Christmas, 2020

It's hard to believe that we are at the end of 2020.  Whoever we were at the beginning of it, we are not that at the end of it. What we have done with it, and will do with it, is up to us. It's been a year to see what we are made of. Does our faith go down deep into our roots or is it just good enough for fair winds? Is God who we saw Him to be last year or have we discovered that He is quite a bit wilder and less predictable than the cliched boxes we have put Him in?

The  biblical prophets, the true ones anyway, lived with and before a God who was afire with love, with justice,  with mercy and truth.  Their encounters with Him left them speechless but transformed. God's purposes are always what they have been: to show Himself the Father of a people who would reflect His Glory.  The amazing and hard part, even for God, was that He gave people free choice, and with that, inevitably, came choices both good and bad. Realize, dear one, that your ability to choose is something holy, it is something that you yourself possess as a gift from God and with it, you will, by your choices, determine your destiny.  Of course God is sovereign but He has offered you a choice when you came into being. Choose well.  

This year showed us that earthly life can be shorter than we think and more out of our control than we hoped.  Eternal life is what we all are really about and so we should be looking in that direction, looking for what is to come and what it will be like. We have to decide if we like that and want to live forever under the direction of One in whom there is no darkness nor shadow of turning.  It is a fearsome choice. But how do I choose? pray the sinner's prayer? live an austere life? do good works? none of these completely suffice. 

God is looking for relationship with us. He is looking for us to be deeply united with Him, even one with Him--to see His goodness and His good purposes and to work with Him to accomplish them. My life is not about doing more, or feeling I've succeeded or whatever goal the world tries to put on us, my goal is to be more and more connected to Christ and know what absolute safety that Love is all about.  What if you were always jumping with a safety net? What if nothing separated us from God if we didnt want it to? The Apostle Paul said , ""For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39).

Again and again I have seen that our union with God begins with surrender--not as a threatened knave, but as a free agent who can only unite with God by choice and compatibility. Our sense of aloneness stems from our unawareness of what blissful unity is possible with our Creator, and even with His people. What if we were safe? What if when Jesus said that He keeps all that have been given unto Him and no one can snatch them from His Hands that that was true? (John 10:28). What if you were free to be a child of God and to live from that protected place in the hand of God?  There is the old expression, "safer than being tucked into God's pocket with the flap tucked down" --what if we were that safe, even if darkness raged against us and appeared to win? 

There are, no doubt, more life storms out ahead of us. But let us put them to work for us, so that we are able to run our race with great faith and confidence in the One who keeps us safe even if our bodies fail. Each minute, in good times and bad, I am making decisions that affect my eternity. Look at the choices with adventure and curiosity and not fear! Choose well and choose wisely, dear ones! Surrender more and fear less! Godspeed!

Learning Grace

The more we walk in grace, and understand the ways of God, the less we will be rigid and legalistic. The Apostle Paul says that "The Law is a tutor that leads us to Christ." (Galatians 3:24). 

When we navigate by the letter of the Law, we are still learning that all of God's ways are steeped in a bath of grace. We have yet to learn that we could fulfill what God desires without unduly strict reinforcements. True authority is very gentle but very effective and powerful. Budding prophets can prophesy too harshly without the undergirding of grace. 

Budding evangelists can scare people with talk of hellfire rather than the love and grace of God. Budding teachers can give you lots of principles but not the seasoned life experience to show how that works out in real life. Budding leaders can see those they lead as a pack of wild stallions and pull back too hard on the reigns and hit too hard with the crop. They may focus on the task rather than the relational co-operation part that makes working as a team with a lot of strong members go forward as a joy rather than a job reminiscent of a chain gang!. We do not mature to a more detailed rulebook, but to the knowledge of who Jesus is. 

 As we move toward grace we begin to act out of deep patience and self-control, we see the ways of God and are not focused so much on the success or failure of the task at hand but on the relationship being built between us and God and between us and each other. Each of us, to mature in our callings, has to move from the legality of the rulebook to the grace of what is intended by the heart of God. Put down the rulebook today and ask God, "What are you trying to teach me?" Part of that will be greater grace and less rigidity.

