When a Warrior Weeps

 

Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Psalm 126:5-6

Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy.  They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest.

Those who care passionately about people weep.  In a previous post I wrote: 

The text indicates that the sower goes forth and bears the seed; but he also weeps over it.  Do you weep over insignificant things, or precious?  I see weeping over lost loved ones, straying prodigals, health reversals and lost fortunes.

So, why the weeping?  The sower knows the seed must die before it can produce anything worthwhile.  Jesus said that plainly:

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives.  John 12:24

In that passage Jesus was predicting his death on the cross for our benefit.  It was a short time before the cross, and Jesus understood the cost of saving rebellious humankind from eternal death.  And that is why he wept in Gethsemane; Jesus was so moved with compassion for us he sweat great drops of blood.  These were the tears of his soul, longing for our redemption and squeezing every last ounce of caring for self and safety out of his system…and it was for us.

And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.  Luke 22:44

I think of presidents making unpopular decisions, knowing it might cost their political career, or personal reputation…but doing it anyway because it’s the right thing to do.

I think of a father scooping up his three-year-old from the middle of the street; the child howls with anger because she wanted to play there.  She didn’t understand the danger, so she rares back and declares to her father, I HATE YOU!

I think of a child hearing his parents, late at night, arguing in the living room…again.  And, it turns violent…again.  There is pain and blackened eyes…again; the 7-year-old cannot stay in the bed and listen….again.  So, he runs to the living room and steps between mother and father, knowing he cannot make a difference, but his weeping makes him try.

In each instance the motivation is love.  It is love that causes a president to choose the right thing over a popular thing.  It is love that makes a father act when his child puts herself in danger, and doesn’t understand.  It is love that propels even a small child to stand in protection of a battered mother.  And it was love that compelled Christ to the cross.

So, what about those seeds?  Why plant them?  Love!

There are laws of the harvest. 

          ·       You will always reap more than you sow.

          ·       You will always reap later than you sow.

          ·       You will not reap unless you sow. 

And the greatest, least popular, law is:

          ·       The harvest is greater or lesser in direct proportion to the cost to you of sowing.

Parents of prodigals sow seeds of self-sacrifice, nurture, and forbearing the immaturity of youth because of love.  And the greatest cost is loving, doing the best for the prodigal, when the cost will be the prodigal choosing the pigpen over the homeplace.  That is when a parent becomes a warrior in the prayer room, and that is when a warrior weeps.

Let’s Pray Together:

Father, we understand doing the so-called right thing is really just living the truth of love, doing the best for our neighbor, which includes the whole world, starting in our own houses with our children, parents, and kin.  Give us grace today to faithfully back up doing the right thing with our warrior’s tears.

For You Today

The joyful end of Jesus’ story of the Prodigal is separated by time in the far country’s pigpen.  It’s easy to want to jump to the last chapter; easy, not right.  Give God time and plenty of warrior’s tears to awaken your prodigal to just how bad that pigpen really smells…and how exceptionally foolish was the choice was to live there.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For other posts on Psalm 126 see World UPSIDE DOWN and Precious Seeds  

It's the Circle of Life

[1]

Thursday, July 26, 2018

You learned about the Good News from Epaphras, our beloved co-worker.  He is Christ’s faithful servant, and he is helping us on your behalf.  He has told us about the love for others that the Holy Spirit has given you.  So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you.  We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding.  Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit.  All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.  Colossians 1:7-10^(NLT)

In the Walt Disney animated movie Lion King[2] Mufasa is teaching his son, Prince Simba all about life.  One of the taglines is:  The greatest adventure of all is finding our place in the circle of life.[3]  Simba is told to respect the antelope.  Confused, Simba questions Mufasa:  Um, Dad, don’t we EAT the antelope?  Dad agrees, but then reminds his cub that lions also die and return to the ground to become the grass antelopes eat.  This is the circle of life. 

Mufasa’s wisdom aside (after all, there are holes in his metaphysics – just ask Rafiki, the baboon who plays the shaman clergy seer if there is more to it than blood, sinew and bones returning to the ground); well…aside from the Lion King’s life-circle lesson, there is a spiritual circle of life that Paul holds up for us in his letter to the Colossian believers.

Paul had done much work at Colossae, bringing pagans to Christ.  Epaphras, at Paul’s direction, had been dispatched to the region to help form the new church after Paul left.  Epaphras reported back to Paul that the believers there were growing in their love for God and service to people.  In responding Paul shared his joy at their growth, and how he was praying daily for their continued growth in understanding God’s Word, so they would bear even greater fruit for the kingdom. 

In so many ways this is the Christian, or spiritual circle of life.  The Gospel is shared, a seed is planted.  One comes alongside to nurture that seed of faith, as it grows into a fruitful Kingdom vine. 

It was that way for me (and probably you).  My parents loved Jesus and his church.  They passed this love along to me.  Even in my far country Prodigal son days, I could run far from God, but never out from under Mom and Dad’s prayers.  In due time the faith seedling survived the storm, began to grow on the bread of life, and began to bear fruit.

When your faith survives adolescence, and you begin to exhibit the signs of maturing, the circle of life ceases to be linear…just passed down from leader to follower; it commences bending in an arc to reach wider and deeper.  I’m not just a son, brother, cousin, and uncle…I am a father, grandfather, and…heaven help me…great-grandfather!  At my age I can’t help looking back; it’s been a lot of years since the faith once-delivered to the saints[4] was first told to me at my mother’s knee.  That faith was deepened in Sunday School every week.  It was sharpened in worship, tested in the world, and began to bear fruit as the Spirit worked within to change and grow a seedling into something fit for the Owner of the Vineyard to use.

This is the circle of true life.  It’s not the jungle, or the African plain, eating and being eaten; this is the surrender of the soul, dying to self, living in Christ.

In the movie, Simba the young lion king had ducked out on his responsibility to actually BE king.  Simba was rebuked by Rafiki (the baboon preacher).  Rafiki told Simba to think about the circle of life, then reminded him:  You have become less than you ARE!

That is a challenge to change…to look up and BE changed.

For You Today

We all need a Rafiki to remind us to be what God is calling us to be.  So, let’s have Paul’s benediction ring in our ears today:

We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding.  Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit.  All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.  Colossians 1:7-10^(NLT)

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 

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[1] Title Image:  I, Hot Dog Wolf [GFDL, from Wikimedia Commons

[2] ©1994 Disney Productions

[3] Ibid. & IMDB

[4] Jude 1:3