The RIGHT Way to Go

 

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

My child, listen to what I say, and treasure my commands.  Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding.  Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding.  Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures.  Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord, and you will gain knowledge of God.  For the Lord grants wisdom!  From his mouth come knowledge and understanding.  He grants a treasure of common sense to the honest.  He is a shield to those who walk with integrity.  He guards the paths of the just and protects those who are faithful to him.  Then you will understand what is right, just, and fair, and you will find the right way to go.  For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will fill you with joy.  Wise choices will watch over you.  Understanding will keep you safe.  Wisdom will save you from evil people, from those whose words are twisted.  These men turn from the right way to walk down dark paths.  They take pleasure in doing wrong, and they enjoy the twisted ways of evil.  Their actions are crooked, and their ways are wrong.  Proverbs 2:1-15

These words, usually accepted as written by Solomon, come from a lifetime of a wise man seeking the right way to live a meaningful life.  Solomon’s methodology was not much different from yours or mine; we learn through trial and error’s school of hard-knocks.  In Ecclesiastes Solomon wrote:

So I set out to learn everything from wisdom to madness and folly. But I learned firsthand that pursuing all this is like chasing the wind.  Ecclesiastes 1:17

Here was a wise man who wanted to investigate every part of how people live on this planet.  What he found was most of it is empty, like a dog chasing his own tail…an overly-glorified exercise in passing the time.

Yet, in this morning’s text, Solomon’s Proverb, instructs his own son to spend his life absorbing wisdom, to chase understanding like the brass ring on the merry-go-round.  And, of course, he’s pointing to God’s commands, the words of life, which will teach his heart, soul, and mind all it needs to know so he will know how to fear (reverence) the Lord. 

At the last of his instructions, Solomon reveals the purpose of it all, keeping on the right path in this world’s quagmire of cultural madness.  The wisest of men points to the craziest of human mayhem, and gives his son the key to living a life that will not leave him ashamed at the end; he points his child to serving God’s light in the midst of a great darkness.  No matter what crooked, twisted ways of evil present themselves, one who trusts in God can walk confidently in the Lord’s care and love.

Perhaps Solomon was well beyond his time, knowing what the madness of 21^st century earth would be like, pandemics, violence, earthquakes, scams, political havoc, crumbling families, and news cycles that never make genuine sense.

For You Today  

The choices are endless.  Among them, you can follow the news on CNN, Twitter, FOX, or whatever other cultural high makes you too buzzed to see clearly…or tune-in to God’s wisdom and light.  It all depends on whether you want to have your eyes open to eternity’s understanding.

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Finding Wisdom  and  A Treasure of Common Sense 

Images:  Title Pixabay.com   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Light On My Path

Monday, February 6, 2023

Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.  I’ve promised it once, and I’ll promise it again: I will obey your righteous regulations.  Psalm 119:105-106

Habits, either good or bad ones, are formed in memory.  This morning’s text is one of the first I learned as a child.  In those days memory verses were part of Sunday School; we memorized and discussed a different verse each month.  Now, many years later, that verse still calls to me.  That calling is not because of what I must do in parish work as a pastor, (prepare sermons, counsel, help form the life, ministry, and worship of a congregation), but rather God’s Word calls me to Him in the ordering and worship of my own life, one breath at a time.

This devotional blog was born out of a dissatisfaction with my response to the calling.  A decade ago I felt a lack of discipline, a void of orderliness in reading and reflecting on God’s Word.  I felt unrest, blindness, and dissatisfaction.  So, I did what Scripture offered – (re)committed my mornings to the light that guides my pathway.  This was a two-fold commitment:

Private Commitment – I wanted solitary time.  I’m an introvert by nature, and, with all those thoughts bumping around in my brain, its difficult enough to concentrate; I need solitude.  So the choice was to get up an hour (or three) earlier than anyone else.  As I put these words on paper this morning (or the computer screen), the only sounds are an occasional wind whipping by my window, and the gentle snoring of my dog on the floor mat, next to my desk chair.

Public Commitment – knowing my track record of beginnings, and fizzled attempts at routines, I needed some accountability.  Early-on I started publishing these early morning thoughts/reflections on God’s Word for the congregations I served.  In this way I (somewhat ruthlessly) tapped-into my introvert-born dread of public humiliation.  A private promise to self can be rationalized-away; a public promise to others before God, is much more problematic…especially if a preacher wants to keep his job.

Well…that’s enough therapeutic confession for today.  What’s the point?

The point is Psalm 119…God’s Word as a guide…a light that opens up the truth of what’s on the path ahead.  And who wouldn’t rather have insight when the darkness of uncertainty is all around us?

For You Today  

Dark times of economic uncertainty, pandemics, changing morality, and questioning our existence, planetary extinction possibilities, war, aging, and what is in all those classified documents we all thought were so well guarded – isn’t it joy to your soul that God’s Word is unchanging, unparalleled truth you can depend upon, and the best love letter ever written to you, and me, and everyone?

