I was reading in Lamentations and was struck how often the author of Lamentations (most likely Jeremiah) describes God Himself as the source of Israel's desolate situation (and remember that Lamentations has many prophetic references to the Holocaust).
4 He has bent his bow like an enemy,
with his right hand set like a foe;
and he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes
in the tent of the daughter of Zion;
he has poured out his fury like fire.5 The Lord has become like an enemy;
he has swallowed up Israel;
he has swallowed up all its palaces;
he has laid in ruins its strongholds,
and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah
mourning and lamentation.Lamentations 2:4-5
What really challenges me anew here is the fact that regardless of my situation...regardless of what was done to me by anyone...in the end run, I have to come to grips with the fact that God allowed it to happen. God could have stopped it. But He didn't. And it's here that I have a choice.
a) I break down and lose faith in God's omnipotence (God was not able to stop it, even though he would have wanted to)
b) I break down and lose faith in God's goodness (God did not care to stop it, even though he could have)
c) I go the way of Lamentations: I take it up with God, I let loose my pain and my anger and my grief on God Almighty Himself, yet I keep His goodness and His omnipotence as my anchor. I may not get all the answers I'm looking for, especially not to the ever-present "WHY"... but after a while, I will be reminded of something:
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.Lamentations 3:22-23
And intimately knowing and experiencing this is what we really need...far more than answers to our questions.
(Psalm 96)
2 Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
3 Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!
4 For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be feared above all gods.
I never did fully agree with Assisi's famous quote: "Preach the gospel, and use words if necessary." - mainly because it gives me the impression that Assisi thinks words aren't necessary most of the time. But they are. Sure, words are empty if you don't live the gospel out, at the same time I think I personally can tend to overemphasize living out the gospel, so much so that I never obey the passage.
Do I really tell of his salvation from day to day - simply because God is worth it?
This verse in Psalm 94 is beautiful:
19 When the cares of my heart are many,
your consolations cheer my soul.
That's such a great way to describe how I'm feeling lately - so many "cares" are popping up in my heart...for one thing, three key families (e.g. our pastor and his wife) are moving to the States within the next 3-4 months, and I can already feel the pain and loneliness up ahead. The unavoidable worries about how it's all going to work out, etc.
And yet, through it all, I see God's consolations cheer my soul. Now, definitely not all the time or every day, mind you. But unmistakably and truly without a doubt in my mind - God is right. Here. If I just take the time, I can sense His whispers in my ear, His hand on my shoulder, and His (painful yet life-giving) massaging of my wounded heart.
This passage in Nahum reminds me of Narnia where Mr. Beaver is talking about Aslan and when he's asked (I think by Lucy) whether Aslan is a "safe" lion, he responds, "Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."
Nahum 1:1-6 goes into great detail about God's wrath and awesome power. And then comes this passage:
1:6 No one can withstand his indignation!
No one can resist his fierce anger!
His wrath is poured out like volcanic fire,
boulders are broken up as he approaches.1:7 The Lord is good –
indeed, he is a fortress in time of distress,
and he protects those who seek refuge in him.
I love that contrast, that tension, and I especially love how the strength and might of God's wrath and awesome power doesn't at all take away from his being good. In fact, it's just the opposite - it upholds his goodness, it enables him to truly be a fortress which cannot be shaken.
He has told you, O man, what is good,
and what the Lord really wants from you:
He wants you to promote justice, to be faithful,
and to live obediently before your God.- Micah 6:8
Here's another GC oldie. This verse always struck me with its simplicity.
It starts off with "He has told you" - in other words: This is not rocket science, people, plus it's something you already know but simply keep forgetting.
The three things are so striking: "Promote" (or "do") justice - be honest, fight for justice in society (wow, do I do this?), stand in for truth. "Be faithful" - stop backsliding, keep in step with the Spirit (don't lag behind, don't run ahead), be diligent and trustworthy. "Live obediently before your God" (or "walk humbly/carefully/cautiously with your God") - take God seriously, put yourself under His authority, be teachable and humble.
Things I often can raise above these three things may be Good Things™, but they're not what God really wants from me. Somehow, keeping my walk with God and my devotion "pure and simple" (2 Corinthians 11:3) seems to be anything but simple to really maintain.
But I am full of the courage that the Lord’s Spirit gives,
and have a strong commitment to justice.
This enables me to confront Jacob with its rebellion,
and Israel with its sin.
