Category Archives: God

Sabbath Trust

Leave a reply
Share
Christ on the Sea of Galilee - Delacroix

Christ on the Sea of Galilee (1854) Eugène Delacroix

Rare have been the quiet, slow Sunday mornings when I have had a chance to sit, relax, read, listen, pray…all before leaving for church as a family. As a pastor for the past five years, I’ve been the first to wake, the first to shower, the first out the door…usually all before the rest of the family is even out of bed. Now, for a time, I have the luxury of the slow and relaxed Sunday morning—something of a Sabbath, even. It is a mixed blessing, for the reason I can move slowly these days is because I am between pastoral ministries. One has concluded, the next is yet to be located. And the Between is uncomfortable on the whole. It is a time of wondering and wandering, a time of searching and not (yet) finding, a time of waiting and questioning.

The Between is a time of trusting, and if you have ever trusted someone, then you know the dichotomy of trust: it can offer both comfort and discomfort. We look for answers, for signs, for Presence. Too often, we find none of these. And yet we are called, still, to trust.

On this Sabbath day of listening, God spoke. First, through the opening minutes of a message from Psalm 73 and, of course, through the psalmist. “Truly God is good…. But as for me….” How often have I lived that reality of knowing (in my head) the goodness of God, but not feeling or experiencing or realizing—or trusting—his goodness? The psalmist (an ancient worship leader) confesses his envy of the wicked and their prosperity; he complains of their ease and folly…their arrogance. It is too much for him to understand on his own…until he goes “into the sanctuary of God.” And there he finds answers. Not, perhaps, answers to the questions of why evil men prevail or why bad things happen to good people (like worship leaders); but answers to the bigger question: “Will it always be this way? Will evil win in the end?”

And so, in my own wondering (“Will I ever find a pastoral role? Will God ever give us our dreams?”), I load up the family in the car and go “into the sanctuary of God.” (That, by the way, is Hebrew for, “we went to church.”) And there, in the presence of God and his people, he spoke again. This time, though, it was not through the sermon from Nehemiah 3, but through a song I’ve heard dozens of times over the past few years:

Spirit, lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever you would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior1

As I listened to the words of this song, I began to realize the depth of what it asks. And I began to be afraid. Not the “I’m about to get mugged” sort of fear but the awesome God sort of fear. The song should scare us. It is a big, awesome, prayer that—if God really answers—will take us to places we can’t even imagine; places of fear, danger, threat; places where we are totally out of control, relying on a God we can’t see, can’t touch, and too often can’t hear. It is a prayer that demands trust…declares trust, whether we feel it or not.

And that is the life to which I am called; to which we all are called, if we want to follow this Jesus. it is a life of dichotomy: of trusting when we don’t feel trusting, of listening when all we hear is silence, of giving up control to one whose only appearance may be in clouds and fire. It is a life, at times, of walking on water; and at other times, in the middle of a storm-tossed sea, it is not waking the one who can calm the sea, but laying down next to him and sleeping.

For whether the wicked are prospering or the ocean is churning or the bills are piling, the Sabbath of trust and understanding is found in the mere presence the Savior.

1 “Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)”, by Joel Houston, Matt Crocker, and Salomon Ligthelm. © 2012 Hillsong Music Publishing (Admin. by EMI Christian Music Publishing)

Sabbath: Trust and Rest

Leave a reply
Share

After 400 years of slavery, they were finally free. It had taken some doing – infestations of frogs and insects, illness and agricultural devastation, and ultimately death – but God had rescued his people. He had brought them out of Egypt, he had made a way across the sea (on dry land, even!), and he had wiped out the pursuing enemy. Now he was leading them to their own land. Unfortunately – from the peoples’ perspective, at least – the path led through the wilderness.

Imagine the scene: over a million people, driving flocks and herds of livestock, carrying all they owned on their backs or on carts, walking into the barren Arabian wilderness. No paved roads, no rest areas, no fast food restaurants, and watering holes that are few and far between.

At least in captivity there had been comfort in the familiar and the certain. Beneath the whips of their oppressors, the Israelites still knew there would be food and water at the end of the day. In the wilderness, though….

Less than a month into the journey the grumbling began. What’s amazing to me is that God heard the grumbling and provided what the people wanted – water and food. I’m pretty sure He planned all along to provide those, but the people didn’t know the plan and so they didn’t trust Him to provide. And when he did “rain bread from heaven,” the people didn’t recognize it. In fact, when they saw what he provided—which looked like “a flake-like thing, fine as frost” on the ground—they asked, “what is it?” Or in Hebrew, “manna?”

How like me that is. I trust God to provide, as long as I know ahead of time how he’s going to provide. I trust him to take care of me, as long as he does that in a way I’m familiar with. I trust his timing, as long as it doesn’t take too long!

Exodus 16 tells the story of how God provided bread and meat for his people as they traveled in the wilderness. Here the idea of Sabbath is introduced, a day of rest. But Sabbath is not only about rest; it is about trust. It is about trusting God to provide, in his way and in his time. And Sabbath is not only about resting from work; it is about resting from worry.

