good news to live by

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.           Colossians 3:12-14

 

The third chapter of Colossians reads like this epic calling to real, adventurous living. From freedom over sins and old habits to radical ways of relating to one another, it proclaims that we have been created to live for something far more grand than the small details of our daily lives. It calls to us to not allow the size of our lives to be shrunk to the size of our struggles. It reminds us that we are new and being renewed.

 

Just read some of the opening lines of this chapter:

 

For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.    Colossians 3:3-4

 

Does that not move you to excitement?! Our lives—hidden in Christ. Appearing with him in glory!

 

Some days we need the reminder that we are a part of something huge; something truly epic and majestic. We are a part of God’s story—a story that spans from origin to destiny, from creation to eternity. This small existence, this brief moment in history that we occupy is not all we are. We are God’s own possession, his people, holy and dearly loved. I know me well enough to know that this alone—to be identified as holy and dearly loved by God—is powerful testimony of how I have become a part of God’s story of redemption. If my story were just my story, left for me to write alone, it wouldn’t include these kinds of words. I’m not capable of this type of purity or achievement. But God is doing it; he is involving us in his magnificent story. I’m so convinced that the biggest problem we have as the people of God is not that we ask too much of him, but that we often settle for far too little. His story stretches through all ages, out into eternity past and forward into eternity beyond the future. And he has made us part of what is his.

 

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.    Colossians 3:15

 

We can be ruled by the peace of Christ remembering that we are a part of something so grand and beautiful. We can remind ourselves and one another that God is working in the here and now, touching our lives with sometimes uncomfortable grace, creating in us something far better than anything we could ever accomplish, imagine or even desire on our own.

 

This is the message of Christ. May it dwell richly among us in our homes, as we work, when we play and where we gather in community. May we live as the new who are always being renewed. May we love as those who are loved by the Resurrected One. May we believe and also think as those who are a part of something much bigger and much more noble than our paltry little kingdoms of self. May we be the people of God, designed for his great purposes and led by his great power, for the glory of his magnificent name.

 

spacious place

He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
he drew me out of deep waters.

He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
from my foes, who were too strong for me.

They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
but the Lord was my support.

He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.

                                                            Psalm 18:16-19

 

He reached down and took hold of me. He drew me out. I had no merit that made me worthy. I had earned no right to this. I did not. I cannot. It is only because he is great. He rescues and shows his strength because he is great. It is to himself and for himself that he saves. And I am the recipient of a spacious place.

 

This grace I find myself in is indeed spacious. I cannot find its limits. I cannot trek its boundaries. All I need is here. All I am is found here. Here, where God is. Here where God rescues me and draws me out. Here where God takes hold of me. This is a place of grace.

 

My enemies were too strong for me, but God was stronger still. They confront me and seek to draw me from him, but God is my support. God brings me out. And God brings me in—in to this spacious place of grace.

 

 

As for God, his way is perfect;
the word of the Lord is flawless.
He is a shield
for all who take refuge in him.

For who is God besides the Lord?
And who is the Rock except our God?

It is God who arms me with strength
and makes my way perfect.

He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;
he enables me to stand on the heights.

He trains my hands for battle;
my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

You give me your shield of victory,
and your right hand sustains me;
you stoop down to make me great.

You broaden the path beneath me,
so that my ankles do not turn.

                                                            Psalm 18:30-36

 

He is my shield—shielding me from my enemies even when my enemy is myself. He is the spacious place of refuge. In him I can hide and live and be. In him I can find rescue and hope and life.

 

No one is God but God. None are so strong, so great, so perfect. It is he who trains. He who enables. He who gives.

 

Why would the God of heaven stop to me? Why bend low to my lowly place? Why make great one who is like me?

 

The Lord is perfect and flawless full of strength. And so he loves in complete perfection. He chooses and direct in utter flawlessness. He pursues and rescues and shields in mighty strength.

 

There is none like him; none but him. God alone is great!

