A Convenient God

Recently I was talking to a friend on my cell phone.  She was rehearsing for me a litany of her woes and ills.  I didn’t say much.  Often I don’t know what to say when someone is complaining about their ills and I know that most of them are self imposed.  My friend has a potentially serious health issue but she continues to smoke, she has lapsed back into poor eating habits and she refuses to exercise – each of these activities would improve her health.  While it might take a great effort to get started on any one of them, the results would be…well, they would be everything she has been praying for.

In our Bible study we take time when we meet to go around the circle and share with each other some of the things that we are praying for.  These inevitably concern family, friends, and ourselves. 

I also have my list of family, friends – people and situations that I talk to God about nearly every morning before I begin my day.

Each week in church the pastor asks what people wish him to pray about and then we pray about those things in a corporate way.  I suspect that a few of the congregation take those lists home with them to continue to pray during the week.

In almost all these situations I hear people petitioning God to do something for or on behalf of someone.  Fix their health, restore their situation, adjust the weather, keep them safe etc.  Almost never do I hear anyone say, or ask, for His will to be done – remember Jesus saying in the prayer taught His disciples, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. 

Back to my friend of the first paragraph:  so often, as American Christians, we (perhaps unconsciously) ask God to fix  what is wrong in our lives.  We want God to restore our health even when we have failed to do our best, through diet, exercise, and healthy habits.  In our economic crises, as a nation, and as individuals, we want God go fix what is wrong even though we live(d) self-centeredly, selfishly, without regard to consequences or others.  We ask for God’s direction in our lives, but we have a preconceived idea that the direction should always be toward bigger, better, the more….

We want our God to be convenient.

We want Him to wait on the sidelines while we live our lives and then rush in to fix what we mess up.  But He should WAIT until we are ready for Him, until we really NEED Him.

As Bill and I continue to read through the Old Testament, over and over the prophets tell the people of Israel that God desires to bless them, to restore them, to bring them back to the land He promised them….IF they will turn to Him, or return to Him.  IF they will put Him first in their lives and turn their attention AWAY from the other gods they have created.

In the New Testament Jesus boils it down to two simple principles for our lives:  Love God with our entire being and care for others in the way we would like to be cared for.  When we follow these principles in our lives, THEN He will bless us beyond our capacity to contain the blessing.

An unusual thing happens when we begin to practice these two principles.  Gradually we no longer desire STUFF but find great joy in what we have.  Gradually we don’t desire the acclaim of others, but rejoice when others are acclaimed.  Gradually what happens tomorrow (or even today) doesn’t matter all that much because we have TOTAL confidence that He is in control and that is best.

There comes a day when we wake up and realize we are FILLED WITH JOY.  Joy that has nothing to do with stuff, nothing to do with people, joy that has every thing to do with walking with God every day.

We no longer desire a God who is merely convenient, we just desire the God who IS, the God who chooses to walk with us EVERY day. 

May each of you reading this blog experience the joy of knowing this God!  To the fullest!

amen

God Bless This Clearing

God created the most beautiful wildflower He had yet made.  He planted the seed of the flower in the middle of a clearing in a forest and asked the trees and grasses to shelter the seed.  So the trees shed their leaves and needles, and shook bits of bark and twigs over the clearing.  The grasses grew up around the seed and hovered over the plant as it began to grow.

One day a man, walking through the forest, came upon the glen.  His eyes lit up as he viewed the small opening in the canopy.  “I know what I need to do.” he thought to himself, and he turned and headed back the way he had come.

A short time later the man returned with a rake, a small trowel and bags for compost.  He labored all afternoon and filled three of the compost bags with leaves, pine needles, small twigs and stems of glass that pulled free as he raked.  He surveyed the work he had done with a smile.  Then he took the small trowel and dug up the weed growing in the center of the clearing.

The man paused as he reached the edge of the clearing, on his way home with his tools and the bags of compost.  He said in a loud voice, “GOD BLESS THIS CLEARING” and he went home satisfied with the work he had done.

* * * * *

The trees of the forest and the grasses moaned and cried aloud over the destruction the man had done.  Not only had he removed their protective covering from the glade, but he had dug up the plant God had placed there.  The spot was now barren and desolate.

God heard the forest’s lament and He came and walked among the trees and comforted them.  “Will you punish the man for destroying what you had planted?” the trees asked and the grasses murmured.  “No,” said God, “the man has brought his own punishment on himself.  Watch and you will see.”

Over the next several months thistle seeds blew into the clearing and planted themselves, grew and flourished.  Wild Garlic Mustard crept in and filled the spaces between the thistles and the trees.  And Buckthorn rooted itself in the soil and grew.

