This morning as part of my devotions, I was reading Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest, which I highly recommend if you are not familiar with it. If you don’t have a copy, you can find it here: (http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php) just make sure you look up Dec. 2 to get the right one.
Anyway, Chambers was talking about Christian Perfection and a couple of things he said captured my attention. First, he said we often confuse personal holiness with the evidence of God in our lives. We think we have gotten along the road to sanctification, or Christlikeness if we find that God is at work in our lives, or if we find evidence of God’s presence that surprises or even blesses us. But this is a misunderstanding of what God wants from us. God is not after a finished product or some ideal that can be put on display. What God wants from us is a relationship. God wants to love us and wants us to love him. Is that so hard? Unfortunately, sometimes it is.
The second thing he said that struck me was when he said, “If it was God’s will to bruise His own Son (Isaiah 53:10), why shouldn’t He bruise you?” I had to think about that one for a minute. Its true that we expect God to be good to us, that is, we think things should go our way. We want health, wealth (to a degree) and happiness. If we do not get these things, we suppose that somehow God is not being fair with us. After all, we did what he asked, (as well as we could) didn’t we? Shouldn’t we get the reward?
I had a similar conversation with a friend just a few days ago. He wondered why, if God is so good, there is all this pain and suffering in the world. Although, I think he really meant in his own life. This is the classic question of theodicy, perhaps best put by Rabbi Kushner in his classic book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” I was not too impressed with his treatment, since he basically says, “Well, God can’t stop all the evil in this world.” I tend to disagree.
I think the problem with theodicy is that the question stands on shaky ground; on the wrong ground. It makes the assumption that this world and this physical existence is the one that counts. If the Bible is to be believed, Christians of all people should understand that we have not arrived, but we are only on our way.
Years ago, when I was snow skiing, I dislocated my finger when I hit a tree. (Yeah, I know…) Anyway, my finger was literally sticking sideways at a 90-degree angle. It looked horrible. But it didn’t particularly hurt, at least not at the time. So the doctor came in and told me that he would have to put it back in place, and that it was going to hurt. How would it have been if said, “You know, doc, I’d really rather not. Its not so bad, and I would really rather not go through all that pain and suffering.” People would think I was nuts, and perhaps I would be.
The goal is wholeness, whether fixing a finger or a soul. When God comes to us and says, “This is going to hurt,” why are we so reluctant to think he knows what is best? Do we suppose that God would send Jesus to the cross if it were not absolutely necessary? And do we think that God would allow any kind of pain and suffering into our lives, or the lives of our loved ones if it were not absolutely necessary? I don’t think so. So the next time something painful, or even horrible comes your way, you can say, “I don’t know what this is all about, God, but I trust you that it will come out OK, if not in this life, then in the real life which is to come.”
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
On Going Home
Last week, my family and I went back to a place we had lived over 20 years ago. It was supposed to be a kind of home coming, but we soon realized that the old adage is quite true, you can never go home again. Almost everything was different; there were only a handful of people we knew, the house we lived in looked different, and we hardly recognized any of the streets, and had to rely on a map to get to places that were once so familiar.
The Chinese have a saying that you can never step into the same river twice. The implication is that anytime you try, the water that swirls around your ankles has moved on. It may look the same, but its not the same river. That is how we felt when we went back “home.” So many things had changed. They had moved on, like water in a river.
All of this got me to thinking about our “home” as Christians, as people of God. Our home, our citizenship, our place of origin is not in this world. The longer I live in this world, the more I understand this simple truth. As Paul says in Philippians 3:20, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Peter says much the same thing in 1 Peter 2:10, 11.
Perhaps that is why we have such a sense that something is wrong with the world as we see it and know it. It is not what it could be; what it should be. We were meant for something else, and so was the world we live in. We know it down deep in our souls, in that part of us that yearns for something better, something more.
I have often thought that I would like to have the Pat Terry song, Home Where I Belong, sung at my funeral. Its not that I often think morbid thoughts, but rather that that particular song captures best how I feel about life here and hereafter. If you have never heard it, both B. J. Thomas (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wQgx98jmZQ) and Mark Lowry (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP6QG_pJuSM) do a respectable job of it, but I like the 70’s Pat Terry Group version best.
No, you can never go home again, but you can go home, truly home, once and for all. God bless.
The Chinese have a saying that you can never step into the same river twice. The implication is that anytime you try, the water that swirls around your ankles has moved on. It may look the same, but its not the same river. That is how we felt when we went back “home.” So many things had changed. They had moved on, like water in a river.