 

May we worship the Lord today for being the one with no equal. The one perfect and complete. The one Rock and Shield who takes hold of his children and draws them out and brings them in to his spacious place of grace.

 

redefining freedom

For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”             Galatians 5:13-14

 

Over time we have this way—as people and cultures—of redefining what words mean. Based on how we use them and what we attach to them we can take a word and narrow its meaning. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In some ways it’s helpful. If words have a narrow scope of use and meaning then we are much less likely to be misunderstood. But when we come to Scripture this can leave us confused or disconnected. After all, God’s inspired words were written to at a specific time and in specific places. They were written out of (and in to) cultures and people and circumstances. Words had certain meanings.

 

Add to this our need to translate it into our own languages and it’s easy to understand, from a very practical standpoint, our need to tread carefully and think critically about what we read; what God intended. Not to mention that we are speaking of a living word—God’s very words—a message that will forever challenge and inform our thinking, emotions and ultimately our hearts. We alter the meaning of words and so comes the challenge of hearing—not just reading—what God is saying when he uses words that we use today, but uses them with a different perspective.

 

The word I’m mulling over today is the word freedom. As an American I can see that we have a fairly weird relationship with this word. Just short of obsessive, I would say. And the way we like to embrace freedom is not at all the way Paul utilizes it in his letter to the Galatians. For us as Americans—and truthfully for many people living across the globe as well—freedom means many things that contradict the way Paul (and ultimately God) understands the word.

 

For us, freedom often incites visions of doing what I want and being able to simply play and relax. Freedom implies not being told what to do and not doing anything I don’t enjoy. Freedom can mean options upon options and never being given less than what I choose. Freedom can easily be seen as a soaring above and beyond the kinds of responsibilities that just seem to weigh us down. Don’t get me wrong, freedom isn’t all bad in our current way of thinking. It can also mean fair treatment for all, equal access, a fight against prejudice and so on. But none of this is what Paul focuses on when he speaks of freedom.

 

“But you have been called to live in freedom…”

 

That sounds so great! Let’s just stop there. Time to start the party. I hear the echoing cry of Braveheart, “Freedom!!!!….” But look at what Paul says about our freedom:

 

Don’t use it to satisfy your sinful nature.

 

Use your freedom to serve and love one another.

 

Don’t make your freedom in Christ about yourself. Make it about being what others need. Make it about living for the good of another instead of always thinking in terms of self-preservation and self-promotion. Is it just me or does this sound more like work and less like freedom?

 

Serve? Focus on other people’s needs? It’s counterintuitive to see this as freedom. And yet, living without always worrying about self, living without the tyranny of pursuing material gain, living out of a deep interest in others is freedom. It is stepping out from under the slavery to self that so quickly and continually seeks to entangle us.

 

Just last night I sat on my porch with a friend and talked about the struggles that go into being in community with others. Let’s be honest—being in relationship with people is not always a walk in the park. It’s not always fun; it’s not always easy. People are messy! Freedom feels like it would be a shedding of the duties of loving others. Freedom feels like it should involve no longer considering others, just worrying about our own needs and interests. But it doesn’t work that way.

 

Freedom is found in giving rather than hoarding. It’s found in serving rather than promoting my own needs. True freedom is found in being in relationship with those who are also seeking the freedom found in loving well. This is what it looks like to truly be free in Christ: to be open to the changing of hearts that he is doing. Ultimately, freedom that comes from Christ is a freedom from guilt and shame, a freedom from selfishness and the fear of being forgotten. So we are free to focus on others. Free to love them knowing that we are already loved perfectly ourselves.

 

It may require redefining the word a bit, but I think it’s high time we reclaim freedom and bring it in line with what God thinks of when he offers it to us.

 

back again

Before you Gentiles knew God, you were slaves to so-called gods that do not even exist. So now that you know God (or should I say, now that God knows you), why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world? You are trying to earn favor with God by observing certain days or months or seasons or years. I fear for you. Perhaps all my hard work with you was for nothing. Dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to live as I do in freedom from these things, for I have become like you Gentiles—free from those laws.   Galatians 4:8-12

  

Stop going back again.

