I only want one thing

says my mind all the time, and it takes focus and memory for me to remember that isn't the one thing I wanted yesterday or  the day before. "I only want one thing," always comes out of a context where there are other things present that I take for granted, or am currently disenchanted with.

As I think further, that statement "I only want one thing" really says "I want what I have now, and one more thing." It never occurs to my mind to list oxygen as a thing I want, but I'd die without it. But since I've never lacked it, my mind assumes it will always be there.

Two kinds of peace

One, to attain to pleasant circumstances, and hope that this great moment could last forever, or would always return. But it never does.

Another, to present to God your messes and raw emotions, and trust that they are only temporary.  You may well receive the perspective that what distresses you doesn't matter all that much. But you may not feel that as a calming certainty, only as a theoretical notion of how you should be feeling, don't give up on presenting to God and asking for help.

Are we each alone?

“Each heart knows its own bitterness,
    and no one else can share its joy.”

There’s a lonely thought. What sad-hearted cynic penned this? Actually it comes from the Bible. Proverbs 14:10.

What is it saying? Are we each indeed alone? In human terms, we may well be. If we are each unique, if the modern proverb is right (and I believe it is) that there will never be another you, then it is inevitable that we will never know anyone exactly like ourselves. If this is what true companionship depends upon, we are indeed each alone. We are each unique in our experiences of sorrow and joy, the things that encourage and the things that perturb. Whose heart knows exactly the same notes of tragedy or of triumph? No one.

Some years back I attended a large family reunion. Early morning before it started I roamed our motel parking lot wondering whether I really looked forward to this event. I wasn’t typical, I was different. But then I thought how everyone probably had their own list why they are different, the things that other people don’t just get. I summed it up with the ironic thought, “We are each alone.” No one exactly like me. But I'm not the only one alone, we all are.

We can extend grace to one another, remembering to be kind when we do not understand. It is not easy to be misunderstood, we all know that. But can we ever really, fully understand? So let us strive to be kind when we do not understand, remembering when we were not understood. And let us turn our hearts, and encourage one another to turn our hearts towards God, the one who does know and does understand.

The limits of anger

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. (James 1:19-20)

A word many in our time need to hear, I think. Contemporary politics, both right and left wing, seem shaped by the belief that pure and uncompromising anger against wrongdoers on the other side is what is most needed.

A similar perspective from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains ... an unuprooted small corner of evil. 

Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.” 

God's truth will illumine many falsehoods, the ones inside us and the ones inside others. Let us oppose falsehood, seeking God's grace to constrict it within us; praying for our opponents that God would enlighten them.

A dialog with and about God

Lord, I believe you love me beyond my wildest dreams. Why then do you not give me what I want? Not because you don’t care. I know you are capable, you who speak the word and the thing exists. It must be that you deny what I want because you know that won’t satisfy, that won’t be the best for me. I know too how often choosing the distractions I want produces boredom, not joy. Help me really get that today.

Lament and Hope

Lament and hope seem opposite but actually fit together. To lament, to say I am disappointed how things are, comes from my hope they will be better. To conclude that life is a mess and never getting better is not the spirit of lament, but of cynical despair. I wouldn’t lament if everything had gone wrong and I had no hope, I’d seek comfort in distraction.

Apathy

Some days the desire to not care is strong. The principles of faith seem old and tedious. Yes, I know all that, nothing new there.

Now and then I wonder. I've learned that God has given us this life as something like a training exercise, to learn that in the stresses and shocks of things we cannot control, we can learn he is with us. And in the future, we shall see him face to face and know like we are known.

This life is short and temporary when viewed from an eternal perspective. But in the here and now perspective (the one I consistently experience) it seems long and dull. I attempted to pray yesterday, with a little success. What difference, I wonder, does one day's success or failure at prayer, at walking with God make? If it is the height of faith to continue in the belief that God is with me even when I don't feel it, is it possible for me to assert that I am with God even when I don't feel it? God's word is true whether I feel it or not. And God's word for me is I was chosen to be holy and blameless in his sight.

