Psalm 130 – A song of ascents

How fitting that a Psalm of ascents would speak to me so clearly. My Lenten season had degraded to daily skirmishes to the point that a battle raged between my commitment for the season and my habits of escape and withdrawal that resulted in bouts of guilt ridden self loathing. All of this drove me away from the main purpose of Lent; drawing near to Christ and his suffering, embracing the sacrifice and victory that He has already won on our behalf.

Psalm 130: 1 & 2: “¹Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; ²O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.”

The first act of ascending to the foot of the cross is recognizing our need for it, deep within us, until we cry to him with an intensity that rocks our soul.

Psalm 130: 3 & 4 “³If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? ⁴But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.”

Then we confess and repent in order to receive the assurance of His forgiveness with our response of worship and praise.

I really love this next part; I can relate to the watchmen. One of my favorite things about Mission Arizona is to walk about the camp, late at night and into the early morning while watching over the mission team, praying for them, crying out for God to lead us and to dwell in everything we were doing. Under the moonlight with a star-filled sky while hearing the breathing of a couple of dozen people who were out working and serving Him all with the backdrop of coyotes in the distance and even a couple of times drums from the reservation, I was often times answered in the quiet and was assured that all would be well in the camp.

Psalm 130: 5 & 6: “⁵I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. ⁶My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning.”

Psalm 130: 7 & 8: “⁷O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. ⁸He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.”

And we pray it now Lord; we put our hope in You, Your love never fails. Bring us to your redemption, from all our sins, all those things that keep us from having you always before us. We lift You up in victory, risen from the dead, sin and death vanquished. Come quickly Lord!”

Troubled Times - What Would Joel Do?

How odd; I would have thought that when setting out to write something at this time of year that it would be filled with the message of Christ coming to dwell with us or celebrating His birth in some way or the new year with new beginnings. I guess that’s not how the Spirit is working with me and that what’s been on my heart are events launching change and the horrible shootings in Newtown, CT along with all the Facebook postings, murmurings, and rumors. All this is driving me towards commentary I’d prefer not make.

Seeing the various political ramblings, the gun rights activists using the school shootings to suggest that we have armed guards on campus, the gun control activists using the shootings to crank up efforts to further the political drive at legislation to limit sales of various weapons, and the best yet, religious commentators suggesting the shootings are because we’ve legislated God out of the schools or that the states and courts are recognizing gay marriage as a right. In my personal search for the reasons of a senseless act I came up with a somewhat different viewpoint but resisted the impulse to post it as a FB status. I read a friend’s blog on the subject, a thoughtful consideration on where God was in all of this, and offered my un-posted status as a comment; I offer it here and hope that by the end of this post my point becomes clear:

“It’s my fault. I didn’t pray enough for God to protect the children so that he would directly intervene. I am to blame. I haven’t prayed fervently enough for God to raise up men and women of God who would be empowered by the Holy Spirit to see a need and be moved to love somebody enough to take action when that person needed someone to care. It’s my fault that I haven’t prayed enough. God help me pray.”

The other thing that has been of concern can best be described for me as church turmoil caused by poor communications about changes being considered in light of diminishing worship attendance and significant casualties to the church membership, something that’s be in motion over a few years now, at least from what I have observed.

How are we to react to such things; to tragedy, internal discord, or when it seems that events and people pile up against us? The Body of Christ is under assault, innocent victims to senseless acts are accumulating, day-to-day suffering grows, and it seems that the wicked and the opponents of God’s Kingdom are winning. How do we respond? With legislation? Clever ways to draw people in? Disguising the Gospel to make it more palatable or comflaging ourselves to attract new people before they see who we really are? Arm teachers and priests and train them in armed response?