Hope for Life and the Scent of Water

“For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. 8Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; 9Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant. Job 14:7-9

This morning, in the prayer meeting I was in, this verse was read. I’ve recently started to try to sprout some things hydroponically that I would have normally thought of as dead, done, or incapable of new life. I put an onion, rather mushy, in a cup of water and overnight it sprouted roots so long it took me aback. I did that with shriveled garlic bulbs, and now celery. I transplanted some motherwort yesterday and it drooped hopelessly until I watered it well. There is an important lesson here.

Think about the life that God has put in every living thing. We all need water to survive. We all like watching the sea, we like sitting next to water, we like to drink cold glasses of water on a cold day. Roots of plants gravitate toward water. In these verses from Job it speaks of a tree that is cut down and yet when it catches the scent of water it starts to bud. The scent of water. Not even water itself, but the mere smell of it gives hope.

I keep thinking about the onion though, it had been picked from a field somewhere in America, traveled in a truck or plane, sat at the store, then sat in my storage drawer til it probably almost lost hope, and then I put it in water and it showed its life springing from up from its depths. It’s continuing to put forth green onion shoots-- I don’t know how it makes them, but at night when I trim the shoots, by the next day, they grow back. Profound. Disturbingly, wonderfully profound: the strength of life.

I think I resonate with this because I can identify with the onion. Sometimes it seems like walking across a dry desert with no water in sight, and feeling like any hope of water is gone, but then encountering, first, the scent of Water from heaven, and then the Water of Life itself and suddenly coming back to life and feeling whole again. How powerful an experience! Animals in the desert know the scent of water, they know how to find their way to its life-giving place. We, too, have instincts for God. Jesus said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37). The prophet Isaiah also says, “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!” (Isaiah 55:1). In the Book of Revelation a River of Life flows through the city of God.

There are things that cannot be quenched in our souls until we drink of that water.
And how shall we drink? How is this not just some kind of religious phrase that sounds good but doesn’t connect with reality? Jesus addresses this when the pharisee, Nicodemus comes to him at night to discuss spiritual things (John 3:3-13). Jesus tells him he must be born of water and the Spirit and Nick doesnt get it. He says, “What? Go into my mother’s womb again?” Jesus, he had to be shaking his head, “You are a spiritual leader in Israel and you don’t understand this?” 

We drink of that heavenly water through relationship with Jesus Christ. When we call out to Him, to quench our thirst, something in us is enlivened. Our spirit comes to life, like an onion responding to water, and we smell the scent of water, then drink of it. It is a spiritual process. I can’t explain how it happens just like I can’t explain how plants grow using just water. But the difference between drinking and not drinking is life and death. You know that. So go take a drink. And if you don’t know how, tell God about your thirst and let Him lead you to water. It will be then up to you to drink of it.

Is it I, Lord?

We are approaching the end of Passover and Matthew’s gospel gives us the chilling account of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas. Judas had been out and about making preparations to betray Jesus but he sits down with all the other disciples at the Passover supper. Jesus is aware of what is happening, and I can’t imagine how painful this is to Him.

The text says, “As they were eating, He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me” (Matt. 26:21). The disciples are extremely shocked and sad, after all, it's not something you want to hear after living day and night with Jesus for three years. It’s not something you bring up during the middle of a holy meal, yet Jesus did just that. He did it in the middle of His community, because its not just His betrayal, it is the community’s betrayal. He is aware of who the betrayer is, aware of all that will happen later that evening, and yet here He sits in the middle of His family, of which one is the betrayer.

I think Jesus did this prophetic act so that later when the disciples thought of it, they would know that Jesus knew and that His death did not come by chance, but was something that Jesus knew He was headed for and destined for. There is something disconcerting about following a leader who doesn’t see it coming. There is something incredibly inspiring about following a leader who does see it coming and stands up into His destiny despite what it costs.