I can't think of a Psalm that echoes this emotion. Psalm 43:5 says "Why, my soul, are you so downcast?", but I'm not aware of one that says "Why, my soul, do you care so little?'

Hope

A short story

Evan closed his now empty desk drawers and stood up. Like the drawers, the desktop and the walls were bare. The computer would be wiped clean and show someone else’s desktop before this day would end. All he had were the two cardboard boxes of books and personal decorations on a dolly. Now push to the elevator, descend, load boxes in the car and drive home. Behind him this office would show no trace he’d been here.

He sighed. He’d come here thinking he could make a difference, make this division a better workplace. But the old ways were surprisingly strong. Work, work, work, don’t show you have a life outside the job, it’d be seen as weakness. People had written him off, then he’d gotten a few people to begin to listen, started having meetings people enjoyed rather than dreaded. THen the CEO and board chair must have decided he was a threat and ought to go. Change exactly as they wanted it, no more. Of course they said nothing at all like that had happened, they were restructuring because of the changing global marketplace, and promised him good recommendations. He didn’t believe them.

What was the point of big dreams that led nowhere?

“Lord,” he prayed. “Help me remember what I sensed yesterday,” he said, remembering his prayers last night. “I should look to you for affirmation, not to my bosses.” He wanted to say it was one thing to labor on without much encouragement, another thing to be laid off, but he really knew God was faithful in either. Being laid off felt a lot harder though.

But in heaven it would feel different. “Thanks for trying,” Jesus might say. “You knew things could be better and you tried to make it happen.” Of course, he hadn’t always gotten it right. But Jesus was the only one who had always gotten it right. Of course he’d approve of an honest effort, coupled with a willingness to admit shortcomings. So he could walk out of here with his head high. Not just the “don’t give them the satisfaction of showing they got to you,” spirit, but in a “I did well. I didn’t get the result I hoped for but I tried.” In heaven, all those tries would be remembered. How many others had tried and failed to make a difference where they were? In heaven, they would see the results they had hoped for. So keep trusting, don’t lose hope. 

Hebrews 11:36-40

Peace

I came to God asking for help. My situation seemed impossible, I needed it to change.
I learned not just to ask for change, but to lay out before God my feelings. And now, I catch glimpses of peace, knowing God is with me, even if the situation has not yet changed.

God's humility and ours

Philippians 2:6-11 is a really awesome passage. Awesome both in the contemporary sense: really, really, really great! and in the the archaic sense: so great it frightens me. This was my favorite passage in my twenties. I loved the image of Jesus giving up his equality with God, lowering himself to the lowest depth made himself nothing ... humbled himself by becoming obedient to death -- even death on a cross And then God the Father's response, Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name. In my mind I saw this wondrous cycle, Jesus giving up and then the Father exalting him.

But then I realized how awesome in the archaic sense it was. If Jesus is so committed to humbling himself, making himself nothing, that means we his followers have to do the same. And that could be really hard! Maybe I should make my favorite verse Come to me all who are weary, I will give you rest or The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. I was reminded of it this last week. First, that great meditation by Jon Bloom on John the Baptist's humility. "John had blazed across Judea like a shooting star, the first real prophet in Israel for four centuries. John’s disciples had been right in the middle of this remarkable move of God. Then abruptly, they weren’t." I thought it was a great exhortation for  Christian leaders, don't think of yourselves as irreplaceable. Safe enough for me to cite, I'm a follower, not a leader

The next day I saw an article by Scott Rodin echoing the same thoughts – and citing Phil 2:7, how Jesus made himself nothing, taking the role of a servant. I've been pondering this, and was further struck by what Gordon Fee writes in a commentary on Philippians "The concern is with divine selflessness: God is not an acquisitive being, grasping and seizing, but self-giving for the sake of others." The awesomeness of God's selflessness awes me anew, and I realize this is a principle for all believers. If God is selfless, and salvation is becoming like God, we must then become selfless, and it is only our own folly or pride or brokenness that makes this feel frightening to us.