Let’s look at Joel for a few minutes and see what he prescribes. Joel was witnessing an invasion of locusts on the land with horrific effects that promised years of starvation and suffering. Did he suggest that Israel arm all of the children and farmers, every one of God’s people to battle the pestilence? Not so much.  Joel 2: 12 – 17 shows us the way, the heart of it - “¹⁵Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly. ¹⁶Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber. ¹⁷Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the temple porch and the altar. Let them say, ‘Spare your people, O Lord. Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

God’s Kingdom is the answer and we can’t legislate it into existence or put up buildings so constructed in design as to bring the Kingdom to fruition. A response of repentance and crying out to our Lord is what will catch His ear and provide the answer. Joel 2: 18-19 “¹⁸Then the Lord will be jealous for his land and take pity on his people. ¹⁹The Lord will reply to them: ‘I am sending you grain, new wine and oil, enough to satisfy you fully; never again will I make you an object of scorn to the nations.’”  Joel’s formula is fairly simple when boiled down to the bare ingredients; separation from God’s will, tragedy and opposition, repentance and seeking His face, forgiveness and restoration, and finally, judgment to evil (see Joel 3).

And so we pray, come quickly Lord. Joel 2: 27 & 28 “²⁷Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed. ²⁸And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”

Point of Aim

The archer stands with feet slightly apart, side on to the target, solid and yet relaxed and confident; after all, he’s just completed a bull’s eye and knows that he can repeat it indefinitely. He pulls to a full draw and adopts a nice tight anchor with the nock of the arrow directly below his aiming eye and sets the point of aim at just the right spot and without thinking, runs through a checklist of items – stance, arm position, tension on the string, wind, anchor, point of aim…let’s fly the arrow and bull’s eye again! The archer knows that with any deviation from repeating the shot the result will be different and that he will not achieve the bull’s eye if his point of aim is off, even a percentage of a degree. If he moves further from the target or even closer, to the right or to the left, he must adjust his point of aim to compensate for the changes if he hopes to achieve the bull’s eye. For him to change his position relative to the target and not change the point of aim is folly and sure failure; the target remains the same, his goal remains the same, he has changed, and so he must compensate to achieve his goal.

As Christians, our lives are like that. The target is always the same, Jesus Christ and His Righteousness. The goal is the same, being welcomed into His Kingdom to hear the words “Well done My good and faithful servant.” The problem is that we change in relation to the target and our goal of achievement does not remain the same. We age, learn worldly wisdom, enter into relationships, gain maturity and responsibility, and sometimes find it difficult to locate the target or even care about it. Then something happens to remind of us of who we are and what He means to us and our desire to hit the target is refreshed. How do we aim from our new position, where do we find our point of aim? We take our stance as before, fully draw the arrow of our commitment, find the tip of the arrow, and we let it fly only to see the arrow fall short or strike to the side, or even sail far and above the target. Life on campus, in the new corporate office, in retirement, becoming a parent, spouse, or from a hospital bed has changed us in relation to the target. So what then? We can’t go back to where we first drew a bull’s eye, we are forever changed by any of those circumstances and the target remains the same. Perhaps we get blessed with an abundance of grace and the first new arrow strikes true. Excellent! What with the next arrow? Still we’ve changed, that’s inevitable and, frankly, desirable since we are clay on the Potter’s wheel and must change to be the piece he wants us to be.

What do we do as archers for Christ when our arrows fall off target? His grace is enough, His sacrifice complete. We ask forgiveness, take out another arrow and adjust our point of aim, and let it fly again! The change in our point of aim does not necessarily need to be radical; actually it probably shouldn’t be radical. A small change, subtle adjustment in the altitude of our aim is probably best most of the time and will allow for each arrow to draw closer to the bull’s eye with precision and prediction. Radical changes in our position to the target may require radical changes to our point of aim but once we see our arrows falling more and more true to our goal, the changes should become more subtle. Remember this; we are not finished until our last arrow falls true to the target.

What is in a Name? Plenty.

