Okay, Now Just Fall Back and Trust

Exodus 14:10 - 15 (RSV) ¹⁰When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them; and they were in great fear. And the people of Israel cried out to the LORD;  ¹¹and they said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, in bringing us out of Egypt?  ¹²Is not this what we said to you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”  ¹³And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again.  ¹⁴The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be still.”  ¹⁵The LORD said to Moses, “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward. 

I feel especially wicked today. The longer I live in Christ, the greater a sinner I see myself to be and a greater Savior I know our Lord to be. As my sin increases, God’s mercy multiplies to cover it with the all sufficient blood of His Son. “O to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be.” I think the root of all sin lies in the idolatry of Self. How quickly I can turn inward and stew in my pettiness. How quickly I see myself as the center of a Universe where galaxies revolve around me.  This is not a pleasant disposition. There is no peace in narcissism. We sinners suffer greatly and with an unrighteous loneliness. Our idolatry keeps us from holy compassion. “It’s all about us.” Even the pain of other becomes an occasion to talk about our own. I long to have my heart broken by the sorrow of another – that I may be more Christ-like.

 

In the story above, I am not Pharaoh, in his menacing power and rage. I am too weak for such a role. I am not the Egyptians who know nothing of God’s covenants and promise. Far from it, I know the covenant sealed in the blood of Christ; I know that all his promises are “yes” for me. I am not Moses who holds fast to the promises of God and trusts all His provisions. No, I am among “the people of Israel.” I am one of those who are fearful and complaining. A great salvation waits me, if I were not frozen in fear and blocked by my independence.

Here is the righteous cure to my sinful predisposition to despair - “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today.” Okay, now I am pumped! Tell me what you want me to do, God, and I’ll do my best to get it done! God says, through Moses, “You have only to be still.” Is it that simple? I think, if stillness were simple I would have done it before now.

 

Can I be still in the midst of a storm? Can you?

 

All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

 Courage, brother! do not stumble,

Though thy path be dark as night;

There’s a star to guide the humble,

Trust in God and do the right.

Norman Macleod (1812–1872)

 

Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber,

Holy angels guard thy bed.

Heavenly blessings without number

Gently falling on thy head.

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

 

 I will not doubt, though all my ships at sea

Come drifting home with broken masts and sails;

I shall believe the hand which never fails,

From seeming evil worketh good to me.

And, though I weep because those sails are battered,

Still will I cry, while my best hopes lie shattered,

“I trust in thee.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919)

 

Let us be like a bird for a moment perched

On a frail branch when he sings;

Though he feels it bend, yet he sings his song,

Knowing that he has wings.

Victor Hugo (1802–1885)

 

Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.

C. S. Lewis (1898–1963)

 

That little bird has chosen his shelter; above it are the stars and the deep heaven of worlds; yet he is rocking himself to sleep without caring for tomorrow’s lodging, calmly clinging to his little twig and leaving God to think for him.

Martin Luther (1483–1546)

 What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely now as they know they must do at the last day. For each of us the time is coming when we shall have nothing but God. Health and wealth and friends and hiding places will be swept away, and we shall have only God. To the man of pseudo faith that is a terrifying thought, but to real faith it is one of the most comforting thoughts the heart can entertain.

A. W. Tozer (1897–1963)

Come On, Who'ya Trying to Fool?

Ps 51:6

6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward being;therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. RSV

My dear wife has an annoying habit of asking me “What are you thinking?” Often I lie. I say, “Nothing.” Now that is such an obvious deception that I might as well had said, “It’s none of your business what I am thinking.” Wouldn’t it be interesting to have a button that would, when pushed, cause anyone to truthfully report, accurately and unedited, the past ten minutes of their “inner dialogue.”

My mother and I once visited her mother’s brother. He was in his late 80’s, lived alone and I wanted to interview him for genealogical purposes. He was not at all responsive to my questions about our family. It soon became clear that he really didn’t want to talk with us. During one of the many periods of silence, without the slightest expression of any emotion, he said “I wish they would leave.” I don’t think he ever became aware that he had spoken part of his inner dialogue.

Are there lies in our “thought world”? I would imagine that we are more likely to be truthful to ourselves than to others, so fewer deceptions will happen in our secret spaces. The lies we tell ourselves are more formative, that is, they have a greater impact, than the lies we tell others.

Techniques like keep a journal of your “private thoughts” (or inner dialogue) is useful to check the accuracy of those perceptions. It is dangerous to assume that anything in my head must be the truth. A necessary spiritual exercise is to purge your heart from as many untruths as possible.