Yes, this is archaic awesomeness, terrifying in its implications, but we can and ought to have faith in the faithful God of the New Covenant, who is more committed to making us who we ought to be than we are ourselves.

Prominence and humility

“We all want to finish well, but so many of us do not. Why? Because we too easily cherish our roles in the Great Wedding more than the Wedding itself. This is why John the Baptist must become our mentor.”

These words from Jon Bloom struck me this morning. He goes on. “For the past year John had blazed across Judea like a shooting star, the first real prophet in Israel for four centuries. John’s disciples had been right in the middle of this remarkable move of God. Then abruptly, they weren’t. The surge moved past them to Jesus. Of course it was wrong to be envious of the Messiah. But still, how could their beloved rabbi — and they with him — suddenly be relegated to the periphery after all that God had done through them?”

In Bloom’s retelling of the story (John 3:25-30), John looks on his disciples with compassion. He understood their conflict — sincere godly ambition for the kingdom, and selfish ambition to have prominent roles in it. “This was a moment of unraveling for them, of heart exposure.” Then John explains “the bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine and it is now complete. He must become greater, I must become less.”

I was reading something yesterday about Christian leadership as stewardship, how the Christian leader should be a servant of all, and willing to be least. Bloom is hitting the same theme. “When the blessed Lord grants one a role to play, one must perform it faithfully but never grasp it. The role is not the reward. The Lord is the reward.” 

I too have a mixture of ambition for the kingdom, and ambition to have a prominent role in it. But we all have a prominent role -- adopted children of our heavenly Father (Gal 4:6) personally welcomed by Jesus our reigning elder brother (Hebrews 2:11) But it is God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who really have the prominent role. May we remember that.

Jon Bloom's book, Things Not Seen.  (free to download to your computer or device). 

My identity in God

In light of God's truth, what should I believe about myself?

 I believe that by God's grace I have been chosen, imperfect as I am, to be a member of God's family and to have a significant role in his Kingdom. He has chosen me and takes on himself the complicated task of qualifying me for this. I will pursue this calling in relationship to God, opening my heart and laying bare my soul with its imperfections to him. He knows about them already, and has chosen me anyway. I believe that his grace in my life is bigger than my shortcomings. I can lay my longings and frustrations, both good or evil, before him, and experience his peace, even when the good longings are not yet met and the evil longings have not yet gone away. I will continue in this faith I have learned, to walk in emotional honesty with God and seek his peace in my difficulties. The peace of pleasant circumstances is good when it happens but cannot be relied upon. This same grace and calling I rejoice in is also given to my brothers and sisters. So I will not disbelieve in their calling when I perceive them as imperfect. I will seek to understand their hearts, consider that I as well as they might be imperfect in the issue at hand, and pray for them that God helps them in their weaknesses, as I pray that God helps me.

 I see this in many Scriptures, here are three:

 Paul's thorn in the flesh (2 Cor 12). God did not remove it but said his grace was sufficient. God doesn't promise that he will always remove problems and distressing circumstances from our lives, sometimes he leads us through them.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer." 2 Cor 1:3-6

Jeremiah's promise of the New Covenant (Jer 31:31-34). God's people didn't keep the first covenant, but rather than write off his people, God rewrites the covenant so they will keep it. God's commitment to his people endures in spite of their shortcomings.

Praying the Psalms

I didn't take naturally to the Psalms. They are poetry, and I'm a prose kind of guy. Logic and reason -- left to myself I'll head for Paul's epistles time after time.

Plus being poetry, they are kind of raw. Lord, I'm all alone here, why aren't you doing anything to help? My enemy is really bad, and I've been good. Make his kids into homeless orphans.

But in the last few years, I realize how much I need the rawness. I am pretty emotional too, I just hide it. Angry and upset? Don't express it, maybe it will go away. While not acting out my negative emotions is a valuable skill in social life, pretending they aren't there when I'm alone with God is not. God has used the Psalms to teach me when I pray to say what's on my heart, not what I believe should be on my heart. Because when I express my heart to God, he helps calm me much more than pretending I don't really feel that way can calm me.