Juliet, in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet said, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." I believe that I have to agree with her; after all, if you take away my name I am still employed by AT&T, am 6’3”, bow-legged, don’t have quite enough hair, and smell fairly good after a shower. The only problem in getting rid of our names would be how people would find us. For sure, looking for me someone could use the physical traits I’ve listed and what I do for a living. Do you think someone who doesn’t already know me could find me? There are over 6 billion people on earth but we’ve already trimmed that down to the 300,000 who work for AT&T. You could start using things that define who I am or what I carry in my soul; things like, he loves kids, prays for people, is a bit of a curmudgeon, likes making people laugh and helping them through hard times. You could start describing things I do like; occasionally writes blogs, likes riding motorcycles, was a fair basketball player, liked coaching. We have narrowed it down but there are still a lot of people out there with many of those traits. Just to keep it simple and allow folks to find me because, most of the time, I like being found because I like people; I think that I’ll keep my name.

Over the years I have accumulated a number of nicknames, most of them good and fun; some, not so much. I’m sure we all are collecting them, from our families, our friends, our work friends, teams, and any number of places and they are usually for something we’ve done or do or say or some physical attribute that stands out for some folks. I’ve been jotting mine down while writing this and was up to 20 when I posted it. Some of the ones used to tease me or given to me in a disparaging way I can live without. There is one that I earned as a less than complementary comment on my basketball skills that I came to embrace because it associates me with my high school basketball team that I am still proud to have been a member of.

There are two that I embrace now and love to hear. A few weeks ago I posted a Facebook status of “More melodic than the sounds of the harp, or uplifting than the chiming of village victory bells are the shouts of ‘Opa’ from my grandchildren when I walk into the room.” I got many likes and a few comments on that one and it’s true, I love hearing it and it makes me feel loved. The other one has grown over my years of youth ministry and one that many of the kids, some now young adults, who came through the junior high group and went to Mission Arizona use. When I hear it from these young people that I love, pray for, believe for, and hope for, it makes me feel loved and cared about. They call me Jer-Bear.

 

What, you may ask, does this have to do with Calvary’s Thread? Why, plenty of course. We have a bible full of names for God the Father, Jesus His Son, and the Holy Spirit. I have a list of them at my elbow in two columns, three pages long. They are very descriptive of who God is, what he is to his people, and how he relates to us. When we use them in our prayers, in our worship, and how we describe Him to others, God feels loved and appreciated. We should use them whenever we can because while He is unfathomable, they help us understand who God is and helps us relate to Him.  My friend Courtney recently posted a Facebook status and wrote the name out “G~d” and explained that our Jewish brothers and sisters don’t write out the whole name out of a deep reverence for Him. However we call Him; do it reverently.

Here are just a few names for our God for your consideration:

V  Alpha and Omega, as well as the Almighty in Revelation 1:8

V  Blessed Hope in Titus 2:13

V   Bread of Life in John 3:29

V  Changeless One in Malachi 3:6 and Hebrews 13:8

V  Good Shepherd in John 10:11

V  Helper in Hebrews 6:20

V  King of kings in Revelation 19:16

V  I am in John 18:6

V  Great Physician in Luke: 4:23

V  Lord of the Harvest in Matthew 9:38

V  Rose of Sharon in song of Solomon 2:1

V  Our Shelter in Psalms 61:3

This is the link I found to a nice resource for the names that I’ve used here:

Crown Him With Many Crowns

For our two brothers who will be spending a lot of time in the Gospel of John over the next few months and those of us who will be hearing them, I did a quick scan of this document and found that John’s Gospel accounts for 29 of the listings.

 

I think that it is worthwhile to consider all of the names for God and even to use descriptors from our own creative source because He is, after all, inexhaustible (I didn’t find that one on the list but find it appropriate). Then, when we are done with this consideration, I think that it would be worthwhile to simply empty our thoughts of all names and descriptors to love Him as God.

Tend my flock

Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” John 21: 16

 A couple of Sundays ago I was sitting in church trying in vain to prepare myself to worship and I just couldn’t get beyond my disgruntled parishioner’s attitude; a couple of events were dominating my mind with disapproval and concern. I prayed for the Lord to show me what to do about it, how to behave, and dozens of other how questions. The immediacy of the reply was striking, like a bucket of cold water on my back. The reply itself was no less shocking in the conviction it brought to me. There was no how in the answer, nothing to tell me how to behave about my concerns, and not really any mention of the events at all, only a command, “Tend my flock.”

