persians.  And some will return to the land, the land they did not know and find filled with foreigners, and rebuild in their poverty a nation hated by its neighbors.  A land surrounded.  Mason’s packing heat in case of attack.  Hard work.  It’s not that your gifts are not good, Lord, they are.  It’s that we tend to misinterpret them.  We seek comfort and ease, and you seek discipline and training us up into the image of Christ, who suffered greatly in order to serve others and obey you.  Who was perfected through suffering.  And that is still true today.  Our prosperity is Christ.  Christ in us.  Christ for us.  Christ over us.  And you plan that for all your people.