You, O Lord,
are a God
full of compassion,
and gracious,
Longsuffering
and abundant
in mercy and truth.
~ Psalm 86:15 ~
I count 1,056 years from the time God made Adam to the time that Noah was born. God gives a pretty comprehensive lens into the heart of humanity from ‘creation’ to ‘the flood’. He does it more through what isn’t said than what is. Humankind’s decision to live autonomously really didn’t shift according to our level of comfort or provision, pre-curse or post-curse.
Adam and Eve’s initial experience of the world was perfection. Everything worked like it was supposed to. They did not toil or labor or have unmet needs of any sort. They had no frame of reference for hardship or any idea of what it might mean to be in lack. God came to them and walked with them and fellowshipped with them. Sounds euphoric to me. Sounds like everything I dream of. And while I would love to annihilate them for choosing to do the ONE THING God asked them not to do, I know enough about ME to recognize…I am Eve. So much for thinking maybe God just put the wrong 2 people in the garden.
Add 500 years to 1,056 and you have the year Noah becomes a father. 100 years after that, God destroys everyone on the earth (save 8 people); a massive, one time do-over. In all of these 1,656 years, scriptures speaks of only 2 men…….just 2 men that walked with God. We do hear that in the days of Enosh (Adam’s grandson), humankind began to call upon the name of the Lord. But only Enoch and Noah are mentioned as men who “walked with God.”
Want to know who we are? It’s all in the account in Genesis. The stark omission of affirming language about us speaks volumes. We did next to nothing to warrant a favorable comment. I think it’s because sheep are sheep. I doubt anything particularly compelling arises in the daily life of your average sheep, that would make great copy. And of course, it’s because the real story is the story of the loving heart of Creator God; Shepherd God.
I marvel that even in the process of creating the stunning masterpiece that is the universe, He was fully aware of what we would do with His entrustment to us. It’s one thing to get blindsided and experience the level of rejection God experienced. But He foreknew, that of the scores of people who populated the earth pre-flood, 2 would be worth mentioning. He knew He would be heart-broken that He created mankind. He knew………and He created anyway. He did it for His pleasure. He did it to show His magnificence. He did it because He wanted to love men and women and offer them the chance to love Him.
We are who we are.
We need Him.
He wants us.
Are you kidding me?
He wants us?
He’s proven it…… from before the foundations.
“We are drowning
in information
but starved
for knowledge.”
- John Naisbitt (Megatrends)
~
…always learning
and never able to come
to the knowledge of the truth.
~2 Timothy 3:7~
The quote and scripture verse above tell the plain tale about why modalities like Facebook don’t suit me. My temperamental psyche cannot manage bits and pieces about people that I am not cultivating relationship with. For the most part, I have no internal modem that knows how to file or retrieve daily details with anyone other than those in whom I’m consistently invested. I realize I’m the exception and have no qualms with those that find Facebook and other similar information exchanges helpful and interesting. It’s just not for me. A few years ago, I had a friend put it to me something like this, “humankind was never designed to manage the onslaught of global information that we receive moment by moment. We are buckling under the weight of trying to carry the cares of the world.”
While I may not be able to carry the cares of the world, I think it’s vital to have a global view. I think it’s imperative to have a global context that provides insight into Kingdom work, into the state of the Church around the world, into the fulfillment of prophesy, into the plight of Christians being persecuted defending their allegiance to Jesus Christ. It’s vital because we must have a global context with which to filter the daily pieces of our lives.
I know a few very brave souls who take the information they acquire, filter it so that what’s sound remains. For them, that information ceases to be ‘information’ and becomes knowledge. It becomes part of who they are. They fulfill the scripture that says, “you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” Knowing, in that verse, is perpetually choosing to integrate truth. It is active. It implies motion.
Some of us are collectors, seeking what interests us and hoarding it as an end unto itself. But we are the folks who starve, seated at a banquet table. We are folks with priceless art collections, sealed behind a vault door, where no one can benefit from their beauty. Others of us are looking for anything, on any front, that might help navigate the daunting seas of life. We will sit at the banquet table and feast until we’re re-fueled. We will go to the ends of the earth searching for truth. We look to move forward. To the degree that information helps, we want it.