 This took me straight away to John 21: 15 – 19 where Jesus reveals Himself after the resurrection to Peter and the other disciples who had gone fishing. Jesus then confronts Peter’s betrayal by questioning Peter’s love for Jesus. To each of Peter’s three replies that he loved Jesus, Jesus replied in return “Feed my sheep”, “Take care of my sheep”, and again, “Feed my sheep”. Have I betrayed Christ, denied Him, any less than Peter when I put my servant’s call to the side? No, and unfortunately far more than the three times Peter made his denials. Still nothing concrete about how this would take place or what shape it might form.

Fine; now what? It used to be somewhat simple to identify myself as a shepherd when I was consistently with students as a Sunday school teacher, Jr. High/Sr. High Advisor, mission trip leader, session member, and committee chairperson. I’ve drifted and fought the tides since those “job titles” ended and, quite frankly, used the separation as an excuse to give up or grouse about things. The task at hand is to identify His sheep that I need to take care of; not an easy task and not one that likely will take any concrete shape in the near future. As an elder in the church it is still incumbent on me to find the flock, tend the flock, and see them safe.

John tells us of Jesus speaking on the attributes of the Good Shepherd in chapter 10 of his Gospel; verse 14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me-“. The more we strive to be good shepherds the more we will identify the sheep we are to care for and the more they will identify with us. We cannot pick and choose the members of our flock, we cannot pick and choose whom we will serve and feed. Even when segments of the flock might not be cool, hip, or in the center of what our personal vision is for the flock, we must seek the Father’s wisdom to meet their needs even when it might require efforts that take us away from the limelight or if it takes resources we would personally rather see going elsewhere.

Jesus defined it like this in John 10: 11 when He said “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” It is probably pretty plain to anyone called to any sort of shepherd’s ministry that this doesn’t only mean literally dying for the sheep, but, and sometimes more difficultly so, setting aside the things we’d rather be doing to take care of the sheep, all of them.

As for me, seeing the way I shepherd change and identifying those I need to tend, I think that I’ll start by looking for ways to effectively pray and intercede for them, find creative ways to make sure they are fed, and seek for ways to make sure they are healthy and looking to the Father. I think I’ll start with this group:

V  Family - wife, kids, sisters, parents, grandkids…extended family

V  Alumni, some who have grandchildren of their own now, others who haven’t yet reached High School, and a whole bunch in between

V  Fellow workers who’ve served well, some I see now and some I miss very much

That’s probably a big enough group to work with now. They should start seeing me pop up from time to time to encourage them or just check in. I should be more consistent with this communication tool and I am going to see how Tangent can be revitalized in some creative way to keep folks connected. God help me.

Good Grief...Where Did That Come From?

I believe that Christians inherently carry grief that, for the most part, remains beneath the surface. It is the grief for our God having to suffer for all of our shortcomings and the knowledge that we do not live up to the sacrifice He made for us. Our grief bubbles out from the least of events to our most poignant losses and carries with it components of the personal loss and the underlying grief for our inadequacies. Grief should never be summarily dismissed as an unchristian display of disbelief; after all, didn’t Jesus himself grieve for his friend Lazarus, his family, and friends? I encourage you to read John 11: 1 – 44 as Jesus shows us how to grieve and comfort those who also grieve, and transcend the grief to victory.

My latest brush with grief has caught me by surprise. It was like a cloud on the horizon, all fluffy and white, harmless seeming as it made its appearance, only to reveal its dark underlining as it cleared the horizon and came fully into view. For certain, this was no monsoon but a cloud that carried with it the promise of a brief shower and the potential for heavenly fireworks and the rumblings of discontent. So strange that the loss of our pet cockatiel Mo, whom I dubbed The Sentry as I dug his grave, would release such feelings complete with all the classic pains. I learned many years ago not to be ashamed of my penchant for emotional displays; they are a part of who I am and I try to embrace the moment and share it with my friends and family to become a point of bonding. I believe that grief, like many wounds, benefits from being in the open and breathing to help the healing process. Bearing that in mind, we must guard against letting the grief fester and become infected; the complications can be costly.

