Feb 22, 2010 | The Good Word
Did I catch your attention? Ever feel that way? I was reading Psalm 55 the other day and realised that David was praying his heart out and literally saying he wanted his enemies to go straight to hell — like, to fall into the pit of hell, still breathing. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.
When I read things like that, I get uncomfortable. I feel like saying Shh…David, don’t say that! That’s not nice! But David was known as “a man after God’s own heart.†Why? I think part of it was his honesty with God. He genuinely poured out hurt, anger, disappointments, a sense of betrayal by close friends, and even the desire that nothing good ever happen to them again. Ever. He prayed, “Let death seize them; Let them go down alive into hell, For wickedness is in their dwellings and among them.â€
But are we supposed to pray like that?
Well yes and no.
It’s right for us to pray that wickedness will come to an end. That’s God’s will. We should pray that those who are practicing injustice, for example kidnapping young girls and enslaving them in the sex industry, will meet their Maker. That their arms would be broken (perhaps not in the literal sense) — that their ways would come to a swift end. We bring the injustice to God, and pray that His will will be done. I don’t think this includes making our own plans to assassinate dictators or blow up abortion clinics, by the way. We bring it to God, as David did, and say “See this wickedness on the earth, Lord! We know You don’t like it! Please change things, and let the work of those perpetrating such evils be brought to nothing!â€
As Matthew Henry points out, we can stand in awe of and comfort ourselves in David’s prayers, as prophecies. The things he prayed actually happened. Not because David prayed them, per se, but more because they were in agreement with the will of God. God’s will was done, and the wicked people who betrayed David did indeed come to an untimely end. The comfort? God is just, and He’ll see justice prevail in the end.
We should pray our hearts out like David. We should be honest with God about how we feel about the situations we’re encountering. We should tell Him when things have hurt us or discouraged us. You can’t really hide anything from Him anyway … so why not just talk about those big stinky “elephants in the room” of your heart?
But are we to curse those who’ve hurt us, the way David did? No. Jesus has shown us a better way. He basically said Love people that treat you really bad. And pray for people that purposefully hurt you. (Mt. 5:44, my paraphrase) And He’s given us a Spirit that can enable us to do so — a spirit that completely changes our nature. The natural man wishes terrible things on those who hurt him or betray him. Or jump in front of him in line at the grocery store with a huge cartload. Or cut him off in traffic. But the man who has been made new in Christ has a new Spirit, and by that Spirit is able to bless those who curse him.
In our prayer life, we should bring it all to God, (the good, the bad, the ugly) and trust Him to give us a new heart and a right spirit in response to whatever we’re facing.
The Sermon in a Nutshell: While David’s I Wish They’d All Just Go to Hell prayers were a demonstration of his honest emotions before God, Jesus has shown us a different way to live today. Bring it all to God. Pray that injustice and wickedness will not prevail, and pray that God will have mercy on people who mistreat you. If you can show love and forgiveness to people who hurt you, you are walking in the footsteps of Jesus.
Feb 20, 2010 | Baby Photos, Guest Posts, The Good Word
We are thoroughly enjoying having a friend staying with us this weekend! Which means I am baking and cooking (and enjoying the fruits of said labour) and I don’t have anything super special to share with you here today. However! A post of mine has been featured on my friend Annie Beth’s site, so I thought I’d let you know so you can check it out! And in case you’re wondering how it might possibly relate to the strange title I’ve given this post, I’m talking about what a dangerous bedfellow Self-Pity can be. Avoid the trap!
The post should be showing up on http://www.john1verse12.blogspot.com/ today! Feel free to come back and let me know if you enjoyed it! 🙂
Read this before you throw your next pity party!
UPDATE: Here’s the direct link to the post! Silly me! I forgot to check and it was already there!
Feb 19, 2010 | The Good Word
I was recently reading in Numbers 11, where the children of Israel have begun their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. God had provided manna for them to eat, and was leading them with His presence day and night. They began to complain because they only had manna to eat, and they looked back at their time in Egypt with sorrow — they missed being in Egypt, in slavery.
“We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic; but now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!â€
It is easy to read their comments and cast judgement: those ninnymuggins Israelites. Hello? What about the fact that you were slaves in Egypt, and now you have freedom? You have food to eat every day and all you have to do is gather it. You are free! You’re not slaves anymore doing ridiculously intense labour! And you have a promise from a God who has already caused you to walk through the Red Sea on dry land! He is surely able to make good on His promises.