Stuart Briscoe, in his commentary on the book of Genesis says, “To put it simply, as we live in a veritable explosion of information about our psyches, our societies, our bodies, and our environment we are certainly not living in a parallel explosion of knowledge about God. Those who do know Him often admit they are drowning in information about Him yet starving for knowledge of Him.” If knowledge is active and the integrating of information into our system of belief, then we cannot merely be collectors. You know someone because you invest in them and allow them to invest in you. That’s relationship. Every important question finds its end in the need for relationship with Creator God. Every important encounter on this planet has to do with following the lead of God’s Spirit and investing in people for the sake of the Kingdom.
Who’s in front of you right now? I ask myself quite often if my primary energies are put to the primary people in my life. Who’s getting my energy and time? Am I collecting bits and pieces of information and using it to deepen my experience with God and the people He’s put in my sphere of influence? I pray that I am.
We must have an informed, Christian world-view. We must have a grasp on the state of our planet in light of the return of Christ. And then, we must be fully present in the moment before us, using information as a launch-pad to action so that we might go deep with God and with people.
Grow in the grace & knowledge
of our Lord & Savior,
Jesus Christ.
~2 Peter 3:18~
My soul follows
close behind You;
Your right hand
upholds me.
~Psalm 63:8~
Some years ago as I read Psalm 63, I was impressed that this author encapsulated the essence of what it meant to be connected to God…. the way He intended for humankind to be connected to Him. For me it remains the most vivid picture in all of scripture of intimacy and heart to heart connectedness. As I read verse 8, which I’ve written above, I had a vision of a young child up on the back of their father, piggyback style. The father’s hand was round back of the child, securing them. As the picture in my mind filled out, a few things struck me. The first was the beauty of a child in that posture. They were safe. They were mobile, but without expending any effort. They moved from point to point as an adult would, impossible for them otherwise. More than this though, was the dramatic change in the child’s vantage point.
I have a small dog that when standing, has a view about 16 inches above the ground. I confess having more than once, been on the ground with him, curiously looking about to see what life looks like from a foot and change. It makes the dog happy because he rarely has company down there, and it makes me happy because I actually care about how my dog takes in life. TMI.
God incarnate got down on the proverbial floor with me when He became flesh. He knows, by experience, the full spectrum of what it means to be human. He knows what things look like from where I stand or where I sit or where I lie down. He meets me where I am and does life with me here. But there is a transcendent experience to be had with God too as He invites me up on His back, to see what He sees; to move in His strength; to go places and experience life in a way impossible, except from that place. He provides me another option for viewing….for living…for taking in life. His upholding arm does not imprison me, but keeps me. He offers security and protection there. This place, up on his back, is where I experience liberty, where I come in to the fullness of my purpose for being.
I can jump off if I like. It’s a terrible idea but always an option. When I jump off (when, not if), I believe my Father waits, watching carefully as I have just put myself in danger. I believe He calls me to come back, His voice revealing concern, not anger. Should I tarry in my return to Him, or should I fall (that’s another when, not if), I believe He comes & sits down beside me. This is not the ‘valley of the shadow’, though it certainly could lead there. This is willfulness. This is a sheep acting like a sheep. But I know that mercy lives in those moments. Grace lives there. Sympathy and understanding live there as do compassion & tenderness…. everything that lives in the heart of a loving Father. I don’t believe instruction happens there, or council of any kind. I am not in a posture to receive. I have chosen autonomy. That’s what makes His close proximity to me all the more radical.
As long as I have breath, I believe He waits. Sometimes He intervenes but I believe that is the exception. When I come to my senses, and finally reach for Him, I believe in an instant, He swoops me up on His back and we set out, once more, upon the adventure. Once again, I am under His sway. Once again, I receive. I regain what I had lost sight of, a vantage point known only to The Father and the child upon His back.