Sometime later the man again walked the paths of the forest and when he came to the clearing he was appalled.  “Who has ruined the work I did to clear this space?’  With anger he retraced his steps and then returned with a shovel and a garden rake.  He labored all day digging up the thistles, the garlic and the buckthorns.  He dug deep, severing the roots of the garlic and the roots of the trees along the edges of the clearing. 

The man piled the debris at the edge of the clearing saying to himself, “this is organic material.  It will compost and then enrich the soil.”

Then the man shouldered his shovel and rake and as he reached the edge of the again cleared space, he said in a loud, and slightly angry, voice, “GOD BLESS THIS CLEARING!”  

* * * *

The pile of thistles, garlic mustard and buckthorn rested quietly at the end of the clearing, heating up as composition began.  The thistle blossoms matured, closed and began to make seeds, then opened to the fluffy white tufts that have delighted children over the ages.  Soon the seeds were mature and every breeze wafted the downy parachutes over the clearing and over the tops of the trees.  Some seeds settled onto the soil of the clearing and others found new homes beyond the trees.

The severed garlic roots each produced a new plant until the clearing was more populated with plants than it had been before.  At the same time, the severed roots of the trees could no longer transport nutrients to the branches and leaves of the trees ringing the clearing and the trees began to yellow and die.

The man once again walked the paths of the forest until he came to the clearing.  He stood at the edge of the once verdant glen and looked with despair on the rank weeds and the ring of dying trees.  “What has happened?  How can this be?”  He cried aloud.  The trees and the grasses murmured, but the man did not have his ears open to hear their words.

The man sank to his knees and with great anguish, cried out, “Oh God, what can we do about this travesty?”  He rose and stumbled his way back out of the forest.

* * * *

The trees at the edges of the clearing continued to die, alarming the adjacent trees.  The grasses did their best to recover the glade, but the weeds were too strong and they were only able to retain their foothold in a few places.

Summer came with its blazing sun and long days without rain.  Soon the trees at the edge of the one-time glen were nearly completely dead.  The thistles turned brown under the glare of the sun and even the garlic wilted.  Only the trees deeper in the forest survived as their roots went deep into the soil where there was plenty of moisture.  These trees sheltered the grasses and other plants growing at their feet so that, while they drooped from the heat, they continued to survive.

In August great rolling banks of black clouds appeared on the horizon and powerful streaks of lightening flashed out of the clouds.  Shortly the bank of clouds was over the forest and a powerful bolt of lighting struck the largest of the pines that now stood dead at the edge of the clearing.  As the lightening seared its way down the trunk, the pine burst into flames, its resin exploded in bullets of fire setting the dry vegetation in the clearing on fire as well.  Soon the entire opening in the forest was ablaze.

The man happened to step out of his home to watch the bank of clouds with the huge bolts of lightening rolling toward him.  He saw a column of smoke rising from the middle of the forest.  Alarmed, he rushed inside to alert the authorities that the forest was on fire.

While the fire crews gathered the equipment for fighting a fire in the midst of the forest, the black clouds began to release their load of rain.  Even as the fire crews made their way down the fire lane into the midst of the forest, the fire in the glen was dying.  Only the trunks of the once majestic ring of trees still smoldered, but as they burned through, the remnants of the trunks and branches fell into the clearing and burned themselves out in the ash of the other plants.

When the great storm passed, as the sun shown on the forest the next morning, the trees of the forest gazed on the once beautiful glen.  It was now a sodden mass of wet ash and fallen limbs.  The trees and the grasses within the forest sighed and waited for the God of all creation to continue to do the work He had begun.

* * * *

It was some time later that the man returned to the forest.  He wanted to see what destruction the fire has caused. 

The man walked to the edge of the clearing.  A blanket of ash still covered the entire area.  Even the fallen tree limbs and trunks were buried under the ash. 

A great moan escaped the man and he wondered if his beautiful forest could ever recover.  He felt helpless to make any meaningful effort in the face of such devastation.

While the man stood helpless at the edge of the clearing, another man made his way down the path, from the opposite edge of the forest.  This man also stepped to the edge of the trees and surveyed the gray, still sodden blanket of ash.  “It looks hopeless, doesn’t it.” said the second man.

The first man turned and looked through bleary eyes at this older gentleman and could only nod. 

“But it really isn’t hopeless, you know.”

“What do you mean?” asked the younger man.  “I don’t even understand how all this could have happened.” And he hung his head in despair.

“Ah, that is easy.  I have been observing all that has gone on for these past several years.  Someone, probably thinking they were doing a good thing, removed all the protective covering in this clearing several years ago.  Even more tragic, they dug up the one plant that was of greatest value in entire the forest.  I suppose they thought it was a weed.”

The younger man looked sharply at the older man.  Then he turned and looked back at the ruined clearing with horror on his face. 

