The Waiting God

We generally tend to think of God as being outside of time, yet He is very much inside time as well, working and waiting right along with us.  The eternal God has chosen to be part of history, orchestrating a progression of events that must come in time, one after another.  He waited a hundred years to give Abraham the promised son.  He waited four hundred years to bring His people out of Egypt.  He waited seven hundred years from the time of Isaiah’s prophecies to their fulfillment in Jesus.  Jesus as a Man on earth waited thirty years to begin His ministry.  And He has waited two thousand years and counting for His Father to give the word for Him to return for His bride.  How often do we complain about waiting an hour, a week, a year, for the things we desire, when God’s desires have taken centuries, even millennia to unfold?  Yes, God understands waiting very well; His patience is unmatched.  But He was not just killing time in the quiet decades – He was setting up, working quietly towards the moment to be revealed.  And we are to be like Him, not idle until our dreams arrive, but ever faithful in the things that may not be noticed until at last in the proper time they come to fruition.

To everything there is a season,

A time for every purpose under Heaven.

Ecclesiastes 3:1

Easter in a Graveyard

On Easter morning, I wandered in the graveyard on the idyllic grounds of a 156-year-old church, scraping moss from aged headstones and imagining the stories of lives represented by names and dates.  For most, there was very little to be guessed but a few tales of sorrow: a widow of thirty-six years, four infants lost by one family.  In truth, every gravestone bears silent witness of someone’s loss, someone’s pain.  Many of the stones in that churchyard are so old that no one now living would even remember the owners of the petrified names.

This might seem a rather dismal way to have spent a bright Easter morning, no matter how lovely the cemetery landscaping.  But I can’t think of a better place to commemorate the first Easter, which also began at a grave.  Because of that day so long ago, we have hope that “six feet under” is not the end.  The glorious truth of this hymn by Christian F. Gellert echoed through my mind on Easter Sunday and since – what a wonderful hope we who love the Lord have on the other side of our graves!

Jesus lives, and so shall I:

Death, thy sting is gone forever!

He for me hath deigned to die,

Lives the bands of death to sever.

He shall raise me from the dust:

Jesus is my hope and trust.

Jesus lives – and death is now

But my entrance into glory;

Courage, then, my soul, for thou

Hast a crown of life before thee.

Thou shalt find thy hopes were just:

Jesus is my hope and trust.

Alone With the Shepherd

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.

He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.

He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;

for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Psalm 23

I am not a shepherd.  I raise goats, and while they are substantially different from their wooly cousins, they can still provide their keeper with a good hands-on understanding of this familiar psalm by David the shepherd.  Recently, I took notice of the words David uses in this psalm to refer to God.  He opens with beautiful statements in the third person about the Good Shepherd’s daily care for His sheep.  The picture is a white-on-green pastoral of contented sheep walking along a wide, smooth path behind their Shepherd without a care in the world.  But suddenly, the picture changes to a dark and narrow path where the sheep is alone and afraid.

As a shepherd, David likely dealt with sickness and injuries in his flock on a regular basis.  In my herd, I’ve also seen my share of deviations from the usual food and water routine of keeping animals.  A year ago, one of my goats became deathly ill with what appeared to be a case of tetanus.  I separated her from the rest and showered her with attention, shots, and medicines.  Miraculously, she made a full recovery from that usually fatal disease, and learned to trust me in the process.  David would have known that the first thing to do for an ailing animal is to get it alone so it can be treated according to its individual needs.  Perhaps this is why, when his psalm turns to darker matters, he changes the language to the second person and focuses directly on God Himself.  God is no longer “He”, but “You”.

Sometimes life is all green pastures and still waters for us as God’s sheep.   We appreciate the Shepherd and talk about Him to other sheep, but somehow, we generally tend to get busy grazing and playing with our fellow lambs, and spend less time with the Shepherd Himself.  That is, until we find ourselves in some calamity.  No more chewing our cud on the warm sweet grass, no more running around with fellow sheep.  That’s when the Shepherd steps in, faithful to the least of his flock.  He takes us off by ourselves and gives us the best of everything – though we don’t often feel that shots, medicines, splints and bandages are best.  But the Shepherd’s skillful care brings us back to health, and in the process, we learn to trust Him and love Him more than ever.  Then He restores us to the flock, and we can say with new understanding to our fellow lambs that we will belong to the Good Shepherd forever.

David closes this beautiful psalm by speaking of God in the third person once again, declaring to others his assurance that because of his time alone with God, the future will be blessed, and he will spend eternity with Him.  Let us never be afraid to go through the valley alone with our Shepherd, for it is there that we best learn the blessing of belonging to His flock.

