God is For Me

8You have taken account of my wanderings;Put my tears in Your bottle.Are they not in Your book?9Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call;This I know, that God is for me.10In God, whose word I praise,In the Lord, whose word I praise,11In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid.What can man do to me?12Your vows are binding upon me, O God;I will render thank offerings to You.13For You have delivered my soul from death,Indeed my feet from stumbling,So that I may walk before GodIn the light of the living.Psalms 56:8-13

As I read this passage I am reminded of the place in scripture where an angel of the Lord visited the Israelite army before a battle and they asked "Are you for us or for our enemies?" The angel replied "Neither, but in the Lord's name I have come." (I will look it up and add the reference in the comment section when I am done here.)

If I were honest I think I would always want God to be on my side, backing me up. If God is for me, who could stand against me? Right?

But while the essence of the truth is that God loves me so much that he died to make a way possible for me to be with him for ever, that doesn't mean that he is behind all the situations I find myself in. Just because I believe passionately in a thing doesn't mean that I will have his support in pursuing said thing. He can be on my side for the sake of my soul without my using him to justify the things I want. He's not my big-brother body guard he is the parent who can love me completely, even when I mess up badly.

He says nothing can separate us from his love, and no matter where I go on this earth I can't run farther than he can reach. He is for ME. And that is different from being FOR me.

It's about humility and power. About acknowledging how deeply we mess up and go wayward. It's about firmly holding to the truth that no matter what the dire circumstances, HE is for ME. He won't give me up, He won't get tired of my whining, He wont leave me in the middle of the messes I make.

It's a subtle power shift when you re read this passage and see how much better it is that it's Him that is in the right and he is on your side, than the other way around.

Wisdom and Foolishness: A Mother's Plea

A wise son makes a father glad, But a foolish son is a grief to his mother.Proverbs 10:1

Parenting is tough enough without prideful willfulness and our proclivity to sin mucking things up.

When you do have wisdom on an issue and you watch your kids still choose a painful path, where is the line between reality discipline (letting the natural consequences do the teaching) and not being a party to their self destruction? (Prov. 19:18)

This is where I am struggling today, Lord. I pray you still my desire to micro manage. Help me hear from you to know what is right for my  teenage children, and to know what I should do  for where they are at in their growth. Teach me how to do this right. Amen.

Deep Calls To Deep

Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls; All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.PSALMS 42:7 or

I am so glad that the Holy Spirit within me knows God better than I do. So glad that He can speak to me even when I am confused or hurting, Because He doesn't have to wait for me to understand Him in order to teach and guide me.

1 Cor. 2:10-11 says "These are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.  The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.  For who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them?  In the same way no one knows the thought of God except the Spirit of God."  I don't always have to have the answers.  

Yet, even though I have access to the infinite God, I am small.  I learn slowly.  I fall down and make mistakes.  I also am willfully disobedient sometimes too.

So I wonder why He bothers with such a frail container for His Holy Spirit to dwell within.

All I really know is that without His mercy and faithfulness, that continually works with me and patiently loves me, I would not be who I am. There is nothing special about me, and left to my own devices and my own resources, I would be a hot mess.  But He has promised to love me and speak to me through the spirit.  He's promised not to abandon me.

He is making me into something new.

Fasting, Weeping and Mourning

"Yet even now," declares the Lord, "Return to Me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping and mourning;And rend your heart and not your garments." Now return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness And relenting of evil.JOEL 2:12-13 NASB

The point of the scripture of course is that we would lock eyes with God and agree with him on what the sin is.  That we would actually see our sin as actual sin and not try to justify, minimize, or redefine it.  This scripture is the heart-cry of God to have his people return to him.

Something else caught my attention though.  "...with fasting weeping and mourning" I find it interesting that fasting is linked with the fine art and high tradition of lamenting. something we don't really talk about much here in the states. We are quick to take on praise and even service, but I wonder how much of our spiritual walk is hampered by our decision  to avoid fasting and our inability to enter into a lamenting frame of mind.

So many of the psalms are laments.  Ecclesiastes is a whole book on lamenting.  Old testament times it was common to fast, tear your garments and put ashes on your head.  Even in our country in years past we would wear black arm bands, or wear all black for a period of time. During this time of mourning, people were more gentle with you, didn't expect you to jump right back into the busyness of life and gave you time to grieve, and so in this modern time we keep moving and don't do the reflection and repentance that generates a lasting change

I believe that if we saw our sin for what it truly was (not the minimizing and redefining thing we've turned it into), we would see the damage we've caused  and we would weep and mourn.

You Thought I Was Just Like You

"These things you have done and I kept silence; You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes.PSALMS 50:21 NASB

 "...you thought I was just like you." Wow... the truth of that statement keeps hitting me fresh, it's not the first time I've read it and it's not a new concept for me, it's just that it never looses it's punch.

Michael Card wrote in one of his songs "We've made you in our image so our faith is idolatry." that was the first time I'd come across the concept and it rocked me then. Here I am a quarter century later and that truth still challenges me.