Jesus does nothing to try and talk Judas out of it, but he does say that it would have been better for HIs betrayer not to have been born. I can only imagine the face of Judas going white then going red with increased blood pressure as he realizes that Jesus knows. I can only imagine. I can’t imagine.

Jesus extends the question to all the disciples and it hangs in the air like a heavy cloud darkening the atmosphere of the celebration of the Lord’s saving act to His people so long ago. But here is my point. As He looks at each of His disciples, they one by one ask, “Lord, is it I?” Each of them had the heart to find out if it was they themselves that would betray Him.

I’m sure their hearts were not completely pure and like a searchlight, this announcement by the Lord would bring up any times when they doubted that Jesus was who He said He was or anytime they had been pushed past their ability to understand and had thought to leave Him. I’m sure they quickly began to wager a guess as to who it was as they pushed aside any sense of their own guilt. Yet in that moment, suspended in some sort of eternal moment of decision, they had the courage to ask “Is it I?”

What a penetrating question that struck deep into their hearts, separating soul and spirit. For whatever reason, even Judas asks this of Him. Perhaps it was to cover his guilt, to appear surprised, even to test Jesus, perhaps all those things. His question springs as a cover for guilt and not as a genuine inquiry.

It is a time to allow the Lord to ask us tough questions. He asks these questions so the deepest things in our hearts can rise to the surface to be helped. He did this from start to finish in His ministry and He was doing it there and then--but He is also doing it here and now. His questions are never because He doesn’t know the answer but because He does know the answer all too well and we do not. Our hearts are expert at hiding the truth, the real reason, the actual cause. Jesus!

Let us let You search our hearts, dear Lord! Look deep, ask us the hard questions, reveal, uncover, expose so that You might make us true and straight as an arrow shot from the quiver of God. Let every pretense, every hiding place, be searched. We needn’t be afraid to admit we need help. So, Lord, Help us! Make us “pure and holy, tried and true.” Please.

The Easter When Everything Changed

I personally think that I will remember this Easter for many years to come. It was the Easter we spent isolated in our houses while the world changed. True story! But it needed to change. So much of life is waiting. The biblical tradition has a long history of waiting in it. Abraham and Sarah waiting for a baby; Noah waiting for the rain to start; Elijah waiting on a mountain; Daniel waiting for the exile to be over; Anna waiting for the Messiah to be born; John waiting on Patmos for Jesus; the list is much longer.

 I’ve been waiting for a long time for what I sense I’m seeing. There are destined times and epochs in the “kairos” time of God. “When the fullness of time had come…” Just when time is about to burst with waiting, it explodes into the purpose of God. The preparation for a servant of God takes a long time, again, I can give you a longlist: Moses, David, Daniel, Jesus, Himself, Paul, Timothy, John the Beloved. God can do what He wants without us, but He has chosen to work with and through us, so He has to polish, temper, and strengthen us so that we don’t snap out of pressure or lose our faith in the process.

Let’s face it, it's been cloudy for a good, long while. The prophet Ezekiel speaks of a “cloudy and dark day” when the sheep are scattered and the Shepherd has to go out and gather them. I have seen that look of fierceness on the Face of the Great Shepherd in these last days, I have seen His determination to gather those that are lost. The clouds of false belief; man-made religion; lethargy induced apathy; confusion, dismay, and inability to endure have clouded the Face of the Living God from those that need most desperately to see Him. So He is going to rise up and go looking for the lost sheep. He is going to blow the hindering clouds away. He is going to go into every last highway and byway looking for those stuck in the thorny bushes of hopelessness, despair, and shame. He asks us to go with Him. He asks us to gather with Him for He has told us, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and who does not gather with Me, scatters” (Matthew 12:30.

 I have seen people who know God and walk with God come back to life in the last week. I have seen hope born, courage arise, purpose return. I’ve seen the glaze disappear from the eyes of the believers who have looked for Him so long, more than they who wait in the cold, dark night for morning. A cloud the size of man’s hand appears overhead. The Lord is standing up to move. Don’t miss it. Prepare your heart, shake off your slumber, fill your lamp with oil, trim your wick. Stand up with Him.