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(Psalms 6, 8-10, 14, 16, 19, 21)
The death of Ish-Bosheth, though David didnt approve, signified the official public reign of David. And it traditionally it seems that he takes the time to look back on his life, take inventory, and see how he got this far. And all the credit, as these Psalms that he is credited with as writing at this time, he gives to God.
He looks back, and he remembers all those people who asked him, in the darkest and most desperate times, “Where is God?” And though he may have wavered at the question as all of us do at times, he always knew–God was where God always is–on the side of the innocent, on the side of those who try to do the right thing, on those who stick it out and cling to faith whatever come what may.
It was David’s faith in God that no matter what the situation–a Shaq-sized Philistine, a bi-polar King who threw spears at him, constantly outmatched–no matter what the situation, God was there. When the odds were against him, when the way was blocked, always on the run, God was there and was already (somehow) sorting things out.
Same goes for us. On a morning like this, when you may be facing unemployment, redeployment, foreclosure, downsizing–a group at school that teases you, a test on a subject you just arent getting–confrontations with a boss, criticism from peers, a critically ill family member–on a morning like this, you may ask yourself “Where is God?”
But these Psalms remind us that God is there, in the chair or couch where you sit and read this blog. God is there, where you stand checking this post on your Blackberry. God is there in the mess that life can become, sorting things out.
Peterson puts it this way. Wherever you find yourself, whatever you face, wherever you must go “God sees and sets the world’s mess right”(from Psalm 9.7-8, the Message).
Know that. As I always remind people at the end of every service, “Wherever you are, God is, and all will be well!”
(Numbers 21-22)
This is one of those funny God stories. When the people are griping and complaining, what does God do—sent them snakes.
“Snakes, why did it have to be snakes?!”
I agree with Indiana Jones and the Israelites, ANYTHING else but snakes. EXCEPT wasps—I need an explanation from God on the existence of wasps.
Yet when the Israelites were complaining, God sent snakes. Why? To show them that life really bites sometimes. Figuratively, literally. THEN, when they cry out saying, “Okay, okay, we GET IT?” what does God do? Does God take away the snakes?
NO. God tells Moses—”You know that logo you see on the side of drugstores, hanging in doctor’s offices–the snake wrapped around the pole thing? Yeah, do that and tell people to look at it. Then they’ll be alright.”
God doesnt take away the snakes; instead God just gives an antidote for snakebite in the pole that Moses lifts in the wilderness. Later, isnt it in John that Jesus compares himself to this snake on a pole? The point being that Jesus didnt die and rise again to make us sin-free, but to free us from sin so that we might live in Christ.
Anyway, the point so that I can wrap this up and head to the Presbytery Assembly meeting where we’re installing our new Presbyter for Common Life. The point: GOD WONT TAKE YOUR PROBLEMS AWAY. I’m sorry, but God wont. Life does bite sometime. YET GOD HAS GIVEN YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO DEAL WITH YOUR PROBLEMS. We have grace, forgiveness, new life. We have truth. Hope. We have faith. Above all we have love. None of these will take our problems away, but dont they make them a lot easier to deal with?
Had much interest in my sermon illustration for this morning. And let me tell you pastors, this one preaches well. It makes a point about trusting in God to provide that few other illustrations can.
I got this as an e-mail several years back when I was serving my former congregations. As it is with these sort of things, you never know if the stories are true or not. Well, I “snopesed” it and found that this one is true when I ran across it again this week doing my sermon prep.
As far as my sermon theme this week, the way I wanted to procalim the Word this morning (based on the Test of Abraham in Genesis 22) was: we will face hard times in our life but should trust that deep certainty that it will be okay b/c it will–b/c God will provide. To illustrate this point, I retold the story of Diana and David Blessing. The original (I guess) story follows:
A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as the Doctor walked into the small hospital room of Diana Blessing. Still groggy from surgery, her husband David held her hand as they braced themselves for the latest news. That afternoon of March 10,1991, complications had forced Diana, only 24 weeks pregnant, to Danae Lu Blessing.
At 12 inches long and weighing only one pound and nine ounces, they already knew she was perilously premature. Still, the doctor’s soft words dropped like bombs. I don’t think she’s going to make it, he said, as kindly as he could. “There’s only a 10 percent chance she will live through the night, and even then, if by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruel one.” Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the devastating problems Danae would likely face if she survived. She would never walk, she would never talk, she would probably be blind, and she would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation, and on and on. “No! No!” was all Diana could say. She and David, with their 5-year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they would have a daughter to become a family of four. Now, within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away.