 

Back to the way of value by effort.

 

Back to the way of earn it or you won’t be loved.

 

Don’t go back to a system that loves with conditions and has acceptance that’s based on what you do or say. A love based on the hows of doing and saying.

 

Why do you want to go back again?

 

Live!

 

Live in the freedom of what can’t be earned.

 

Live in the love that can’t be bought.

 

Live where favor isn’t taken and rules aren’t meant for making you clean or validating that you really are someone—really are good enough.

 

Because now God knows you.

 

This is freedom.

 

This is life as it was meant and what it was created for.

 

To be known by God. To be valued and understood. To have one—not just any one, but the One—look at us and get it; get us. Look at us and like us. He looks and knows, not just our name, but our heart. And still, even with all the knowing, he likes us.

 

Not because we do it right and are always getting it the way he wants us to. He knows us, remember? So he knows we don’t always choose well and live rightly. That’s not why he likes—why he loves.

 

Why would we want to go back?

 

All that remains there for us is precarious acceptance that is based on our ability to perform. All that is left for us is conditional love and rule based worth. But here lies freedom. Here stands Jesus, accepting without limit and transforming without depending on us to make it happen.

 

Let us not go back, but let us instead go ever further in to the grace that leads to freedom.

 

so much for nothing

Oh, foolish Galatians! Who has cast an evil spell on you? For the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death was made as clear to you as if you had seen a picture of his death on the cross. Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ. How foolish can you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? Have you experienced so much for nothing? Surely it was not in vain, was it?         Galatians 3:1-4

 

Why are we so foolish?

 

Why do we still try, day after day, to earn what’s been given?

 

Why do we still seek value in our accomplishments? Why do we still believe our merit must be proved? Why do we act as if our behavior determines our worth? Why do we often live as if coming in first is the only way to be considered worthy?

 

We say we don’t and yet…don’t we act differently out in front of others than behind closed doors? Are we not intentionally more gracious when people are watching? Can we honestly say that we never speak in certain ways or about particular things as a means of impressing others?

 

Can we actually say that we never seek to impress God? Don’t we often behave in certain ways—even pray in certain ways—wanting to show him we are becoming something he will approve of? Hasn’t he already approved? Didn’t he approve of our worth by sending his only Son to die for us?

 

We have been given God’s Spirit, just for believing. We have been given eternity and immortality, just for believing. God has done all the work. There is nothing for us to do. Thankfully. We couldn’t do it if there was. That’s why he came, that’s why he rescued us—because we couldn’t. And he did it all, there is nothing to earn.

 

Have we believed so much for nothing?

 

If we are trying to become perfect by our own human effort, Paul would say we have. If we are trying to gain worth and value from our performance, Paul would say we have. Have we?

 

I pray we have not. I pray we find freedom in grace. I pray for us today to find joy and hope in the value we can’t earn and none can take away from us. I pray we find the love and mercy and grace of God today. And I pray we simply rest in it.

 

rule #1 – be free

What is this obsession we have with rules? For as much as we complain about rules and requirements we seem to run to them awfully fast. We are constantly defining who is in and who is out based on performance. And I get it—rules mean structure and structure means security because we know where we stand. Rules mean order and safety and things aren’t just mass chaos. I’m not against rules; not at all. I see their value and know they are needed, but sometimes I think we love rules too much, we love rules for the wrong reasons. Our preoccupation with rules just may be the very reason we often miss the real meaning of grace in our lives.