Pruning and People

As spring creeps on the horizon, the time comes again for my favorite task of the year: pruning the blueberry bushes. It’s such a satisfying feeling to start with plants all overgrown, tangled, and scraggly from the winter and clip away until they become beautiful, healthy, and fit for another year of bearing fruit. One lovely spreading 30-year-old plant takes an hour or so to trim into shape – the first year I took on the job, it took something like a day. But I enjoy the work, and it pays off in the abundance of berries that load the branches to the ground in the summer months.

There are three things to look for when pruning the plants: dead wood, weak wood, and misplaced wood. The dead wood goes first – these are twigs whose brittleness, gray color and lichen coating indicate that they have no chance of bearing fruit. Once all they dead wood is gone, the pruner must evaluate the strength of the plant. One bush I pruned this year had sprouted dozens of spindly twigs – it had put its effort into quantity rather than quality. So I took off most of the leggy growth, giving the strongest branches the opportunity to get stronger with more of the plant’s energy invested in them. The final step of pruning is to look the plant over for any branches that are crossing each other or tangled together. Some can be gently untangled and keep on growing, but often, one twig or another has to go to make room for the plant to grow freely and to make picking the berries easier.

Year after year, as I circle the bushes with my pruning shears, I always imagine that I feel a little taste of the way God must feel as He looks at His children. I love the blueberry bushes, not because I particularly love blueberries, but because I find joy in caring for my plants, seeing them become beautiful, and because their fruitfulness gives satisfaction and credit to me, the tender. What I do is certainly for the benefit of the plants, but the ultimate goal and expectation is that they benefit me. God cares for us in much the same way, I think – He loves us, not because He can’t do without our little good deeds, but because He delights in tending what belongs to Him, in making us beautiful, and because the fruit that comes of His skillful care brings glory and joy to Him. He does His best for us, and He rightfully expects us to do our best for Him as a result.

So God prunes us. And is important to note, God only prunes His children, those who are alive in Christ. No one wastes time pruning dead plants – there were a few I sadly skipped this year because my clippers could do them no good. It is not enjoyable to be pruned, but it is proof of belonging to God’s family. Pruning comes in a few different areas. First, God targets the “dead wood” in us, the desires, habits, and activities that are opposed to Him and will never bring any fruit. God also prunes our “weak wood” – the parts of our life that are perhaps not inherently bad in themselves, but are doing nothing more than keeping us busy with a myriad of things that consume our time and energy, weakening our fruitfulness. And God seeks to trim up the “misplaced wood” of our lives, those good things that have got twisted out of their proper place and make our fruit hard to see, perhaps opening the door for weak and dead wood if uncorrected.

The difference, of course, between God’s children and blueberry bushes is that we humans can decide not to be pruned. And if we do, it will only leave us miserable and wondering why we feel so ugly. The longer we resist God’s efforts to prune us, the harder and more painful it will be when He finally wins. A plant that has grown untended for many years may take years to correct, and it will not bear fruit to its full potential until it has recovered from being rigorously pruned. God is patient with His children, even if they have resisted Him for a long time – He can wait for the fruit to show while He is working on us. And once we are shaped to His liking, He will keep on pruning to keep us there. If God is pruning you, cooperate! When the beautifully shaped you is bearing abundant fruit to delight your Pruner, you’ll be glad you did.

Every branch that does bear fruit

He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

John 15:2

On Preparation

Unplanned things happen in life.  Just today, at a class I was teaching, one of the instructors met with car trouble and couldn’t make it to teach her sessions, so another instructor took her place with a mere half hour to prepare.  Because she had prepared and practiced the same sessions in the past, she was able to successfully teach them at a moment’s notice.  Life is full of stories like this, though not all with such a convenient ending.  Things come up, and hopefully, somebody will have what it takes to step into the gap and keep things going smoothly.  It is impossible to prepare for every situation that may arise, but today’s incident illustrated to me the freedom that prior preparation brings.  If you invest in the present with the future in mind, then when surprises come at you, you will be much more able to face them with confidence.

In 1 Peter 3:15, we are told to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have.”  We don’t know when someone may ask, but it is our responsibility to be ready at any moment with the answer.  As Christians, we have been entrusted with the truth, and the world needs us to be prepared to give it, not fumbling awkwardly for some response.  We cannot know exactly what questions will be asked of us, and there will come times that we don’t have an answer.  But if we have faithfully practiced the truth in our lives before the moment we are put on the spot, we will be much more prepared to step up with a confident answer – not a rote recitation of the perfect scripture reference, but a response born out of experience in God’s Word.  This is the kind of response our world needs, and we must consciously prepare ourselves to give it.