Sin... our pride makes us so myopic and self serving. And even now as I use that distancing language to separate myself from it I know that my flesh and the desires I have battle for the wheel and for control. Every. Single. Moment. And I wonder why He bothers with us, I get whelmed with the struggle to contend with my own spirit, to bring it under his head ship and discipline my body and it's drives. It is too much - and I can't even do that without his help. How is it possible that can He engage all of us and never seem to tire with our selfishness?

The Lord is patient with us to withhold His wrath so long, he has such grace and mercy... but in the wake of his kindness, there are those who take his silence for what it is not.

In my mind I see his wrath held back like the walls of the Red Sea. The passage is temporary and dry ground is our gift of grace to give us the chance to see the wonder and the consequences in time to make choices.

Lord, today I ask you to help me be aware of the choices I have in connection with the sin of pride. I don't want to assume you are like me in your silence. Help me hear you speak into the quiet and remind me that you are remaking me and I cannot remake you to suit my own comfort. I ask that you discipline me to serve you and not myself.

But Love Covers All Transgressions

He who winks the eye causes trouble, And a babbling fool will be ruined.The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, But the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.Hatred stirs up strife, But love covers all transgressions.PROVERBS 10:10-12 NASB

Today I am struggling with the power of words. The natural tendency is to take this verse and think it applies to someone else; to objectify the behavior as belonging to a certain kind of person.  But humans are rarely all of one thing or another.  We are complicated.

These verses speak of hatred stirring up strife and when I overlay the flavor-of-the-day trouble I can hear myself back pedal and sanitize my anger... calling it concern instead of hateful. I don't think of myself as being that way. It occurs to me that we can sometimes be the worst version of ourselves and say mean things without thinking of ourselves as troublemakers, fools or wicked as the verses describe.

We get caught in the moment of carelessness and once a thing is said we then have a choice. We either have to own it as truth or disown it as not being truth, but maybe a reaction to an emotion or a perception.

How wedded we are to our own authority or power will dictate the lengths we are willing to go to save face. And so when we want to be perceived as righteous it's the "other" who is wicked.

I think that when we harbor this wickedness within, but refuse to disown it, let alone even look at it, we end up concealing the violence in our hearts. To validate our state we stir up others to see it from our perspective... This validation enables us to nurture our own hurts, disappointments and the subsequent bad behavior and rebellion that follows as justification.

Lord, help me admit when I am the worst version of myself, when I stir up trouble, act wickedly or foolishly. Help me seek your approval instead of mans. I don't want my desire to be "right" put me in a place where I cannot back down or be transparent when I behave badly. I desperately need your love that covers my sin. Amen.

Trust In The Lord And Do Good

Do not fret because of evildoers, Be not envious toward wrongdoers.For they will wither quickly like the grass And fade like the green herb.Trust in the Lord and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart.Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He will do it.He will bring forth your righteousness as the light And your judgment as the noonday.Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.Cease from anger and forsake wrath; Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing.For evildoers will be cut off, But those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land.Yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more; And you will look carefully for his place and he will not be there.But the humble will inherit the land And will delight themselves in abundant prosperity.PSALMS 37:1-11 NASB

I find that I carry such affection for this set of verses. Psalm 37 is my go to for when I am struggling with worry and fear. I like how practical it is. Many of the other Psalms are clear about where to take our fretting but this one outlines what to do with it.

Clear steps, reminders that it's what we DO when upset and not how we feel that matters. "Trust in the Lord and DO good. Dwell in the land ( no running away from it) and cultivate faithfulness. It says that He Will Do It. Cease from anger and forsake wrath, do not fret, trust, delight, and commit myself to Him. All those are actions intended to replace the destructive emotions that if left in the drivers seat will shipwreck my calm and as the Psalm says: "leads only to evildoing".

The enemy camps out here and whispers that it looks like it's just giving up and not doing anything about the injustice. The enemy would not have us look very closely at the self control and faithfulness that is required to trust in God to do what he says he'll do in his own timing.

For those who are accustomed to letting desire be in the drivers seat... this act of trust and faith is incomprehensible. There is no satisfaction for the anger, no promise of vindication in this life to balm the wound that our flesh can't think around. Our flesh does not think. It cannot accept faith in what it can't feel... it can only feel and consume.

I believe the steps outlined here in this Psalm are the baby steps that outline what faith is; the "how to". Do you want to know what it means to walk by faith and keep step in the spirit? Here is where you start. It begins when you are worried, in fear, desperately angry... any strong emotion that wants in the driver seat of your life. Throttle that feeling and submit it to God by replacing it with what Doing Good looks like. It's not the "giving up" lie that the enemy tells you it is. Rather, it's cultivating faithfulness, an active self control that looks to a Savior to do the job of saving. It's getting into the habit of demonstrating to your flesh through study, prayer, fasting and meditation that it does not get to drive the bus. Your hungers and desires, your thirsts and drives are not going to control how you respond and behave.

Trust in the Lord and Do Good sounds so poetic... until you realize how much of a fight you are in for.  Your emotional flesh wants to be satisfied.

Lord, help me dig out the enemy camps in my life, ground I've surrendered by believing the lie that waiting on the Lord was giving up. Help me to look at my self delusions square on and reclaim your truth from the lie I bought.

Amen