And the Psalms, although raw and honest, are not just ranting.  They can go from "Lord, don't you care that I'm all alone here," to "You are the great one we all hope for" in just one or two verses. (See Psalm 22:1-3).

When I'm feeling something that isn't right, pretending I don't feel it doesn't help much.
Lecturing myself why I shouldn't feel it is only slightly better.
Laying it before God and saying "help me with this feeling" works much better.

Sometimes prayer feels unreal

At another prayer meeting someone prayed so earnestly. “We’re yours Lord, we just want to belong to You, You alone.” And I was quiet. Do I really want first and foremost to live for God and not myself? I wasn’t sure.

As I went home I did open up to God. “Lord, I’m willing to make a few sacrifices for your kingdom. I went to that prayer meeting didn’t I? I’ve gone to some other meetings, I’ve taken a few risks to try to serve you. I've worked in hard climates for you. But don’t ask me to do anything really painful, like getting tortured or imprisoned. Then I felt a flash of joy, as if God whispered “Thanks for leveling with me. I knew it already, but thanks for not pretending.”

But as I write this I'm wondering, shouldn't I be willing to do anything to serve God? I do sense in me a longing, a readiness to press in closer to God. Lord, enlarge and strengthen this longing to be closer.

The dangers of being too positive

Evangelicals tell and retell stories about dramatic changes and sudden answers to prayer. They're great. I had this need, I had this problem, I prayed, and God answered! The solution appeared! But how often do we talk about those other problems, problems that hang on for years, challenging us when we pray to keep on asking and not give up?


I thought of this when reading Addie Zierman's recent blog post. It is an open letter from people who left the church to the church.

"Once, we believed quickly and entirely, our faith in the church people and in God all tangled into each other. We believed that you who loved God would be different, and no one ever confessed that Christians are broken too ... We are constantly aware of the darkness: yours and ours. The whole wide world, broken and dying, hurling herself into the abyss."
"We need you to sit with us in the mad season for as long as it takes. We need to hear your stories – the messy ones, the hard parts. We need you to tell us the pain of it without skipping ahead to the happy ending."
"Maybe we can face our darkness if you are honest about yours."

She says its hypocrisy to keep silent. I'm not sure its deliberate hypocrisy, at least not for many of us. But if we only tell the stories of God working rapid transformation, we won't talk about hanging on and being faithful with a problem that doesn't go away.

Addie Zierman's whole post:

Emotional honesty vs complaining

“Do not complain,” the preacher said this morning, “have a positive attitude. Complaining brings you nothing.” She told how she was complaining often to God and to a friend about her boss at work, and she was not making progress. Finally her friend encouraged her to stop complaining and to trust God, which she did. Her boss noticed her changed attitude and asked what was different.

As I listened, I thought of a question. When is emotional honesty with God complaining? I looked again at her text, from Philippians 2. “Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation.” The verb “do” impresses me. I can be emotionally honest, pour out my heart to God and express my frustrations and distress, then arise from my prayers and go do what I have to do in the situation I have to do this in without complaining to anyone else.

I also thought how in Psalm 22, David begins with “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But he moves on to “You are enthroned as the Holy One, you are the praise of Israel.” David pours out his heart, but does not contemplate only his distress, but reminds himself who God is. Another thing to remember is to be thankful. We may be in distress, let us acknowledge to God that we are distressed, but let us also remember to give thanks for what he has given us. Is the stressful circumstance the only thing in our lives? No, there are many good gifts as well. But the complaining spirit ignores the good gifts, and sees only the one thing that is painful or lacking.

I think we can even give thanks for the problems and stresses in our lives. God works in all things for good, even though not all things are good. Paul says in Ephesians to give thanks for all things (Ephesians 5:20). Jesus gave thanks even a short hour before his arrest.