  

I went there because God revealed to me that I should go. While I was there I met privately with those considered to be leaders of the church and shared with them the message I had been preaching to the Gentiles. I wanted to make sure that we were in agreement, for fear that all my efforts had been wasted and I was running the race for nothing. And they supported me and did not even demand that my companion Titus be circumcised, though he was a Gentile. Even that question came up only because of some so-called Christians there—false ones, really—who were secretly brought in. They sneaked in to spy on us and take away the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. They wanted to enslave us and force us to follow their Jewish regulations. But we refused to give in to them for a single moment. We wanted to preserve the truth of the gospel message for you.    Galatians 2:2-5

 

Paul is talking through his first days of interaction with the church leaders. In the midst of it he brings up a significant issue about rules and those who love them. The problem of the day was circumcision. It’s hard for us to fully appreciate this because it’s not a rule that is central to our identity as a culture. It’s not a rule that signifies our commitment to God. But for these people it had been…until now.

 

The coming of Jesus meant that there was now a freedom from the rules. Not a freedom to disregard the rules, but a freedom from being held under them. A freedom from trying to earn right standing through rule following. Pre-Jesus the followers of God who were male were required to be circumcised. That was God’s rule. After Jesus comes there is freedom from the Law and—as far as Paul and the other church leaders were concerned—this was no longer required.

 

What’s interesting is that there were some who showed up demanding that this rule be followed. Paul says they were secretly brought in; they came to spy and take away the freedom we have in Christ. Those are strong words, especially with regard to what we would consider a doctrinal or theological debate. We have these still today. The topics are different, but the result is the same. One group thinks this particular piece of their theology and practice is central, but another group doesn’t see it that way. Paul is not here condemning the group that holds this practice to still be valuable. He is condemning their desire to forcibly bring others under their same conviction.

 

There are few—precious few—real convictions or pillars of our faith. These are the things we should die defending and refusing to relinquish. The majority of our doctrinal arguments aren’t convictions. They are important and coming to some understanding on them is even necessary. But they shouldn’t be rules we forcibly impose on others. When these people try to do this to Paul he has a strong stance of refusing to bow to the pressure.

 

“But we refused to give in to them for a single moment. We wanted to preserve the truth of the gospel message for you.”

 

The truth of the gospel message is that in many things we have freedom. This makes us nervous. Not nervous for ourselves—we are sure we’ll handle this freedom well. But we are nervous about others because we don’t trust them to handle their freedom well. And so we start imposing rules.

 

When Jesus was asked about the rules he gave us two:

 

“‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: `Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”  Matthew 22:37-40

 

It’s not as if Jesus is making it easier on us. If anything, these two commandments are much more difficult to follow than a list of do’s and don’ts for every situation. These are rules of right-heartedness and love. These are much more ambiguous and require maturity and relationship. It’s a call to freedom.

 

Maybe the problem is that we tend to associate freedom with a lack of responsibility. Being free doesn’t mean being self-serving. It means following and serving because I love not because I’m required.

 

“We wanted to preserve the truth of the gospel message for you.”

 

Through Jesus we are free to love and be loved. We don’t have to earn our place. This is the message Paul is preserving. The truth of the gospel message we should preserve as well. Be free. Love and be loved. That’s the most important rule.

 

trusting in me

Then the whole community of Israel set out from Elim and journeyed into the wilderness of Sin, between Elim and Mount Sinai. They arrived there on the fifteenth day of the second month, one month after leaving the land of Egypt. There, too, the whole community of Israel complained about Moses and Aaron.
   ”If only the Lord had killed us back in Egypt,” they moaned. “There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. But now you have brought us into this wilderness to starve us all to death.”
   Then the Lord said to Moses, “Look, I’m going to rain down food from heaven for you. Each day the people can go out and pick up as much food as they need for that day. I will test them in this to see whether or not they will follow my instructions.            Exodus 16:1-4

 

I’m reading about these Israelites and the fact that they are complaining…again. Honestly, it’s a little bit annoying. I do not enjoy listening to others complain. I don’t even enjoy listening to myself complain! Of, course, the irony is that when it’s me I’m always convinced there is some reasonable explanation for it, but that’s another issue.

 

I find myself sitting here and reading and wondering what their problem is. Was it not enough to see firsthand all the plagues that God brought about to free them from Israel? Was it not enough to actually pass through the Red Sea—with water walled up on both sides of them—and then see God bring the water crashing down on their enemies? How could they doubt so much?