Ps 51:6

6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward being;

therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

RSV

And silence, like a poultice, comes To heal the blows of sound. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894)

 

Acceptance of one’s intrinsic worth is the core of the personality. When it collapses, everything else begins to quiver. James C. Dobson (1936– )

 

He who respects himself is safe from others; he wears a coat of mail that none can pierce. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

 

Our acceptance before God is complete and secure even when we are disappointed in ourselves. Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )

Songs of the Sorrowing Heart

2 Corinthians 1:3-7 (NKJV)
³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. ⁵ For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. ⁶ Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. ⁷ And our hope for you is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation.

Certain musical genres are helpful when you are troubled. The two that readily come to mind, is the Blues (Spirituals) and Country Music. You will also find a thorough treatment of this theme in true folk music – that is, in traditional forms of music that evolved naturally from the human experience.

One of the most plaintive is the O Negro Spiritual “Sometimes I feel like a Motherless Child.” It was first recorded by Paul Robesons in 1933, in the shadow of the Great Depression. Perhaps Odette does it best, from a woman’s perspective. And who can forget the definitive cover from “Hooty and the Blowfish.” <grin>

According to Etta James in an interview with American Chronicle: "The Blues and country are first cousins ... What I look for in a song is for the story to be for real. I like a blood and guts kind of thing. That's what you find in the lyrics of country music." Blues and country music both developed in the 19th century in the Southern United States. They share a similar history. For this reason, they share many of the same musical and lyrical characteristics.

 

Traditional folk music or American Tradition Music sings has many songs of woe, like “In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines and you shiver when the cold winds blow.” While American Folks Music and the Blues represent the songs of sorrow and lamentation, I doubt there is culture on the earth that does not have similar themes in their music and stories.

I suppose the source of all sorrow comes when the events of our lives fail to meet our expectations. We expect our emotional relationships to last for a lifetime and mourn when they are cut short. Our hearts are made to break when those we love experience pain. I doubt we would have it to contrary. Imagine a life completely without sorrow. Would it be a life truly worth living? I would mean that we had nothing of value to mourn when it is lost.

I doubt there are “tears in Heaven” (to borrow from yet another songwriter on the occasion of losing his son.) God will indeed one day, immediately following our death, “wipe every tear from our eyes.” Till then, in this “vale of tears” we will feel the gut sinking sensation of loss.

God sometimes washes the eyes of his children with tears in order that they may read aright his providence and his commandments. Theodore Ledyard Cuyler (1822–1909)

 

A day of sorrow is longer than a month of joy. Chinese Proverb

All our winters are God’s:
the winter of our sorrow,
the winter of our unhappiness,
even the winter of our discontent. George Macdonald (1824–1905)

 

Behind joy and laughter there may be a temperament, coarse, hard, and callous. But behind sorrow there is always sorrow. Pain, unlike pleasure, wears no mask. Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

 

Do not cheat thy heart and tell her, “Grief will pass away, Hope for fairer times in future, And forget today.” Tell her, if you will, that sorrow Need not come in vain; Tell her that the lesson taught her Far outweighs the pain. Adelaide Ann Procter (1825–1864)

Hell, You Say

Josh 7:16 - 21 (RSV) ¹⁶So Joshua rose early in the morning, and brought Israel near tribe by tribe, and the tribe of Judah was taken; ¹⁷and he brought near the families of Judah, and the family of the Zerahites was taken; and he brought near the family of the Zerahites man by man, and Zabdi was taken; ¹⁸and he brought near his household man by man, and Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken. ¹⁹Then Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory to the LORD God of Israel, and render praise to him; and tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me.” ²⁰And Achan answered Joshua, “Of a truth I have sinned against the LORD God of Israel, and this is what I did: ²¹when I saw among the spoil a beautiful mantle from Shinar, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, then I coveted them, and took them; and behold, they are hidden in the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

 

John Milton, in Paradise Lost, describes Hell as

 A dungeon horrible, on all sides round

As one great furnace flamed, yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulfur unconsumed:
Such place of eternal justice had prepared
For those rebellious, here their prison ordained
In utter darkness, and their portion set
As far removed from God and light of heaven
As from the center thrice to utmost pole.
O how unlike the place from whence they fell!
 

Jesus speaks more of Hell than he does of Heaven. It is clear from the Scriptures that everyone deserves punishment of Hell but no one deserves the glories of Heaven. The greatest thing about Heaven is that it means you are saved from the eternal pains and sorrows of Hell.

Achan (see the passage above) is a marked man. He is hiding his rebellion from his neighbors. His evil places the whole community in jeopardy. God knows who is guilty of the crime in question and gives the means to Joshua to find out who it is. Every nation is brought before Joshua, who cast lots to see if the nation is guilty. Once the nation is discovered he cast lots over each tribe, then each family, then each person in that family. Achan stands guilty as sin and waits for the lot to fall on him. When it does he confesses his sin.