Dealing with emotions

When I'm feeling something you know isn't right, what do I do?

1) Pretending I don't feel it because "I'm above that," is self deception.
2) Telling myself what I feel is wrong is a start. But expecting the feelings to go away when I finish telling myself it is wrong isn't realistic.
3) Telling myself I'm a bad person for feeling it is perhaps a good start, yet doesn't help me change either. And if I tell myself I'm a bad person, worse than other people for it, that becomes dangerous self-condemnation. Am I fallible, prone to selfishness and needing help? Yes. But that's not the end of the story.
4) Telling God what I feel and asking for his help is the best option. His ability and willingness to help is greater than my need.

An earlier post on dealing with emotions

Lord, I come

God, you said I should come to you, you said you want me in your world, you say you have a place for me, a job for me, and gifts to give me. I don't get it, I'm a pretty mediocre guy. Most days I really just want to be entertained. I want to be both the center of attention and the guy who doesn't have to do anything. I want what I can't have, that wouldn't do me good if I had it. But you say to come, so I come. Do what you want to do with me.

Praying honestly like a child

Last month I read a good book on prayer, A Praying Life by Paul Miller. One of the things he said is we should come to God like a little child, and say exactly what is on our minds. Often we don't do that because we think we need to pray "correctly." He also says prayer is often the last bastion of legalism. But if we don't pray what is really on our hearts, then the real us does not meet the real God.

If Paul Miller is right that prayer is relating to God like a child, telling him exactly what we feel and think, where then is the place for public prayer? How can we present to God the secrets of our hearts in the same room with several others, some of whom may be good friends, but some are merely acquaintances? Are fellow Christians mere acquaintances? Are we not brothers and sisters? Yet in our present condition, where it is hard enough to tell God honestly what is on our hearts, when it is hard to tell our spouses and dearest friends absolutely everything, is it not realistic to feel that adding the presence of brothers and sisters that we do not know well is going to increase the difficulty of being honest before God? I’d say that group prayer with people we have not yet learned to be close with is the last bastion of the last bastion of legalism, the last place to keep saying what people expect us to say instead of what’s really on our hearts.

But public prayers and praises obviously have their place. The Psalms were written to be performed in the Temple. Psalm 22 is a personal heart cry to God, but it was written as a choral piece. “To the Choirmaster” the beginning says, “according to the Dove of the Dawn”. How many times do you think the choir had to rehearse David’s heart cry to God before they got it right? Maybe Dove of the Dawn was one of those hard tunes with lots of sharps and flats and key changes in the middle.

What could happen if we in groups bared our hearts before God, as David did? One wouldn’t have to reveal confidential details. We know little of why David felt abandoned when he wrote Psalm 22, he just says he felt abandoned.

Maybe we think we ought to model “proper” prayer, prayer that is positive and uplifting, not negative. But what is more proper and more uplifting than the confidence of knowing we can lay our hearts bare before God, telling him exactly what we feel, for he already knows it anyway even when we don’t tell him. If “Proper” prayer becomes laying the hearts we think we should have before God, rather than the hearts we have, it is a deception.

Psalm 22 revisited

Just over a year ago, I was quite impressed with Psalm 22. How great it is that Scripture shows us that we can present our raw emotions to God. Faith does not mean always wearing a happy face.

Then I looked at it again tonight and noticed something new. Here is how it begins:

For the director of music. To the tune of "The Doe of the Morning." A psalm of David.
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
2 My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest.
3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
you are the one Israel praises.

What caught my eye was the introduction, "For the director of music. To the tune of 'The Doe of the Morning.' " This is not just a spontaneous cry of pain from a moment David couldn't handle it anymore. This was a carefully rehearsed liturgical event. He picked out the tune the praise band would play as he poured out his heart to God. Maybe they needed to rehearse it several weeks before the performance.

How often in our worship do we express we have pain in our lives, but trust God is with us in it? Why do we think worship always has to be positive? It's pretty clear David wouldn't agree with that idea.

My earlier post on Psalm 22