…that He might be
just and the justifier
of the one who
has faith in Jesus.
~Romans 3:26~
James D.G. Dunn wrote a daily bible commentary on the book of Romans. I’m crawling through it because my mind can assimilate a pittance at a time. But a bit, coming out of the 3rd chapter of Romans, is clear for the moment.
I remember being a young girl, sitting on the sidewalk of my elementary school, doubled up with stomach pain, anxious beyond my understanding. I remember this scene happening time and again. Somewhere in my young mind was an unconscious acceptance that I was unsafe; that I did not belong; that I was consistently on the verge of being exposed and known, and somehow that would be a very terrible thing. In my inmost self I accepted the label ‘condemned’. That word has defined a corrupt perception of myself more than any other.
The word has no power on it’s own, of course. It’s just a word. But, when wielded by an enemy bent on destroying every human on the planet, it can bind and cripple. The Bible says all have sinned and the penalty for that sin is death…. a death sentence. That’s the definition of being condemned and it does include me. But God did something very different in response to my condition. It’s precisely here where my need to be reasonable must give way to the facts, because what God did is so outside any box; so beyond any reasonable response to a condemned woman before a Holy King. The Living God exposed His heart and the passion that lives there. My condemned state was unacceptable to Him, so He did what only He could, and Jesus, who knew no sin, transferred my sentence upon Himself, died in my place, paying the price in full. I am no longer condemned. God remained just while also being the one who justifies.
After decades of belonging to Him I find pieces of my belief system still operating under the delusion that I, a free woman, am doomed and unacceptable. I give in to the temptation to self-justify by pursuing righteousness, striving for something God has already given me. I fight the temptation to earn my way into His graces. All the while He patiently reminds me I have access to Him, because I am His beloved daughter. He sees me pure, lovely and complete.
In the confines of time, I am being conformed into the likeness of Jesus. This work is already completed in the heavelies. I am free to pursue Him, who is faithful and just to complete what He has begun in me. There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. Mercy.
“Let not the Lord
be angry, and I will speak
but once more.”
~Genesis 18:32~
I can look back over a few decades now and remember vividly times when God placed upon me a burden for someone or something. Best I can describe it, it would sit within me dense and very heavy, seeping into my emotional being, hitting a core place in my spirit, like someone sat a 100lb. rock in my lap. This is a terribly uncomfortable phenomenon, debilitating in the flesh. I muse that God makes the rock feel 100lbs. so I’m instantly aware I can’t maneuver it apart from Him. When this happens, I know foremost, I am being asked to intercede. It’s very interesting to pray for a situation or person, feeling as though you are in the middle of it emotionally, when really you are not. That’s the weight part….. just like the sick feeling you get in your gut when you really are in a mess.
I remember coming to the Lord at the onset of one of these occasions. I was keenly aware that I had no idea what to talk to Him about concerning the matter. I was just as aware that it was not important that I know. I conceded God knew all about it, that if He called me to pray, He would lead me in those prayers. So, I did the only thing that made sense to me to do. I sat quietly, with this person in my mind, and I put them at the foot of the throne of grace. Most often I got direction as to how to pray, sometimes I didn’t. It didn’t really matter. There was merit in the act of presenting them to the Father in the throne room. The particulars were not my business. I was called to intercede.
The Spirit of God Himself makes intercession, when we don’t know what we should pray for (Romans 8:26), so it shouldn’t seem strange, the act of simply presenting someone to the Father. Jesus is there too, at the throne of grace, praying perfect prayers according to the will of the Father (Romans 8:27).
If you are like me, you know many, many people with very serious life issues looming. I’m continuing to learn about offering a sacrifice of prayer, allowing God to lead as I pray, prompted by Him, following His lead. That means being willing to linger in His presence on their behalf. My flesh will almost always want to speak before it is time. I have to consciously determine not to be in a hurry. There is a delicate balance between boldness in speech as you beseech God, and silence when you don’t know what you ought to pray.