When I first read how Achan confessed his wrongdoing I half expected God to show His mercy. God rightfully cast a judgment on Achan and his family.  It is a death sentence. That seems so harsh! Was God wrong to have Achan killed for the crime of theft? “The judgments of God are right and true all together.” So, by God’s nature, Achan was justly killed with his whole family.

It is possible that people you love will go to Hell and suffer its torments forever. That seems harsh. Is God just in His judgments? Yes, I believe, he is. I know that I deserve to go to Hell. I stand there as the lots are cast to find the sinners. I am sure, that I am the one they are looking for. It is only because of God grace that I am saved from Hell’s torments. God gave me the grace to, through faith, repent of my sins and ask for mercy. “O to grace how great a debtor.” It is Hell that I am saved from. It is also the state of being lost that I am spared from. God has taken me from the darkness of Hell and placed me into His glorious light. I shutter at the prospect of going to Hell.

No one who is lost believes they are going to Hell. (If they did, I would think they would turn to God for mercy.) Everyone who is saved appreciates the grave nature of their salvation.

 

God will never send anybody to hell. If man goes to hell, he goes by his own free choice. Hell was created for the devil and his angels, not for man. God never meant that man should go there. Billy Graham (1918– )

Hell is where no one has anything in common with anybody else except the fact that they all hate one another and cannot get away from one another and from themselves. Thomas Merton (1915–1968)

The pain of punishment will be without the fruit of penitence; weeping will be useless, and prayer ineffectual. Too late they will believe in eternal punishment who would not believe in eternal life. Saint Cyprian (200–258)

 The safest road to hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. C. S. Lewis (1898–1963)

 We must picture hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment. C. S. Lewis (1898–1963)

 Anyone can devise a plan by which good people may go to heaven. Only God can devise a plan whereby sinners, who are his enemies, can go to heaven. Lewis Sperry Chafer (1871–1952)

Human Understanding

Num 12:1-8

 

12 Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman; 2 and they said, "Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?" And the Lord heard it. 3 Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all men that were on the face of the earth. 4 And suddenly the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron and Miriam, "Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting." And the three of them came out. 5 And the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud, and stood at the door of the tent, and called Aaron and Miriam; and they both came forward. 6 And he said, "Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream. 7 Not so with my servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house. 8 With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in dark speech; and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?"

RSV

Third Person: “Did you hear about Sally?” “No” “She lost her job because she got caught with her boss – “I mean, in a very compromising position.” “Really! Does her husband know?” “I heard he left her when he found out.”

Second Person: “Sally, is it true what I hear about why you lost your job? This must be a great burden for you and your family.”

Third Person: “What-a-ya think of our new football coach?” “I heard he got fired from his last job.”

 Second Person: “Hey, coach, welcome to town.”

 Third Person: “That Brittany Spears, is she crazy or what?”

 

Second Person: “Dear Brittany, just a note to tell you that I am praying for you and your family.”

Third Person: “The other day, my friend’s husband asked if I was interested in having sex with him.”

Second Person: “Jim, I am concerned about you. I am afraid you are about to do something very stupid and that it will hurt lots of people we both love.”

Third Person: “I can’t stand my new boss, he is a real jerk.”

Second Person: “Could we talk about your expectation for me and settle a few matters that have been troubling me?”

 

“Lord, guard me lips this day from third person speech. Give me the courage and wisdom to venture into second person conversations.”

 

He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)

 

 

A faultfinder is a person with a bad memory who never remembers the good, or a person with a good memory who always remembers the bad.

 

A malignant deity, called Critisism . . . At her right hand sat Ignorance, her father and husband, blind with age; at her left, Pride, her mother, dressing her up in scraps of paper she herself had torn. There was Opinion, her sister, light of foot, hoodwinked, and headstrong, yet giddy and perpetually turning. About her played her children, Noise and Impudence, Dullness and Vanity, Positiveness, Pedantry, and Ill-Manners. The goddess herself had claws like a cat, her head, and ears, and voice resembled those of an ass; her teeth fallen out before, her eyes turned inward, as if she also looked only upon herself; her diet was the overflowing of her own gall.

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

 

By seeing the tremendous blossoming which a person can experience when surrounded by love and confidence, when he does not feel judged, we can measure the stifling power of other people’s criticism.

Paul Tournier (1898–1986)

 

Criticism leaves you with the flattering unction that you are a superior person. It is impossible to develop the characteristics of a saint and maintain a critical attitude.

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)

Fight the Good Fight with Goodness

James 3:13-18 (NKJV)  

¹³ Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. ¹⁴ But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. ¹⁵ This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. ¹⁶ For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. ¹⁷ But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. ¹⁸ Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. 