What struck me here is the uniting of two things that enable Micah to stand strong and go against the flow: Courage from God's Spirit, and at the same time his own strong commitment to justice. If one of either was missing, he wouldn't be able to fulfill his mission of confrontation.
13:5 I cared for you in the wilderness,
in the dry desert where no water was.13:6 When they were fed, they became satisfied;
when they were satisfied, they became proud;
as a result, they forgot me!
What I think is amazing here is that the satisfaction God is talking about in verse 6 comes from God's own caring in verse 5! Israel became too satisfied with God's own caring of them, which led to their pride! Wow.
More and more I see the Incarnation being a huge help to me in understanding the role of the Scriptures. The Incarnation showed that God is not all that interested in revealing himself in some disconnected, unearthly fashion like, say, a vision. Rather, the ultimate revelation of God is Himself becoming a human being, in fact, a first-century Jewish man who speaks Aramaic, observes the Sabbath, eats, drinks, sleeps, and goes to the bathroom! So quickly I feel that I forget the unbelievable radicalness of that idea.
Just as God himself will simply not be "copied and pasted" into our lives or our cultures, neither will absolute truth nor His message. Rather, for either Himself or His message to reach us, both have a "form", a "carrier", a "translation"...an "incarnation". The Bible seems to me to not be meant by God (its divine author) nor its human authors to be read as a divine abstract thesis or a book of divine formulas or a dry collection of "divine truths" but rather as an earthy, human, down-to-earth "incarnation" of God's message to us - as fully human as Christ Himself, and yet just as Divine in origin.
6:1 “Come on! Let’s return to the Lord!
He himself has torn us to pieces,
but he will heal us!
He has injured us,
but he will bandage our wounds!
6:2 He will restore us in a very short time;
he will heal us in a little while,
so that we may live in his presence.
6:3 So let us acknowledge him!
Let us seek to acknowledge the Lord!
He will come to our rescue as certainly as the appearance of the dawn,
as certainly as the winter rain comes,
as certainly as the spring rain that waters the land.”
I always have loved the oldie GC song "So Let Us Know", but so often I forget that it is based on this passage which is actually about Israel's false repentance. The prayer here is based on the fact that Israel is taking God's restoration for granted, that it is automatic, like rain in the springtime, which comes without me lifting a finger. Basically Israel is saying "Our relationship with God is like the seasons...don't worry, spring rains always come, and so will God." The prayer is completely devoid of any acknowledgment of sin.
Well here's God's response to Israel's unrepentant prayer:
What am I going to do with you, O Ephraim?
What am I going to do with you, O Judah?
For your faithfulness is as fleeting as the morning mist;
it disappears as quickly as dawn’s dew!
6:5 Therefore, I will certainly cut you into pieces at the hands of the prophets;
I will certainly kill you in fulfillment of my oracles of judgment;
for my judgment will come forth like the light of the dawn.
God here takes out some of his own Nature metaphors and uses them to describe Israel's unfaithfulness. I detect some definite sarcasm undertones here... :)
I wonder whether sometimes I don't have the same attitude of complacency toward my relationship with God as Israel did. This complacency would come because I have the same lack of fear and the same "take-it-for-granted" attitude toward God's forgiveness and grace.
Over the weekend we visited Stockdales in Poland and this morning was Stockdale's house church meeting, it was a great time.
Jack shared on the idea of God's value system as we can see in 1 and 2 Peter. He shared on 5 things that are valuable and precious in God's sight according to Peter:
1. Our faith (1 Peter 1:7)
2. Us (1 Peter 1:18-19)
3. Jesus as our cornerstone (1 Peter 2:5-8)
4. Our character (1 Peter 3:3-4)
5. His promises (2 Peter 1:3-4)
Two things struck me. One was the thought I've had before that when a "buyer" declares a price on something, it makes the object valuable relative to (subjective to) the buyer. However, when God declares something to be valuable, it thereby has objective, intrinsic value. The example that comes to mind is that piece of toast where someone thought you could see an image of Mary on its side that that casino paid tens of thousands of dollars for on Ebay. Its intrinsic value was still that it was a simple piece of toast. But our intrinsic value is determined by God's declaration that we are truly worth the life of His Son.
The second thing that struck me was simply the verse in 1 Peter 2 that says "anyone who believes in Him will never be disappointed (= put to shame)". That's a quote from Isaiah 28:16. What an incredible promise. It of course mustn't be understood as meaning that we'll never be emotionally disappointed, but rather that God will never let us down, and we will never. ever. regret trusting in Him in any and every situation.
Lord, transform my mind that it may increasingly reflect your value system.
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