All of this got me to thinking about our “home” as Christians, as people of God. Our home, our citizenship, our place of origin is not in this world. The longer I live in this world, the more I understand this simple truth. As Paul says in Philippians 3:20, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Peter says much the same thing in 1 Peter 2:10, 11.
Perhaps that is why we have such a sense that something is wrong with the world as we see it and know it. It is not what it could be; what it should be. We were meant for something else, and so was the world we live in. We know it down deep in our souls, in that part of us that yearns for something better, something more.
I have often thought that I would like to have the Pat Terry song, Home Where I Belong, sung at my funeral. Its not that I often think morbid thoughts, but rather that that particular song captures best how I feel about life here and hereafter. If you have never heard it, both B. J. Thomas (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wQgx98jmZQ) and Mark Lowry (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP6QG_pJuSM) do a respectable job of it, but I like the 70’s Pat Terry Group version best.
No, you can never go home again, but you can go home, truly home, once and for all. God bless.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Lord Jesus, Take my Hand
For some odd reason, that phrase "Lord Jesus, take my hand" popped into my head during my prayers this morning. I have no idea why. But I have been thinking about the phrase and what it could mean for my own devotions and building up in faith. Here are a few of those thoughts:
To pray that phrase as a prayer, "Lord Jesus, take my hand", is to ask Jesus to do what we so often do with small children: take their hands. Maybe it reflects the child-like attitude we are to have towards God. Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." (Mark 10:15)
This made me think about what happens when we take a child's hand, what it means and why we do it. So, if we ask Jesus, "Lord Jesus, take my hand," what is it we are asking of him? I'm sure there are more, but here are at least three things:
1) We are asking him to guide us. When we take a child's hand, it is often to lead that little one through a crowd or to navigate a difficult path. When we ask Jesus to take our hand, we are asking for guidance through the difficult and rough places in life, and there are certainly plenty of those.
2) We are asking him to protect us. To take a person's hand is to keep them near. If you are holding hands, one can never stray far from the other. To hold the hand of a child is to protect them from danger, to prevent disaster like falling off a high place or wandering into a busy street. There are many dangerous places and situations in life. Some we can see and some we cannot, but God can see them all, and to ask Jesus to take our hand is to ask for protection from those dangers, both visible and invisible.
3) Finally, to take a hand is an expression of love. Lovers often hold hands for none of the above reasons, but only to feel the warmth and presence of the beloved. To touch the flesh, to feel the skin of another person is to closer to them, it is to create or extend an intimacy which we do not have with all people. That flesh-to-flesh connection is reserved for those with whom we feel closest.
There is no real point to all this - hence the title, "Random Thoughts," but I think that to envision or to imagine ourselves as so intimately connected to Christ that we can hold hands is a good thing. We can all use a greater degree of guidance, protection, and love, so perhaps a prayer such as, "Lord Jesus take my hand." will suffice.
To pray that phrase as a prayer, "Lord Jesus, take my hand", is to ask Jesus to do what we so often do with small children: take their hands. Maybe it reflects the child-like attitude we are to have towards God. Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." (Mark 10:15)
This made me think about what happens when we take a child's hand, what it means and why we do it. So, if we ask Jesus, "Lord Jesus, take my hand," what is it we are asking of him? I'm sure there are more, but here are at least three things:
1) We are asking him to guide us. When we take a child's hand, it is often to lead that little one through a crowd or to navigate a difficult path. When we ask Jesus to take our hand, we are asking for guidance through the difficult and rough places in life, and there are certainly plenty of those.
2) We are asking him to protect us. To take a person's hand is to keep them near. If you are holding hands, one can never stray far from the other. To hold the hand of a child is to protect them from danger, to prevent disaster like falling off a high place or wandering into a busy street. There are many dangerous places and situations in life. Some we can see and some we cannot, but God can see them all, and to ask Jesus to take our hand is to ask for protection from those dangers, both visible and invisible.
3) Finally, to take a hand is an expression of love. Lovers often hold hands for none of the above reasons, but only to feel the warmth and presence of the beloved. To touch the flesh, to feel the skin of another person is to closer to them, it is to create or extend an intimacy which we do not have with all people. That flesh-to-flesh connection is reserved for those with whom we feel closest.
There is no real point to all this - hence the title, "Random Thoughts," but I think that to envision or to imagine ourselves as so intimately connected to Christ that we can hold hands is a good thing. We can all use a greater degree of guidance, protection, and love, so perhaps a prayer such as, "Lord Jesus take my hand." will suffice.
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