 

But as I consider it I realize, they aren’t doubting, they are afraid. The difference is subtle, I think, but it’s real. I don’t think they are doubting that God is real or that he is powerful, they have seen that for themselves. But there is still something frightening about leading your families out into the desert with no real plan.

 

Where are we going? When will we get there? How will we sustain ourselves in the meantime?

 

It can be frightening to rely on someone else for your daily bread. It can be frightening to not be in complete control and need another to provide for you what you can’t provide for yourself. The real issue the Israelites are facing is the issue of surrender. Submission. They don’t need more faith, they need to apply the faith they already have. They don’t need to believe in God more, they need to place less trust in themselves.

 

Why does God give manna only for the day if not to push them into reliance and a surrender of control?

 

The Israelites didn’t really miss their old lives of slavery. They probably didn’t even have “pots filled with meat” or all the bread they wanted. We can be excessively creative with the way we remember our past. But they undoubtedly felt more in control—even as slaves. They knew what was expected, they knew the daily routine. There is a sense of security that comes with just knowing what’s next and how to navigate the day. When God throws us into unknown circumstances and stretches us to unknown outcomes we remember what’s always been true: we are not in control.

 

The illusion of control and security can be comforting…and addicting. It can also foster a deep sense of trust in self. For all the ways I know that trusting in me is a bad idea, still I run back to it time and again. So sometimes God leads us into the desert and then says, “I’ll give you what you need for today. Tomorrow we’ll take care of tomorrow and its needs.”

 

It’s not the way we like to live, for sure, but sometimes it’s the best way, the needed way. If today you find yourself in the desert, if today you find yourself with no sense of how tomorrow will play out, you may just be right where God wants you. It can be frightening when God leads us out with no real plan from our perspective. But these are times we have to choose, complaining and fear and a fighting for control. Or surrender and trust.  

 

a question of hardening

And the Lord told Moses, “When you arrive back in Egypt, go to Pharaoh and perform all the miracles I have empowered you to do. But I will harden his heart so he will refuse to let the people go.”         Exodus 4:21

 

Exodus 4 contains several issues that we might find difficult to deal with. Things that God says and does that may leave us feeling very uncomfortable. The first of which is found in Exodus 4:21. God seems to simply be saying, “I will decide for Pharaoh, he will not accept.”

 

Depending on your theological standing on the sovereignty of God this statement may either just be passed over without a second thought, or it may give you a deep desire to just ignore it and move on as fast as possible. But I think in the interest of true understanding of God and his Word we need to ask the question(s):

 

Did God make Pharaoh reject him so that he could use Pharaoh as a reason to display his power? Did God decide for Pharaoh if he would receive or reject the message of Moses—God’s message?

 

Now, please understand that I don’t wish to insight some sort of giant theological debate about free will versus God’s sovereignty with this post (when did that become an either/or issue anyway). And I have no intention of telling anyone how to come out on this. I simply wish to raise the question that this text begs us to ask and share some information I believe to be essential to coming to an understanding. And mostly I hope to nudge you into thinking more about God, who he is, and how he interacts with us. I guess I’m just here to stir the pot for you a little…in a good way of course.

 

So again, the question really is, what does it mean when God says, I will harden Pharaoh’s heart…”

 

Does God simply choose for us how we will respond to his calling, his message in our lives? It seems, at first reading that this is what he is doing with Pharaoh. Is that indeed the case, and if so, is that the way God works with everyone? Or is he only doing that with Pharaoh, or with select others?

 

Do see the dilemma that this can quickly become? How we see these verses in Exodus 4 has vast implications for how we see God, the gospel of Jesus, and our own role in the world.

 

Let me also say that if God chose to arbitrarily harden some hearts and soften some others and allow some to choose and others not to chose he certainly could do this. And I know that there are many within the Christian community who believe he does do this. I respect that position although in the interest of full disclosure I don’t believe it is what the whole of Scripture reveals about God and his offer of salvation. If you do, that is fine and I’m not trying to debate that here or convince you of something different here. What I do want to do is look honestly at the text we find ourselves with today: Exodus 4. We’ve been working our way through Exodus this month so we need to at least address what’s going on here.