But I wonder if we perhaps do the same thing in our lives sometimes? Do we see the provision of God in our daily lives as boring old manna? I think I do sometimes. The problem is that it’s in our nature to focus on what we don’t have. We look at what other people have, we see advertising all around us all day, every day. (Why do half the people who watch the Super Bowl watch it? Advertising!) We’re encouraged to be dissatisfied with what we have, and to spend money to get what we don’t have. And it’s a never-enough kind of cycle.
My encouragement in response? Two things. First, think on the things that will make you thankful. Put reminders on your walls, on your mirrors, all around you, that will encourage you to count your blessings and remember how good you really have it. Do you have food to eat every day? You have cause to be thankful. Do you have clothes to wear every day? You have cause to be thankful.
Second, consider spending less time watching TV and reading magazines which are specifically intended to cause you to be discontent with what you have. Spend more time thanking God for His great provision, and reading His Word, which will remind you of all the stupendously mind-boggling gifts you have in Jesus — for now, and all of eternity. You might have a little more joy every day, because you will find contentment with your life as it is now.
The Sermon in a Nutshell: Your heart will follow your head. What you believe about your circumstances will determine your perspective, your attitude and your response. So where’s your head these days?
Feb 18, 2010 | The Good Word
The other day a friend of mine wrote me an email to ask how I answer this question: Don’t you think we’re basically all worshiping the same God? Do you ever get into a conversation with someone who feels that Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, whatever… we are all basically praying to the same God, and we just have different understandings of who that ‘god’ is and how to get to him or her? I spent some time thinking about how I would answer that, and after writing her back I decided to share my thoughts in case they might be an encouragement to you, too.
At the core, I think this question really stems from another question which first has to be answered: Is there absolute truth? Can anything absolutely be true all the time? Is there actually one God who is always only a certain way? Or is God what we make of Him? This is important: Can two contradictory things be true at the same time?
When asked about absolute truth, a lot of people might initially say no, there’s no such thing. Lots of people hold the opinion that nothing is ever always true, and that’s why we like relativism and tolerance so much. If nothing is ever always true, we can pretty much make up the rules as we go. It seems like the only “rule” is that no one is allowed to ‘push their beliefs on’ anyone else. But who gets to say that’s definitely always wrong? Sorry for the tangent. That’s sort of a pet peeve.
Basically, not believing in absolute truth allows us to do what feels right in every situation. It’s easy to see where taking this stance will lead you… If nothing is ever always true, then sometimes it’s okay for people to rape infant girls because they believe it will cure them of HIV. (And that is actually happening in our world today. Is that okay with you?)Â If nothing is ever always wrong, then sometimes it’s okay to kidnap young women to sell them into the sex industry. Can you honestly come up with a logical, reasonable and sound scenario in which kidnapping and repeated rape is okay? If nothing’s always true, human trafficking probably shouldn’t even be punished…maybe it was right for whoever was doing it at the time.
Bringing this back to more ‘reasonable’ terms…consider (based on the relationship you have with the person you’re talking to) secretly taking their purse or book bag (or anything they have with them) and beginning to rummage through it, or pinching them, or better yet smacking them on the arm or in the face. Was it wrong for you to do that? Says who?
The point of all this is to say there has to be truth. There is truth. Some things are always always true. Or else we’re just being ridiculous. You were born on a certain day in a certain year, and that will always be true. This or that team won the Super Bowl in 1985…you get the point. And if someone feels you’re pushing your beliefs on them…I think it’s valid to ask what’s wrong with that? If they try to explain why it’s wrong for you to share your beliefs with them, point out that they’re pushing their belief on you that it’s wrong to push your beliefs on them! Okay, I’ll stop digressing about this.
Now the Bible explicitly says, and leaves no question, that Jesus is the ONLY way to God. The Bible is taking the position that God is specific. Not a life force, not an energy, not the whole universe… but a specific Being. And there is a specific way to get to know Him and to be in relationship with Him. It also makes it clear that God has made a specific provision for the fact that we are sinful people. It’s clear that God wants a relationship with us, and the bridge that He has provided for us to cross the chasm of our own sinfulness is Jesus Christ. The Truth is, either the Bible is true or it isn’t. Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life” and “No one can come to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) C.S. Lewis pointed out three possible responses to the statements Jesus made, like this one.