Through the dark hours of morning as Danae held onto life by the thinnest thread, Diana slipped in and out of sleep, growing more and more determined that their tiny daughter would live, and live to be a healthy, happy young girl. But David, fully awake and listening to additional dire details of their daughter’s chances of ever leaving the hospital alive, much less healthy, knew he must confront his wife with the inevitable. David walked in and said that we needed to talk about making funeral arrangements. Diana remembers, ‘I felt so bad for him because he was doing everything, trying to include me in what was going on, but I just wouldn’t listen, I couldn’t listen. I said, “No, that is not going to happen, no way! I don’t care what the doctors say; Danae is not going to die! One day she will be just fine, and she will be coming home with us!”
As if willed to live by Diana’s determination, Danae clung to life hour after hour, with the help of every medical machine and marvel her miniature body could endure. But as those first days passed, a new agony set in for David and Diana. Because Danae’s under-developed nervous system was essentially raw, the lightest kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort, so they couldn’t even cradle their tiny baby girl against their chests to offer the strength of their love. All they could do, as Danae struggled alone beneath the ultraviolet light in the tangle of tubes and wires, was to pray that God would stay close to their precious little girl. There was never a moment when Danae suddenly grew stronger.
But as the weeks went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and an ounce of strength there. At last, when Danae turned two months old, her parents were able to hold her in their arms for the very first time. And two months later-though doctors continued to gently but grimly warn that her chances of surviving, much less living any kind of normal life, were next to zero. Danae went home from the hospital, just as her mother had predicted.
Today, five years later, Danae is a petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life. She shows no signs, what so ever, of any mental or physical impairment. Simply, she is everything a little girl can be and more-but that happy ending is far from the end of her story.
One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her home in Irving, Texas, Danae was sitting in her mother’s lap in the bleachers of a local ballpark where her brother Dustin’s baseball team was practicing. As always, Danae was chattering non-stop with her mother and several other adults sitting nearby when she suddenly fell silent. Hugging her arms across her chest, Danae asked, “Do you smell that?” Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied, “Yes, it smells like rain.” Danae closed her eyes and again asked, “Do you smell that?” Once again, her mother replied, “Yes, I think we’re about to get wet, it smells like rain. Still caught in the moment, Danae shook her head, patted her thin shoulders with her small hands and loudly announced, “No, it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest.” Tears blurred Diana’s eyes as Danae then happily hopped down to play with the other children.
Before the rains came, her daughter’s words confirmed what Diana and all the members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along. During those long days and nights of her first two months of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding Danae on His chest and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well.
The Book of Lamentations
Though the prayer of the desperate–those who have suffered for their own sin, and that inherited from their ancestors–though full of such pain and sorrow, talk of God’s anger, God’s punishment, the book of Lamentations is meant as comfort. Comfort to those who suffer, who dont understand God’s ways, who see their life in ruins and try to make sense of it all–accepting the blame when need be; acknowledging that which is out of their control; and always trusting in God’s justice.
In the midst of the lament, we are reminded that amid all the gloom and doom there is always hope–ALWAYS. That’s what sets believers apart from others when it comes to times of suffering and despair–no matter what, there is always hope because there is always God:
No matter how terrible the destruction, deep the pain, terrible the news, “I have hope when I think of this: Ha’Shem’s love never ends; God’s mercies never stop. They are new every morning; Living God, Your loyalty is great. I say to myself, ‘Ha’Shem is mine, so I hope in God’”(Lam.3.21-24).
Hope in the Lord–knowing that no matter what has happened, how you have despaired, how you have sinned, there is always God.
Hope in the Lord–knowing that regardless of how malignant the cancer, how terrible the argument, how grievous the loss, there is always God.
There is always God when the storm blows in and floods out your life.
There is always God when everyone else has betrayed you.
There is always God when there seems nothing else left, nowhere else to go–when you start off into a new direction and you dont believe in yourself, there is always someone to believe in–someone who believes in you.
In this life there will be a portion of loss, a helping of tears, a share of anxiety, a dose of uncertainty, a heaping of fear, and moments of anger, and yet THERE IS ALWAYS GOD–loving, merciful, powerful God.