 

Here is my brief finding and then I will simply wait to read your comments, thoughts or responses just to see your take on what is happening here.

 

At first read, as I said, this appears to be God unashamedly announcing that this gig is fixed. Pharaoh will be dis-allowed to make any choice other than the hardened, unbending, rebellious to God choice. But remembering that neither God, Moses nor Pharaoh originally spoke English (shock to us self-centered Americans!) and that the Bible was also not originally written in English (double scandal!!) is essential.

 

If we go back to the original Hebrew the word used for “hardened” is chazaq. While this word can be translated as “hardened” it has a broader meaning as well. So a good question to ask might be: how is this word chazaq used in the rest of the Old Testament?

 

This should give us some context for how the Biblical writers might have understood this word. Here are four examples. The words in all caps are the words translated from the original chazaq word. 

 

Once again the Israelites did evil in the Lord ‘s sight, and the Lord GAVE King Eglon of Moab CONTROL over Israel because of their evil.       Judges 3:12

 

Then Samson prayed to the Lord , “Sovereign Lord , remember me again. O God, please STRENGTHEN me just one more time.    Judges 16:28

 

Instead, your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will lead the people into the land. ENCOURAGE him, for he will lead Israel as they take possession of it.       Deuteronomy 1:38

 

Instead, commission Joshua and ENCOURAGE AND STRENGTHEN him, for he will lead the people across the Jordan. He will give them all the land you now see before you as their possession. Deuteronomy 3:28

 

So for some reason the Bible translators who made the transition from Hebrew to English for us used the word “harden” in Exodus (it is done again several times in Exodus 7) but in other places such as Deuteronomy (same original author) and in Judges the word is translated as something more along the lines of encouraging or strengthening what is already there.

 

To me this does not mean that God just decides for Pharaoh that he will reject Moses—and ultimately God—but that he will simply handed Pharaoh over to the desires of his heart. God simply strengthened what was already going on in Pharaoh so as to use it for his own purposes. It reminds me much of the ideas presented in Romans 1 when God lets us go only so far and then just hands us over, essentially saying, “If that is what you want you can have all of it.”

 

I realize this is more of an academic approach to the Scriptures than we usually take and it’s not something I intend to do often, but sometimes it is needed for addressing some of the tougher questions.

 

Perhaps you agree with me on my take of what this means in Exodus 4 and perhaps you don’t. Either way, chances are high that you will think more about God today than you had intended. And you might even do some digging of your own. If that’s the case, then I’ve done what I intended!

 

I welcome your thoughts, questions and perspectives.

 

out of control

“Every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”    Exodus 1:22

 

This is how Exodus 1 closes. This is not good. The Israelites are liuving in a land of severe oppression and despair. Can you imagine having a child and hoping for a girl just so your newborn child could live? And this is the scene that Exodus opens to: a woman doing everything wihtin her power to save her baby boy.

 

When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months.   Exodus 2:2

 

Honestly, this is every mother that has ever lived. They all see their newborna nd just know that this one is special. This one is fine. This one will do great things. And it should be this way!

 

This is the story of Moses’ beginnings–being hidden by his mother so that he isn;t systematically killed. A mother doing all she can to protect what she holds most dear. Sometimes all we can do just isn’t enough. Sometimes things are out of our control. Sometimes we are forced to trust because we just don’t have any other options.

 

Soon Moses is too large, his lungs to strong to keep hidden. And so his mother does the only thing left to her. She sets him afloat on the Nile. The river meant to be atool for his destruction becomes her only source of hope for his preserving. Despair puts us in curious positions.

 

Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the river bank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.   Exodus 2:5-6

 

And so it goes. Moses’ sister has been watching brother float along the river. She appares and asks Pharaoh’s daughter if she should get a Hebrew woman to help raise this child for the princess. And so it goes. God uses the one who represents this newborn’s demise to preserve his life and give him a future.