First option: Jesus was telling the truth, and therefore we should worship Him and follow Him.
Second: Jesus was lying. There are multiple ways to get to God. If this is the case, then Christianity is NOT true, and we are not arriving at the same destination. If we worship Jesus, but Jesus was a liar, then either they are also worshiping a God who’s a liar, or they’re worshiping a different god. We believe Jesus is God. That’s what Christians believe. Jesus is God, He was with God from the beginning, He came forth from God, entered creation, lived a perfect life, died for our sins and rose from the dead, demonstrating His power over sin and death. But if you don’t believe Jesus is God, then we obviously don’t worship the same God.
Here’s the third possibility: Jesus was crazy. Hopefully to you this sounds like an absurdly comical possibility. But if it was the case that He was delusional and wasn’t actually the Son of God, He just thought so — why did people follow Him around? Why did people give up their whole livelihood to become His disciples? Why have so many people, even of different faiths, generation after generation said His teachings were good, and if people lived by them the world would be a better place? Why did the masses come to hear him speak — thousands upon thousands of people at the time? Usually idiots are in the crowd, or run through the crowd streaking perhaps, but they don’t generally draw a crowd like that.
Some may refute Lewis’ Lord, Liar or Lunatic “trilemma” as it is called, and a number of critics have tried. The point in this space is not to try to prove the existence and truth of Jesus’ claims. The evidence of that certainly deserves more blog posts, books, magazines, and news articles than we could ever possibly create. The point I want to make in this space is that those claims are what Christians believe. We believe Jesus was Who He said He was, and we worship Him as our Lord. If anyone does not believe that Jesus deserves to be worshiped as God, then the god that they are worshiping is not the Father, Son and Holy Spirit we worship as the Triune God.
Based on this, there is really no possibility that we’re all worshiping the same God, as Christians, Muslims and Hindus. Because Christians believe that Jesus is God, the Son of God, who came from God and returned to God. Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet, but not God. I apologize that I’m not sure exactly what most Hindus think about Jesus. I am, however, sure that they don’t believe that salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ.
I’m obviously not writing an exhaustive treatise on this, although there are many many many that could be written on the subject. I just wanted to share some thoughts about how I answer that question, in hopes that they’d be an encouragement to you. How do you answer?
The Sermon in a Nutshell: What we believe about the person of Jesus Christ is the most easy to point out and essential difference between the Christian faith and other faiths. So, how do you answer that question?
Feb 17, 2010 | Baby Photos
It’s been a while since I’ve given an update on how the Bear’s doing and shared a few shots. Most of you probably don’t mind, but he has four grandparents who do! Â So here’s the latest.
The Bear
…is almost 18 months old, and is still not has just started walking! (Yes, while I was putting together this post the walking began!) He was walking behind his little car holding the handle, traversing along furniture, and going the distance as long as he had someone’s finger to hold. Finally on Saturday he stood up like a tiny sumo wrestler, steady and cautious! One small step for the Bear…one giant leap for bearkind. Well it was actually two steps. Anyway.
At one day away from 18 months the Bear…
…can stand up holding onto his big bag of puzzle pieces, and then pick the whole bag up like a heavyweight champ! Clean and jerk, Bear!!
…now gives high fives, baby fives, and pounds. He also LOVES clinging his juice cup against our glasses to say cheers before meals.
…has never met a grape he didn’t like.
…is taking one big nap in the middle of the day (10:30 am to as late as 1:30 pm — can you say AWESOME?!?) and hits the crib for nighty nights at 7:30 pm, sleeping till 6:30 or 7 the next morning.
…has mastered the art of saying the following important words: car, star, light, nana (banana) and neanh (for no). It’s hard to figure out how to spell that, but it sounds like that goat on that commercial a while back. Ahem.
…is artfully signing thirsty, please, thank you, more, juice, milk, what??? and “round and round.” Grandma Collie taught him that one for a fan, and it has become the universal symbol for anything and everything that ought to start moving…now!
…still hasn’t had his first hair cut. You can blame the parents who love the goldilocks.
…now has seven pearly whites which he puts to good use! And his blue eyes look more hazely green these days.
…still loves riding his little car in the neighbourhood, and has recently increased his pace to create some invigorating exercise for Mommy.
…and has especially adorable goldilocks when he has just woken up from a warm nap!
All in all, we can definitely say he’s a good wee Bear. We’re so thankful for him!
Happy almost-Birthday Bear!
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