Jesus said,
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:28–29, ESV)

To rest is to trust God. To trust God is to rest. Neither is easy. Both are necessary.

The Continuing Adventure

Leave a reply
Share

You sit down and turn on the TV, ready to watch your show. Amidst the plethora of true junk that’s out there, this is one of the good ones, with believable characters, compelling plots, life-like stories. As you watch, you’re pulled into the action and the drama; you feel the hurt and the joy, cringe when the music suddenly changes to a foreboding theme. The story unfolds and you’re no longer aware that you’re not part of it yourself. The suspense grips you and then…

To Be Continued….

Don’t you hate that? Right at the best part, the screen goes black and those three dreaded words appear, begging you to wait another week before finding resolution.

That’s how the gospels end, too. The first four books of the New Testament—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—tell the story of Jesus’ life on earth. They build to a climax with his arrest and crucifixion, reach a dramatic resolution in his resurrection, and end with, “Now, go…” (Matthew 28:16-20). And we’re left wondering, “what happens next?” To Be Continued….

The book of Acts continues the story but that, too, ends with To Be Continued…. And that’s where we come in, where you come in. We are the continuation of the story. We are the next episode.

In The Hobbit, the introduction to J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic Lord of the Rings trilogy, the great grey wizard Gandalf invites the very comfortable and predictable hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, to join an adventure:

“I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.”

“I should think so—in these parts!” said our Mr. Baggins. “We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them.”

But the whole book “is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected.”

Jesus invites us to join him on an adventure; indeed, to write—and participate in—the next episode. What will your adventure look like?

Dare to Praise

Leave a reply
Share

“Dare to praise [God] for being good….” – Becky Harling, in The 30 Day Praise Challenge

There’s more to that sentence, but these seven words stopped me short. Do I really need to be dared to praise God? Shouldn’t praise flow naturally and easily? Actually, yes – to both. Because in difficult circumstances (read: “when things don’t go the way I want them to”), it’s difficult to praise God. And it’s especially difficult to praise him for being good in those times. As if he’s sometimes good and sometimes…well, not so much.

But no, really: God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good. So praise him for being good. Go ahead, I dare you! (Thanks for the reminder and the challenge, Becky!)

Permission to Cry

Leave a reply
Share

I’d lost my job in mid-November but within just three weeks was talking with a young, growing Christian organization that needed a Chief Operating Officer. The timing, the role, the vision – everything seemed to be moving in the right direction. I was excited, Eiley was excited; there was hope. Then, just two weeks before I was to start, I got a call from the President: “We’re going to stop the process. We don’t think you’re the right fit.” I was crushed. Hope shattered into despair.
I lay in the dark on my living room floor. For two hours I cried out desperately to God. “Why? Am I not good enough? Why? Why? Why?!” Sometimes words were washed away in a flood of tears and groans. I wept for God’s presence as much as his answers. He seemed silent, distant, uncaring. And I found myself in an unfamiliar place, standing on the precipice of a monumental choice: to abandon the God I’d known my whole life, or to cling ever more tightly to One who seemed to have abandoned me.
A familiar passage of Scripture floated into my mind, blown by an unseen gust over the edge of my despair. It was Exodus 32, when Jacob spends a sleepless night grappling with a strange man. Hours pass in exhausting, nocturnal combat. Jacob’s hip is dislocated but neither man prevails. As day breaks, the stranger says to let him go, but Jacob wants something out of the match: “I will not let you go until you bless me.” In the newborn light he is blessed with a new name—Israel—and discovers that his wrestling was with God. In my own struggle on the cliff’s edge, Jacob’s cry became my mantra: “I will not let you go, I will not let you go, I will not let you go.”
A second passage blew into my thoughts: John 6. There, the hard sayings of Jesus proved too much for many of his followers, who “turned back and no longer walked with him.” Jesus said to the twelve who remained, “Do you want to leave as well?” Faithful Peter’s response caught me: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life….”
For someone who has grown up believing in God and seeking to follow him, standing on the precipice of faith, facing a choice between abandoning God or clinging to him…it’s frightening. No, it’s almost terrifying. Choosing to cling to a God who seems deaf and blind—or, worse, uncaring or even absent—seems foolhardy at best.
King David felt that many times in his life. He’d grown up alone among seven brothers, a shepherd boy not old enough for the soldiering of his siblings. Over the twenty years between his anointing as king and his accession to the throne, he felt the solitude of King Saul’s murderous jealousy. Under the crown, he knew the loneliness of leadership and the fear of enemies both foreign and domestic. And as a poet, he felt the aloneness deeply, pouring out his heart in verse and song.
The Bible is filled with laments—grieving hearts baring their pain in words flowing with both anguish and anger. But there is hope in Biblical lament; almost without exception, the anguish and anger turn to hope and trust, clinging to confidence in a God who, even in silence, is there. The laments of Scripture give us permission to bare our own hearts before a God whose silent presence is unnervingly powerful and comfortingly real. 
Spend some time reading, re-reading, and reflecting on Psalm 22.