* * * *

The older man continued, “Clearing the opening in the forest allowed thistles and wild garlic and buckthorns to establish themselves.  Then, again I suppose the man thought he was doing the right thing, someone came in and cleared away the invading plants, digging up many of the roots as well.  What he apparently did not know, every time he severed a garlic plant, it produced two or more new plants from the roots still in the soil.  And he dug too close to the trees, cutting their roots which supply the trees with nutrients.  And he left the thistles in a great pile where they could heat up and still produce many seeds.  He, no doubt, thought he was helping restore the glen, but he actually made it much worse.”

“And now this fire.  I suppose it will never recover.”  The younger man’s voice was hoarse with emotion.

“Oh, quite the opposite.”  The older man smiled and gently laid his hand on the arm of the younger man.  “The fire is the best thing that could have happened to this little glen.  It is actually restorative.  Look!”  and he picked up a broken branch that lay next to him.  He gently pushed the ash aside and the younger man could see tiny spikes of green already pushing their way through the blackened crust of earth.

“See, the fire has killed the thistle and the garlic, but the grasses, that have been here all along, have very deep roots and they have survived the heat and flame of the fire.  By next spring, this clearing will again be covered with waving grasses. 

“And see here,” he pointed with the stick at a burned fir cone, “the fire has released the seeds that were tucked tightly within this cone.  Some of them will also take root in the nutrient enriched soil, for the ash is filled with nutrients that will nourish them.  Even as the grasses take back the clearing tiny evergreens, and shortly after them deciduous trees, will repopulate the edges of this clearing and it will become a glen once again.

“I hope someday the man who brought about such ruin to this clearing will see how it has healed itself.  When God created this place, He also created a way for it to be healed.”

The younger man sobbed aloud.  He could not speak as emotions that he did not fully understand.  Finally he whispered, “I am that man.  I asked God to bless this clearing, but I actually brought about its ruin.”

* * * *

Once again the older man placed his hand on the arm of the younger man. 

“No, you did not bring about its ruin.  See, I have shown you that it will recover and be as it was before. 

“You merely made the mistake that so many humans make.  YOU decided what God needed you to do in this place when you began to remove the protective covering.  Too often humans decide what they should do for God, instead of asking God what He wants them to do.

“When God designed all of life, He made it with a balance.  Humans have to live in balance with all of nature - and with each other.  It is hard for humans to wait for God to show them what to do, how to live, how to treat each other, but it is the only way that balance can be preserved.”

The younger man sighed deeply, “I think I can see that now, I think I have learned a great lesson, or perhaps, am beginning to learn a great lesson.”

The older man smiled and gently squeezed the younger man’s arm, “Yes, I think you are too. 

“Ah, look” and he pointed to the center of the ash covered clearing, “the plant that you thought was just a weed is growing again.” 

The younger man peered intently at the place the older man indicated and he could just see the tiniest tip of green poking through the gray blanket of ash.  A look of joy suffused his face and he turned to grin at the older man, but the man was gone. 

The younger man turned back to gaze again at the clearing.  “May this clearing bless God and all who see it.” he whispered. Then he turned and went home filled with great peace and unexplainable joy.

amen

Spiritual Asperger’s

We had been praying for the niece of a friend of mine who has Asperger syndrome.  I needed more information so I had looked up the syndrome on Wikipedia, that’s when I had one of those “click, click, click” moments.  For the first time in my life, my brilliant, but socially inept father began to make more sense.

My father had graduated near the top of his class from Cooper Union with a degree in Chemical Engineering.  His IQ was very high, but he had great difficulty keeping a job.  He was never comfortable in social settings, had no close relationships, and had difficulty relating to his three children, and his grandchildren.

As I read about the syndrome, so many of the symptoms fit my father.  Suddenly a great number of what I had considered “failures” on his part, as a husband, and as a father, were now explainable.  I have often wondered, since then, if that diagnosis had been available to my father (and perhaps more importantly, to my mother) how different life might have been for them, and for their children.  I wonder if, knowing how his brain was wired slightly differently than the typical, acceptable, socially interactive person, if my father couldn’t have learned to compensate for his “difficulties in social interaction” (Wikipedia).  And I wonder if my mother had understood her husband’s difficulty, if she couldn’t have helped him overcome, or perhaps the better word is compensate, some of his social difficulties.

One of the results of my dad’s ineptness were the several times we made significant moves to new states, new schools, new situations.  Several of those moves were difficult for all of us - tho, as I look back now, I see how God has used those moves to teach me many things.  It also meant the loss of income, once for more than two years, which was very hard for our mother.

As Bill and I continue to read our way through the Old Testament, we see over and over that the Children of Israel drift away from God.  How easily they forget to honor him with their entire being.  As a result, they are constantly “suffering” the consequences and the steps God has to take to bring them back into a relationship with himself.