And as there will always be God, there will always be a tomorrow.
Jeremiah 25.1–29.32
Certain things we just have to accept. Not that we want to. Not that they’re easy. Just that they are what they are.
Certain things we cannot change. Cancer doesnt always go away; lovers dont always take us back; people die. Heartache, disappointment, grief–these will always be a part of our lives.
But we CAN control how we feel. I’m no pharmacist–I dont have a stethoscope, nor one of those scopes with the lights, and the different attachments like a vacuum–”Say ahhh …” pulling the earlobe while being asked to cough. But we CAN, I’m convinced, control how we feel. Because we are in absolute control of our faith.
Faith–that reaching out into the unknown, knowing that someone will be their to take yr hand through the mist. Dangling from the cliff, barely a toe touching the rock face, knowing that yr harness will hold you. Looking forward to the day ahead, rather than pulling the covers over yr head. Finding a reason to laugh, to smile, even through it might hurt.
Prophets like Jeremiah remind us that sometimes it gets a whole lot worse before it gets better. Disaster, desolation, destruction–these are all a part of life. BUT so is God. And as long as God is a part of our lives, what is there to fear? Everything temporary–even though it may seem otherwise. Passing downpours that sweep down from the Knobbs, beating and blinding sheets that you can see coming, that stop the world for a moment–traffic to a crawl–until it passes and the rumble fades into the distance while the blue returns in dramatic, steamy fashion.
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Saints Peter & Paul Day
Ezekiel 2.1-7; Acts 11.1-18
The Gospel is for everyone. It’s major themes are universal.
First, the idea that God is all about love. Loving the earth, loving its creatures, loving each and everyone of us, calling us to love one another. Everyone wants to be loved–desperately. There is no greater feeling than being loved or being in love. Who dares not believe in love?
Second, forgiveness. In a world of revenge, retaliatory strikes, grudges held like a toy by a child who doesnt want to share–where else do we find the promise of unconditional forgiveness? Everyone struggles. No one is perfect. Everyone screws up every now and then. And anywhere else, they arent allowed to forget it. Mistakes once made become like tattooed letters branding us with letters–L, for liar; F, for failure; I, for ignorance. But by the marks on his back, Christ removed all those marks from us, so that we are no longer known for what we have done wrong, but what we can do for Christ.
Third, hope. Looking forward. Beyond the trial, beyond the hardship, beyond whatever the siutation. On the way to the cross, Jesus never once looked toward Golgotha. He looked at the crowds, the daughters of Jerusalem, his broken-hearted mother. And he looked forward to the coming day when he would be lifted up from cold death. In a hopeless world where bills are the only mail we have to look forward to, grace is a pan of fresh brownies, waiting for you every afternoon–a morning commute where all the lights are green and it’s back to back to back Radiohead on the i-Pod–a bright day after a long week of sticky humidity where you even have to put a zip hoodie on in the morning after emerging from the womb of the blankets you hadnt buried yrself under since early June–after eight years, more, being able to lie down at night, looking back and looking forward–content.
Love, forgiveness, hope. Who doesnt want these things of all things? To know that you are loved; to know that yr mistakes are not all there are of you; to know that just over the hills where electric fingers emerge from the dark clouds from which sheets of water stream–just to the west, there is clearing.
And people say it’s silly to believe such things.
Colossians 1.24–2.7
“I continue to toil and struggle—b/c His amazing power and energy surge within me”(Col 1.29, The Voice).
When Paul talks of the suffering of JesusXt, and how we as believers are to share in them, it’s not so much a call to martyrdom as the calm of comfort. Yes, Jesus suffered, but look what happened to him. Sometimes ridiculed, always challenged, beaten, whipped, executed. But what of the footprints upon the water, sight to the blind, healing hands—Lazarus, come forth!?
In times of suffering, trouble, discouragement—when we are misunderstood, when we feel whipped, when the door we’ve been looking for ends up being barred shut—when life trembles and shakes like the ruins of some ancient city, quivering in a violent earthquake—in times like these, it’s all about focus.
We can focus on our problems, or focus on the amazing power and energy of Xt—the same power and energy that Paul says was part of the creation of all we see, the sole power over all things in heaven, in earth, within and without us. No, w/o God our troubles, our sorrows, will overcome us. But with Xt working through us … as the traditional hymn says, “We shall overcome.”