2014: The Year of Adventure

In years past, I have sometimes had to think a good deal to find a word that could sum up my life over the year, but almost from the start, I knew that 2014 was to be the year of adventure. This has undoubtedly been the most adventure-packed year of my life, as previous posts will evidence, and it’s almost hard to believe that all of it actually happened in only one year. Webster’s Dictionary defines adventure as: “Risk of which one has no direction . . . a bold undertaking, in which hazards are to be encountered, and the issue is staked upon unforeseen events.” My life this year has indeed been quite a series of unforeseen events, and each has led me to greater boldness and willingness to risk giving up my direction – meaning both my control and my aim. Adventures were laid in my path by God, but it was my part to choose the bold undertaking and stake my security on His direction. Had I chosen a risk-free, calculated year of trying to accomplish my goals my way in my familiar comfort zone, I would perhaps be at the end of it once again trying to figure out what exactly changed in my life.

Instead, God took the modest list of goals that I might have managed by my own hard work, and replaced it with a loftier one than I would have dared imagine, only doable by His hand. I hardly recognize my old intentions, but once God takes you on some adventures, it’s not so hard to aim a little higher. No doubt there are more hazards yet to be encountered, but it’s so nice not to be the one directing things, I’ll gladly stake my future on the Author of adventures. Above all, I believe that this adventuresome year has taught me to fear less and trust more, if those common words are enough to describe the satisfaction of setting out on another blissfully unforeseen chapter of God’s adventure for me. As blessed as 2014 has been, I welcome 2015 and all it has to hold with open arms. May it be glorious – amen!

“Have I not commanded you?

Be strong and courageous,

Do not be terrified;

do not be discouraged,

for the Lord your God

will be with you

wherever you go.”

Joshua 1:9

On Journeys

Having recently returned from my fourth road trip of this year, I've had journeys on my mind quite a bit.  There is a good deal to be learned from long travels to other places, and I've brought away from my own a few observations, better than souvenirs . . .

First, journeys are costly.  We all know that gas and airline tickets are not cheap, and there are plenty of other expenses to keep in mind.  Most of the time, traveling requires a considerable commitment of personal resources.  On top of that, journeys take time, and lots of it – I've spent more hours this year in a cramped truck, van or plane than I’d like to count.  If a thousand miles on the road doesn't teach you patience, I don’t know what will!  And with all that time and money invested, journeys demand endurance.  You can’t simply decide to be done whenever you feel like it.  You can stick it out to your destination or you can turn around and go back, but either way, you can’t just quit in the middle of what you've started.

Most of the time, those long journeys are best with a companion, or companions.  There is safety in numbers, they say, or at least less boredom, and there is no better way to get to know people than to travel with them until sleep deprivation, hunger, and unexpected circumstances reveal their character.  For I've found, too, that journeys hardly ever go as planned.  Be it the weather, road construction, plane delays, getting lost, truck breakdowns, or any number of other variables, it seems that something always comes up to make things interesting.  You can plan all you like, but without a good measure of flexibility, you’re in for a lot of frustration.

Planning is important, of course, because journeys need a goal.  If you don’t have some fairly concrete idea of where you’re going and why, you’re not traveling, only wandering.  There has to be a point to it, because eventually, all journeys must come to an end.  For the most part, they end in the same place they began: going home we call it.  Even if it is only a one way course, travel to no end is once again nothing more than wandering.  For those who return to their starting point, it may seem that everything will return to the way it was before they went away, but even though nothing else may have changed in his absence, journeys change the traveler.  He knows more about the world for having seen a different part of it, and though he may not realize it, he will not see even the old familiar things quite the same way again.

All this is true of journeys in our world, and so it is with the journey of the Christian life.  This is a costly journey, and time-consuming: it will require everything you have and all your lifetime.  There is no turning back once you commit to it.  Thankfully, though, you have many companions on this journey.  Some will go with you for a leg or two, and a few may stick close all the way, but there is one true Companion who promises to be right beside you no matter what.  This journey is guaranteed to have unplanned turns, but whatever may happen, you know where you’re going.  In fact, though you've never been there before, you’re going home, and the experiences along the journey will change you in a way you will not realize until you get there.

No one ever said that journeys were always enjoyable.  They are much more work than staying comfortably at home, but the end is worth it.  It would do us all good to leave the comfort zone of our homes, states, or countries for a time, if only for the lessons learned for the great journey of the soul.