I let one of my greatest loses grow to the point of becoming cancerous. I’d lost one of my closest of friends, Doug Clark, to an untimely accident at the hands of a drunk driver, Doug being the only one in his car that died and was the only one in the car without a broken bone. I questioned God to the point of swearing to myself that I would ask Him for an explanation of this when I finally meet Him. Where was He for me in this? Was not Doug the first person I knelt with in prayer that opened the door to Christ to enter his heart? How could He take him like this, what was the point? I carried those questions and they fermented into a bitterness that could only be cured by a miracle healing, one came at the hands of the first Mission Arizona team I was on that, when I exposed the scars of this, laid hands on me and brought healing to my spirit. The faith and capabilities of junior high students are amazing.

Let’s wrap this up with a quick look at Jesus and Lazarus, shall we? Jesus heard that his friend Lazarus was ill but did not immediately run to Bethany to heal him. Instead, Jesus continued with what he was doing and operated in faith that God was yet to be glorified in Lazarus. Even though Jesus faced the enmity of those in the area, once Lazarus was dead he left for Bethany knowing God would be glorified in him and his friend Lazarus, “the one you love” (John 11: 3). Upon arriving on the scene Jesus faced the questions about him not being there for them and then his grief came into the open and he grieved for his friend and those who also loved Lazarus. In short, Jesus recognized that grief was on the horizon, continued to do the Father’s will, met the grief when it came upon him and his friends, and then took charge of the grief and in faith raised Lazarus from the dead. I love the last part of this scripture where Jesus says “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” To me He is saying, take off the bindings of your grief and be free, rejoice that my Kingdom draws near.” And to that I have to say that I have a large heart, plenty of room there to remember the lost in kindness, and let more in.

In His Grip - jerry

Who’s in Control Here Anyway?

Romans 7: 15 “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate, I do.” (NIV)

I have been casting about looking for something to write about, to post in Calvary’s Thread, for weeks now as well as something for Iron Side Up and PAR and have little success to show for the casting. The struggle is not necessarily over a lack of material, there was Mission Arizona, church each Sunday, riding to work and little jaunts around town, and I spent two days in PAR’s first destination taking notes and yet, there has been no writing. I feel so strongly that I should be writing; so much so that sometimes I think that if I’m not writing or working at it then I am distracted, to the point that even sleep seems a waste of time. So then, why am I not writing? Certainly the responsibilities of work and maintaining a home and family take a lot of time and cannot logically be set aside. Indeed, if I were to set them aside, what then would I write about? Abandoning myself and my loved ones? Not likely.

This past Sunday was Music Appreciation Sunday at LCPC and the Romans scripture was read as part of Pastor Wilson’s sermon about Self Control as one of the Fruits of the Spirit and off I ran with reading more of Romans than I have in some time. Self control; I sorely lack it and thus what I do is not what I want to be doing. Putting aside sleeping, eating, working, and home responsibilities I still have hours that I can devote to story telling. My biggest enemy is time wasting and the biggest chunk of that is in front of the TV and then the other are games on my “smart” phone. How can I be saved from myself, or can I? I can, but not by myself or in myself but only through God’s grace can I change patterns that I’ve set up for decades. It doesn’t help that I have such low self-esteem when it comes to writing and believing that it makes a difference making avoidance of failure a favorite pastime. God has not made this directive easy.

My answer came later in Romans 7, good of Paul to provide the answer to the question, no?

Romans 7: 21 – 25 “So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

In light of that, I need to do several things:

1 –Believe that I delight in God’s law in my inner being and feed that consistently and the well will not be so dry and I will that much closer to the creative nature of God.

2 – Believe that I am delivered by Jesus Christ and that He continues to deliver me and act like it. Walk away from those things I hate and cling to those things I love.

3 – Don’t be satisfied with token attempts, cry out to God with continued trips to the foot of the cross in search of Calvary’s Thread.

4 – Believe that what I’m doing has merit, even if just to connect myself more firmly to His Grace.

In His grip - jj white