“I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about a future full of hope”(Jeremiah 29.11, GNT).
God alone knows the plans God has for us—a plan we have a hard time seeing. When another day goes by and still the phone doesnt ring, the red light doesnt flash on the voice mail, there is no new message in your inbox. Another day without a job. Another day, stuck in that same relationship. You dreamt they had released you, but still the IV was stuck in your arm.
God alone knows the plan God has for us. Just when you thought you had it beat—two steps forward—a BIG step back. Maybe not as big as God might see it. B/c God knows. God knows these things are just somehow a part of the journey.
Recessions, depressions—God has seen these all before. And God knows all about broken relationships. But under a flag of truce … riding out on a donkey, arms extended as if making peace, everyone shouting “Save us!” or “Hosanna!” It was God showing us the plan … the future full of hope.
This hope for many out there is like a wisp of smoke, there for an instant, then GONE—swirling into nothing. Because life has become so hard, and has seemed to do so overnight. The entire social animal of humanity has seemed to pause, lift a front paw and cock an ear—as if waiting. For the predator or the prey? That’s the question.
And yet this hope, this promise, penned by Jeremiah in captivity. The prophet’s great affirmation of, “But still I believe …” No matter what happens—what punishment, what shortcoming, what trial, what failure—still I believe. I believe that no matter what, God HAS a plan, and it is not to bring us ruin.
Prosperity. A future full of hope.
Romans 5.1-11
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly … While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”(vv.6, 8, TNIV).
At just the right time
Some say that everyone has their time. But then of others, we say that they met an untimely death. And maybe some would debate this last and say that no one meets an untimely death—what of those who die so young? so suddenly? so unnecessarily? Was it because it was just their time?
What cannot be debated is that Jesus met an untimely death. Paul says it was “at the right time.” And when the time came, Jesus himself said, “My hour has come.”
Jesus had PERFECT timing—coming just when the world needed him—just when WE needed him.
And his timing is still perfect. Just when we feel as if we’ve reached the end—just when we feel that there is no lower we can sink.
Like in the movies: Indiana Jones—hanging by his whip, the door closing slowly—dramatically—pulling himself up, running, sliding under the door just in time—ALMOST in time, as his hat has fallen off—reaching underneath to grab it—just in time.
That’s God’s kind of timing.
Just when the jaws of danger close around on us, God snatches us out—just in time.
The problem is—or else the thing against which we must struggle—is that the jaws WILL close around us—life WILL get harder—things may seem bleaker—but hope sees God on the other side of adversity, upon the peak of an uphill climb, in the yellow of the daffodil blooming in the last days of Winter.
So hang in there, brothers and sisters. There are rough days ahead for a lot of you. But things will work out in God’s time.
And God’s timing is always perfect.
Ours is the challenge to see it that way.
Romans 10.1-13
“The scripture says, ‘Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.’ This includes everyone, because there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles; God is the same Lord of all and richly blesses all who call to him”(vv.11-12, GNT).
Whoever believes in God will not be disappointed.
We may be disappointed at other things, but not God.
Disappointed that things dont work out as we plan.
Disappointed that our team didnt make the tournament.
Disappointed a relationship isnt what we thought it was.
Disappointed that we didnt get that raise or bonus.
Or hired.
Disappointed, but never in God.
Immutable, unchanging. The one sure thing in our lives.
And yes, God does sometimes disappoint us, but that’s our fault.
It is WE who have troubles accepting God’s answers; WE who have troubles accepting things in God’s time; WE who would much rather blame anyone else than ourselves.
Yet how can we be disappointed when there is love? When there is hope?
Whoever believes in God will not be disappointed.
There will be a time when we look back—the past, seeming so long while living seems now like it was just yesterday.
Why did I doubt?
Why did I struggle?
Why did I give in? Almost gave up?
Disappointments and failures—though we cannot get them off our minds they are all part of it, this life of ours.
But our faith is neither.
Our faith—in God through Christ and in ourselves, thanks to the Holy Spirit.
Whoever has faith will not be disappointed.
Because the past is forgiven—the future wide open—and there’s no better time than the present.
So dont be disappointed that something didnt work out, because there is someone who is working things out as planned.
Someone who will never disappoint.