 

 God does curious things in our despair. God brings hope where we see only destruction. But God must often wait until we are desparate. We are too stubbornto go wuietly or easily until we are broken and hopeless. This isn’t God’s doing, it’s ours. And yet, he is always there, always ready to turn it around when we start to accept that we don’t really have control.

 

Why is it that we are so reluctant to give up control? So wary about admitting we aren’t pulling the strings? Why must we often wait until we are at our end before we fling all to the wind and simply let God do what God will do?

 

I’m learning as I grow that we like the illusion of control more than the reality of trust. We love to feel like we are commanding the ranks–be they ever so small–more than we are willing to simply fall in, do what we are told, and see the outsome take shape around us. Control is a big deal to us.

 

God, however, doesn’t seem to do much with a life bent on controlling itself. Take a minute and run through the people God uses in the Bible. WHich of them had any sense of control over their own future?

 

Abraham?

“Go to a land I will show you.”

“Okay, which land is it?”

“Never mind for now, I’ll show you when you get there.”

 

Joseph?

Let’s see…thrown into a pit, sold as a slave, falsely accused, imprisoned…need I go on?

 

Paul?

Blinded by God, running here and there–basically homeless–sharing the gospel, imprisoned several times and always on the verge of losing his life.

 

You get the idea. We love control and God loves to take it from us. It’s how we follow best. It’s how he makes sure we are where we should be. And for Moses’ mother in Exodus 2 it’s the new way of life. Raising a son who should be dead, for a princess that should see to his death, so that he can become a prince of the people he will set free. All because this mother had done all she could and finally left it to God to figure out if there was a way to keep her boy alive.

 

This is the way of God. This is the way of his followers. Chaos leads to the dynamic. Surrender–even at the hands of hopelessness–opens doors for God to move.

 

Embrace the chaos, enjoy the unknown, surrender to the new way of living. Following without a parachute. There is no plan B, no re-group sessions. There is only Jesus leading us as we cling to his coat tails because we have no other options.

 

Let the dead bury their own dead. Life is waiting for us.

never like this

When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

 

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 

 

“Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. 

 

Jesus wept.     John 11:32-35

Why is Jesus crying? Is he unsure if he can bring Lazarus back? Did he not expect this? Did he think he had more time?

 

No. that’s just not it. But then what? Why?

 

This is all wrong. That’s why.

 

It was never meant to be like this. They created, they made, they brought it all into existence. All the tress, the flowers, the creatures, the people—especially the people. Made with image, made with soul, but not for this. Never for this. This just isn’t what they had in mind when creating. Separation is never what they have in mind. They made to be with. They made to have life.

 

All this ruin, this loss, this ending. No, this was never meant to be.

 

And so he cries. Cries for their loss. Cries for their pain. Cries in spite of the fact that he will bring Lazarus back. He cries because he knows—he knows they will all need to be brought back. Death is a ruiner, a separator, an ender. And yes, yes they had created, but it was not for this. This was never meant to be; never like this.

 

And he cries because this is why he came. To stop this madness; to put an end to the ending. Death must go down, it must be stopped. All this sorrow, all this pain of people losing people—it moves him deeply; troubles him in the soul.

 

He cries because he is dying to stop the dying.

 

Everything else he has seen: the legs that won’t walk, the eyes that no longer see, the skin that isn’t as it should be, all the healing he must do and has been doing. He knows that all of it is just this in disguise. It’s just this hinting at the corners of life. The ruin of death is the problem, because it was never meant to be like this.

 

And when it’s done—the crying and the rising; when it’s done Jesus says the words.

 

“Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”          John 11:44

 

These are the words we live for. These are the words our souls need. And this is why he came. To bring us all back; we all need bringing back. This was never meant to be—this dying and separation. But this is what is. So he comes. He comes to cry with those who lose what never was meant to be lost. He comes to take off grave clothes and let us go.

 

And that is what was meant to be.