Every morning (well, almost every morning) before I get out of bed I ask God to show me this day what He wants me to see, learn, discover and to use me as He chooses.  But I have yet to have a day when I successfully follow my own desire to walk with Him fully that day.  Like the Israelites of old, I have a form of Spiritual Asbergers.  I quickly lose my sensitivity to God’s presence and interaction in my life.

Even before the Israelites enter “the promised land” they are told how they are to interact (and often NOT interact) with the people living in the land who worshiped (often in despicable ways) “other gods”.  It is almost shocking how quickly they forget Moses’ and Joshua’s oft repeated instructions on how they are to behave once they enter the land. 

As I have often said, both in this blog and often in public, Jesus distilled the Old Testament law into two very simple “rules” – love God with our entire being, love others as ourselves.  So each morning, I also purpose that I will do better this day in loving others.  It seems to last until I go out the door and enter the world of people.  I confess that I do not do well when someone cuts me off in traffic.  Bill and I avoid watching the news on TV because it is often very upsetting when we hear the way people treat each other.  Even within the church I often struggle, within myself, with those who see life differently than I do.

As human beings, as yet to be perfected people, we suffer from Spiritual Aspergers, and have to learn to overcome it, to compensate.  But we are also are in that lifelong path of being transformed by God.  Like the Israelites of old, we too stray and have to be brought back.  We too have to be regularly reminded what it means to walk daily with God and to view others as He views them.  Our Spiritual Aspergers can be transformed from “difficulties in social interaction” to a God given sensitivity to begin to see Him as He is and to see others as God desires us to see them.  May we ever rejoice in the transformation process that is at work in our lives.       amen

Taking Shelter in a House of Cards

Bill and I have been reading through the “Chronological Bible in a Year” as our own study for this year. 

It has been an interesting experience.  Even though this is at least my 4^th time to read through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, it is the first time I have done it while reading aloud, and with another person.  You cannot skip parts when you are reading aloud; suddenly there are verses and perspectives that you never saw before.

While the Israelites were tromping through the wilderness, God’s instruction in Numbers to them is, “Whenever the cloud lifted from above the tent, the Israelites set out; wherever the cloud settled, the Israelites encamped. ¹⁸ At the Lord’s command the Israelites set out, and at his command they encamped. As long as the cloud stayed over the tabernacle, they remained in camp. ¹⁹ When the cloud remained over the tabernacle a long time, the Israelites obeyed the Lord’s order and did not set out. ²⁰ Sometimes the cloud was over the tabernacle only a few days; at the Lord’s command they would encamp, and then at his command they would set out. ²¹ Sometimes the cloud stayed only from evening till morning, and when it lifted in the morning, they set out. Whether by day or by night, whenever the cloud lifted, they set out.”

The Israelites did not know ahead of time when they were to set out, or when they were to settle down for a time.  For their entire wilderness experience, they had to look to God’s dwelling (the tabernacle) each day to know what that day was to hold.

As I have thought about this principle, I have realized that this can be found throughout scripture.  In “The Lord’s Prayer” we are to ask for our DAILY bread, not our weekly, not our monthly, but our DAILY. 

In Matthew Christ tells the crowd, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

We, however, do NOT live that way.  We have a great need to know what tomorrow holds.  As a society, many are ever looking at what has happened in “The Market” to see if life is secure, if their needs will be met.  We no longer look to God’s dwelling place, but to Wall Street.

We don’t see that Wall Street is an elaborate “House of Cards”.  We have built much of our lives on an artificial, fragile structure that can come tumbling down with the least breath of air.  Change and disaster are ever just a few points away.

And in fact, that “house of cards” has crumbled.  But, like the Israelites who ended up wandering for 40 years, we continue to look to the economy to recover, to be as it was before.  We are constantly wanting to go “back to Egypt” even though it means returning to slavery - the slavery of being dependent on a “house of cards” for our security.

I believe that God has/is giving us a chance to learn to trust Him for today’s journey, and trusting Him to provide for us each day - what He knows that we need.  It is difficult for us as American Christians, to do this, but God’s word is filled with promises that if we trust Him, He will provide all that we need, and our lives will be filled with abundant joy.

The Israelites were given clear and simple instructions on the best way to live their lives as a society and as individuals.  And following those instructions guaranteed that all their needs would be met, each day.  Christ repeats those instructions in the Gospels for us today.  We are to love God with our entire being, and to love others as we love ourselves.  It’s a simple formula, but when lived out in each of our lives, and if it could begin to permeate our society, we would no longer need to see shelter in a “house of cards” but would find security, and peace, and joy in the solid rock of Christ. 

amen