  

It took me many years to figure out what I was supposed to be “as a man.” As a boy, I looked to various male role models to discover what was expected of me. I admired those who were strong and smart. As a pre-teen young man I looked for men who were kind and yet could act with confidence. I admired some of my teachers, both male and female, for their character and personality. I saw that older boys were respected for their physical prowess and the ability to fight. Such persons frightened me but they also fascinated me. I saw them as strong and I wanted to be just as strong. They would stand up to others and overpower them with their abilities to intimidate. They used implied threats to get their way and insert their wills. I began to equate such power with strength of character.

 

I reasoned that I would need to engage in some form of physical aggression if I was to be “respected” as a man. So, I would get into a fist fight about once a year during my high school years. My only code of honor was not to be the aggressor. Only later did I learn that such aggression is usually invited by me simply because I presented myself as a fighter.

On that I am a grown man, even an old man, with many years of experience, and having the Holy Spirit at work in my soul I have vowed to keep the peace of Christ in my heart. Aggression now is my enemy. Gentleness is a more powerful force for good than aggression.

In the process of shunning aggression I have learned that this evil takes many forms. There is the aggression of physical posture. There is the aggression of a hard word or even the aggression of a dismissive facial expression. What is called for is a careful checking of the heart. I have also learned those women are just as prone to aggression as men.

Even some Christians have adopted the use of intimidation to push back a perceived threat or to get their way. I think it is possible to be unaware of your own use of force. It’s like bad breath, sometimes you are the last person to know.

Behind every argument is someone’s ignorance. Louis D. Brandeis (1856–1941)

Never argue with another: remember he too has a right to his own stupid opinion.

 The less sound a man’s argument, the louder he talks.

 For after all, the best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

 

Being Simple

1 Corinthians 1:26-31 (NKJV)
²⁶ For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. ²⁷ But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; ²⁸ and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, ²⁹ that no flesh should glory in His presence. ³⁰ But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God--and righteousness and sanctification and redemption-- ³¹ that, as it is written, "He who glories, let him glory in the LORD."

Our first parents had a conversation with the Devil about what they might eat that day, He said to them, “What is available to you?” They said, “Everything but one thing.” The Devil wondered aloud why that one source of nutrients and pleasure was withheld from them. I doubt they had ever considered eaten what God had forbidden them to eat. But now, the question was out there, just hanging in the air. They cautioned Satan that the day one’s eats that solitary restricted fruit they would surely die. Satan shows his false knowledge when he flatly contradicts the Word of the Lord. “You shall not die.” He goes further to say that he knows God’s heart; that heart is wicked and petty. “You have been tricked by God because He is afraid that you will become as knowledgeable and sophisticated as he is.

What convinced Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit? Was Eve motivated differently than Adam? I don’t think so. It is true that the Devil approaches Eve and directs his word to her, but the story is clear that Adam is present when Eve and Devil conferred. So he is listening but not engaging in the dialogue. This act was not merely bodily; it was also a process of the mind, and a realignment of the spirit.

The relationship between the first human creatures and their Creator changed. They exchanged innocence for sophistication. By that exchange, we read in Paul’s letter to the Romans, “Thinking themselves wise, they became fools.”

The pattern repeats itself with every person thereafter. Consider the development of children, who grow every more willful and insist on greater and greater degrees of independence. I remember my daughter was around two when she would say, “I do it myself.” Some independence from human parents is healthy, but from God it is the very source of spiritual death. It is a relational death. Because of our insistence to severe out wills from God’s will, we cut ourselves off from his care and his wisdom.

What is the cure? First, the foundational remedy lies with the Covenant made, for us, between the Father and the Son when Jesus submitted to the Father’s will to atone for all our sins. From our position there is a kind of cure in our exercise in simplicity before an almighty and all knowing Creator. We must daily, moment by moment, remove all the complications of our lives. When we relate to God, our words must be simple and our hearts must submit to God with pretense or false sophistication.

 

All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope. Sir Winston Churchill (1874–1965)

 

If you are absolutely obedient to God, then there is no ambiguity in you and you are mere simplicity before God. . . . One thing there is which all Satan’s cunning and all the snares of temptation cannot take by surprise. That is simplicity. Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813–1855)

 

Better in bitterest agony to lie, Before thy throne, Than through much increase to be lifted up on high, And stand alone. Yet best—the need that broke me at thy feet, In voiceless prayer, And cast my chastened heart, a sacrifice complete, Upon thy care. John Oxenham (1861–1941)

 

If you don’t surrender to Christ, you surrender to chaos. E. Stanley Jones (1884–1973)

 

Make me a captive, Lord, And then I shall be free; Force me to render up my sword, And I shall conqueror be. I sink in life’s alarms When by myself I stand; Imprison me within thine arms, And strong shall be my hand. George Matheson (1842–1906)

 

The man who surrenders to Christ exchanges a cruel slave driver for a kind and gentle Master whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. A. W. Tozer (1897–1963)