Looking at the Stars from the Gutter

Mar 1, 2012 | The Good Word

Oscar Wilde once said, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Psalm 77 reminds me a lot of those words, and spoke to my heart and my life circumstances the other morning.

The Psalmist (Asaph in this case) begins by describing his situation. I’ll break it down for you quickly with some bullet points:

• He’s crying out to God and searching for Him.
• He’s praying all night long, hands high to da sky. He doesn’t feel comforted.
• He thinks of God and moans — overwhelmed with longing for God’s help.
• He says that the Lord isn’t even letting him sleep — he feels too distressed to pray.
  
• He remembers happier times and thinks about how different his present circumstances are.
  
• He concludes that this is his fate — God has completely turned against him.
  

Ever felt this way, friend?

We’ve only made it to verse 10!

But then, there’s a turning point.

And it goes a little something like this:

“But then I recall all you have done, O LORD; I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago.”

As this new leaf turns over, Asaph goes on to say that those deeds are constantly in his thoughts — he can’t stop thinking about God’s mighty works.

He concludes that God’s ways are holy. He remembers it — I feel like I can sense his face lighting up: “You are the God of great wonders! You demonstrate your awesome power among the nations.”

And then, he clings to a specific example — “By your strong arm, you redeemed your people…When the Red Sea saw you, O God, its waters looked and trembled! The sea quaked to its very depths. The clouds poured down rain; the thunder rumbled in the sky…Your road led through the sea, your pathway through the mighty waters–a pathway no one knew was there!” {v. 17a & 19, emphasis added}

The conclusion of the matter is found in these simple words: “You led your people along that road like a flock of sheep, with Moses and Aaron as their shepherds.” {v.20}

It’s as if Asaph decided around verse 11 to get up and start preaching to himself.

He didn’t even need to remember something God had specifically done for him, personally, he just began to remember God’s powerful nature, His goodness to the people He loves and has chosen. And what a word this is — God makes a path in places where no one even knew a path was possible!

We might feel like we’ve got the Egyptian army, horses and chariots racing behind us to catch us, and a raging sea in front of us — a choice between fighting people who are stronger and more equipped and drowning — but God. But God. But God. He can make a path where one doesn’t yet exist. He has a plan, He has a saving solution in mind that we might not even fathom!

And Asaph’s conclusion is beautiful — the powerful, strong and mighty God who delivered the Israelites with rumbling thunder, flashes of lightning and earth-quaking, sea-parting power — He is the God who gently leads His people, like a Shepherd with a sweet little flock of fluffy sheep. The Shepherd gently and carefully leads those sheep to green pastures and still waters where their soul will be restored. Strong and loving — what an amazing God.

Now does He love you or me less? Your answer to that question matters. It informs your belief (or unbelief) and effects what becomes possible in your life. {As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he…}

Instead of getting discouraged when we feel like God is doing something for others He isn’t doing for us, we should get encouraged — because He doesn’t love anyone more than He loves you. Rejoice with those who rejoice — remembering that God delivers, and in His perfect timing, you will be delivered, too.

II Peter 3:9 says this:

The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

Ponder this with me for a second. What if your suffering is something God can use to bring others to repentance? What if the trials I’m facing right now are the catalyst for me to write these words, which will encourage someone else to press in to God with faith? God will keep His promise to me. And by His grace, He will also use these trials — and I have the privilege of participating in His glory.

Does that mystery blow your mind?

Yes, He says if you call to Him, He’ll answer. That if you wholeheartedly seek Him you’ll find Him.

But remember the verse before that one up there (II Pet. 3:8) — that a day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day. We don’t understand His timing. The hows and whys and whens are as much of a mystery as the manna fed to the Israelites in the wilderness. Manna literally means “What is it?” and (thank you Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts for helping me understand this) God fed them mystery for forty years.

God’s people were nourished and full with mystery.

Could we be a people who would be willing to receive the mystery? To even appreciate the mystery — perhaps come to love the mystery of God? The more I’ve thanked Him for the mystery the more I think I’ve come to understand. These trials are producing good fruit — but it took a willingness to receive them as gifts to see that.

We are not there yet, friend. Compared to the glory of heaven yet to come, this world is the gutter. But even here, in the middle of the days when it truly feels like a gutter — all of us have a choice to look up at the stars.

xCC

The Faith to Face Lions

Feb 28, 2012 | The Good Word

This morning I was turning my attention to the Lord, declaring my trust in His goodness, thinking about believing God and not just believing in God. Faith is being sure of what you hope for — certain of what you don’t see yet. There are things I don’t see yet, but I see God. There are things I don’t understand yet, but I know God. I understand that God is strengthening my faith muscles by stretching me to believe the unseen will be seen.

While hanging with Tiger Tank in the nursery Sunday morning at church, I heard bits and pieces of the sermon being piped through on the TV. One thing that caught my attention was our pastor’s discussion of panic. When a person gets truly panicked about something, they are so distraught that they are no longer capable of rational thought. A fight or flight sort of animalistic nature takes over. You might call it freaking out.

In prayer this morning I reflected on Daniel’s response when he was facing the fight of his life. He was a believer of God (not just a believer in God) and he was a man of prayer. And he was such a solid and upstanding chap, so marked by excellence, the only way his enemies could find fault with him was to make praying to his God illegal.

And plotting against him, in jealousy and hatred, they convinced the king to sign a decree which would do just that — make praying to anyone other than the king illegal. The punishment for getting caught praying to anyone other than the king? Being thrown into the lions’ den.

You’d think this would be the cue to freak out.

{Photo credit to our quick-witted and dear friend, Waynne Meintjes}

But what happened?

Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days. {Dan. 6:10}

Incredibly, Daniel didn’t freak out. Although he was in the middle of a crisis — lions looming ahead of him, not knowing how it was going to be resolved — he didn’t give up on God and stop praying (though that might’ve looked like a temporary solution to his problem). He didn’t start praying more, either. The way it’s explained, he just kept on doing what he’d already been doing, just as he’d always been doing it.

That kind of resolute consistency is just remarkable to me. I know I pray a heckuvalot more when I’m nervous, afraid of what’s going to happen, feel like I’m facing a crisis…staying on the sane side of freaking out.

What a resolute demonstration of trust in the God Daniel believed.

Sometimes we face mountains or lions, and it’s time for us to step up, step out, or make a change. But sometimes, there’s really nothing we can do to change our situation. The best demonstration of trust in God is to keep on consistently turning to Him — in the desert or on the mountaintop, through hungry times and in times when favor and providence flow.

Paul said it this way:

“Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” {Phil 4:11-13}

And isn’t it funny that we read that last verse and think about it as the reason we can run marathons or scale mountains? But in this context, Paul is saying,“I know how to be peaceful and content — I know how not to freak out — no matter what my circumstances are. This is the power of Christ at work in me — through His strength, I can trust God in every circumstance.”

If you feel like you’re facing lions today, can I encourage you to keep trusting, lean hard into His strength, Remember His Faithfulness in times past, and remain consistent in your walk with God?

He has delivered, He does deliver, and He will deliver. Holding tightly His Word, His Truth — this keeps me believing God. He will give you a firm place to stand. He will keep you from sinking. Or freaking out.

xCC