Not One Lost

One hundred years ago, Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton set out on an expedition to be the first to cross the Antarctic continent.  Little did he know that his ship, aptly named the Endurance, would be trapped in the ice and sink, leaving the party of twenty-eight men stranded on the frozen ocean.  The expedition turned into a test of endurance as the goal became survival.  Shackleton led his men safely to an uninhabited island, then, with five men, he made an incredible 800-mile journey in one of the lifeboats from the ship, fortified to withstand the brutal Southern Ocean.  After landing and miraculously crossing the unmapped South Georgia Island, he reached a whaling station and finally found a ship he could take to rescue the rest of his men.  Ernest Shackleton was a leader in every sense of the word -- he faced and overcame tremendous odds for the sake of his followers, and he was committed to make sure every one of them got home alive, whatever the cost.  Though the mission he had planned failed, he was successful in what mattered -- he did not lose one man.

While we will likely never have the responsibility of leading a great expedition-turned-rescue-mission, we will be leaders in some area of our lives.  There are many things that make up a great leader, but the quality demonstrated by Ernest Shackleton of commitment to one's followers may not be one that is often thought of.  It is obvious that a leader needs to earn the commitment of his followers, but while a leader may do his utmost to be worthy of respect and loyalty, he cannot control the hearts of those he leads.  Shackleton's crew was composed of many loyal followers, some nasty troublemakers, and even a stowaway, yet he was faithful and committed to the best interests of every one of them, regardless of their quality.  Those we lead in the Christian life will come in many different attitudes -- some will stick by us no matter what, some will cause headaches, and there may even be some we never wanted as followers.  But the quality of a leader is to see that every one God has placed under our care reaches the goal, whatever it takes, even at personal cost.

The greatest Leader of all time said, "Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost" (John 17:12).  Jesus was faithful to His followers, from John the beloved who stuck with Him all the way to the foot of the cross, to hot-headed Peter who failed Him miserably in the darkest hour.  And He is faithful still to us who follow Him, no matter how many times we wander.  What a comfort that "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6).  As our Lord is so committed to those He leads, should we not follow His example?  It is indeed a great responsibility, but let it be said of us as leaders that no matter what kind of followers we have -- encouraging, exhausting, or just plain exasperating -- we stopped at nothing to lead them to the finish without losing one.

My brothers, if one of you should wander

from the truth and someone should bring him back,

remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the

error of his way will save him from death

and cover over a multitude of sins.

James 5:19-20

Prayer Beyond Belief

On my shelf sits a cute card which reads, "Pray really big!  Believe even bigger!" I liked it at first, but then I wondered, should I believe bigger than I pray? It would not seem so from the verse that accompanied it, Matthew 21:22 -- "And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." Prayer and belief go hand in hand, for prayer is, in essence, an expression of our belief in God's goodness. Without belief, however small, prayer is no more than words. But without prayer, belief is only theoretical. James 4:2 says not, "You do not have because you do not believe," but, "You do not have because you do not ask." Belief that goes beyond what we are willing to pray is not true faith, but wishful thinking. God does not grant our wishes, He answers our prayers. If we truly believe He can do a thing, why should we not dare to ask?

My tendency is to pray too small, and believe even smaller. Such prayers are not worthy of God's power, for God's ability will always be bigger than my belief. The greatest thing I could possibly ask is a small matter to Him, and to ask less is actually saying that I don't believe He will give me what I really desire. Either I doubt the ability of the Almighty, or I am not convinced that my request is in His will. Whatever the case, small prayers are evidence of small belief, and they give little room for faith to grow. Better to stake all on the greatness of God and ask beyond belief: "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief" (Mark 9:24)!

Beloved of God

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who

begot also loves him who is begotten of Him. . . . Beloved, now we are children of

God . . . if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. . . . he who

loves God must love his brother also. . . . My little children, let us not

love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

1 John 5:1, 3:2, 4:11, 21, 3:18

There is very little more heartbreaking than families at odds.  Yet the family of God is all too often a chaos of arguments, grudges and breakups -- where is the unity that the Scriptures call for?  Believers fight with each other even while trying to win unbelievers, and wonder why their efforts are in vain.  This is perhaps our enemy's favorite secret for our failure: break up the ranks and he can laugh at our pathetic confusion.  Yet the cry of Jesus' heart is that we all may be one (John 17:21).

"Children of God" seems to be just a figure of speech to many Christians -- our first mistake may be that we don't literally see ourselves as a family, with God as our Father.  Family is forever: you will be stuck with these people for eternity, so you might as well learn to get along now!  There is no such thing as passing friendships among believers.  Circumstances may separate you physically, and limited earth time may disallow investing in friendship as we know it, but nothing should ever separate you in spirit and heart from your brothers and sisters.  A spat with a sibling is a hindrance to our relationship with the Father -- if we truly love Him, we will love His other children.

So easy to say, so hard to do!  Yet so rewarding to realize.  Just think what a privilege you have to belong to God, His child forever.  And around the world, millions of others have this same privilege.  You belong to the greatest family on earth, and every member, great and small, is beloved of God.  Should we not, brothers and sisters, be beloved of one another?