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Finding a Straight Path  and  John Wesley - Homo Unius Libri  and   The Secret to King David’s Greatness – Part 4

This is an updated version of “So Much Anger” published on Rocky Road Devotions January 16, 2014

Images:  Title Pixabay.com   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translatio 

Between the Rock and Hard Place

 

Thursday, March 3, 2022

So the slave drivers and foremen went out and told the people: “This is what Pharaoh says:  I will not provide any more straw for you.   Go and get it yourselves.  Find it wherever you can.  But you must produce just as many bricks as before!”  So the people scattered throughout the land of Egypt in search of stubble to use as straw.  Meanwhile, the Egyptian slave drivers continued to push hard.  “Meet your daily quota of bricks, just as you did when we provided you with straw!” they demanded.  Then they whipped the Israelite foremen they had put in charge of the work crews.  “Why haven’t you met your quotas either yesterday or today?” they demanded.  So the Israelite foremen went to Pharaoh and pleaded with him.  “Please don’t treat your servants like this,” they begged.  “We are given no straw, but the slave drivers still demand, ‘Make bricks!’  We are being beaten, but it isn’t our fault!  Your own people are to blame!”  But Pharaoh shouted, “You’re just lazy!  Lazy!  That’s why you’re saying, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifices to the Lord.’  Now get back to work!  No straw will be given to you, but you must still produce the full quota of bricks.”  The Israelite foremen could see that they were in serious trouble when they were told, “You must not reduce the number of bricks you make each day.”  As they left Pharaoh’s court, they confronted Moses and Aaron, who were waiting outside for them.  The foremen said to them, “May the Lord judge and punish you for making us stink before Pharaoh and his officials.  You have put a sword into their hands, an excuse to kill us!”  Then Moses went back to the Lord and protested, “Why have you brought all this trouble on your own people, Lord?  Why did you send me?  Ever since I came to Pharaoh as your spokesman, he has been even more brutal to your people.  And you have done nothing to rescue them!”  Exodus 5:10-23

Four hundred years in captivity was a hard place.  The descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph were conscripts of Pharaoh’s dynasty.  They were forced to work endlessly just to stay alive, and had nothing.  Then things really got hard.

Bondage is brutal – and that is certainly an understatement.  Not just Israel, but humanity has been under something of bondage to COVID-19 and its cousins the past two years.  Even if you have been blessed enough to have escaped having the virus, you know someone, perhaps many, who have had to tough it out like making bricks without straw.

You’ve also seen what happens when the rock of struggle meets the hard place of frustration…someone must take the blame.  Pharaoh, like any pandemic virus, was an iron-fisted, hard-hearted tyrant.  He threatened, bullied, and killed.  His soldiers spread the virus of hate and oppression.  The people, frustrated, having no place to turn for relief, blamed Moses for stirring up Pharaoh’s anger.  Moses went right to prayer….and blamed God!

Just a few plagues later, the slaves were seeing Egypt in the rearview mirror.  Forty years later Moses saw the Promised Land from the mountaintop.  But none of the original group, including Moses, ever set foot on the other side of Jordan. 

The conclusion is rather rock-like:  Blaming someone else for your problems will get you somewhere, and it’s often a harder place than the rock you were facing.

For You Today

When the temptation comes for you to blame someone, some pandemic, some circumstances, or God, for whatever trouble presents, let your prayer of surrender to God’s will and care turn blame into blessing.  

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

[1] Title image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©    

A Covid-broken Heart

 

Monday, February 21, 2022

O Lord, don’t rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your rage!  Your arrows have struck deep, and your blows are crushing me.  Because of your anger, my whole body is sick; my health is broken because of my sins.  My guilt overwhelms me—it is a burden too heavy to bear.  My wounds fester and stink because of my foolish sins.  I am bent over and racked with pain.  All day long I walk around filled with grief.  A raging fever burns within me, and my health is broken.  I am exhausted and completely crushed.  My groans come from an anguished heart.  You know what I long for, Lord; you hear my every sigh.  My heart beats wildly, my strength fails, and I am going blind.  My loved ones and friends stay away, fearing my disease.  Even my own family stands at a distance.  Meanwhile, my enemies lay traps to kill me.  Those who wish me harm make plans to ruin me.  All day long they plan their treachery.  But I am deaf to all their threats.  I am silent before them as one who cannot speak.  I choose to hear nothing, and I make no reply.  For I am waiting for you, O Lord.  You must answer for me, O Lord my God.  I prayed, “Don’t let my enemies gloat over me or rejoice at my downfall.”  I am on the verge of collapse, facing constant pain.  But I confess my sins; I am deeply sorry for what I have done.  I have many aggressive enemies; they hate me without reason.  They repay me evil for good and oppose me for pursuing good.  Do not abandon me, O Lord.  Do not stand at a distance, my God.  Come quickly to help me, O Lord my savior.  Psalm 38:1-22

David’s self-diagnosed situational distress symptoms parallel takotsubo, commonly known as broken-heart syndrome.[1]  Assaulted by raging fever, exhaustion, and difficulty breathing, the heart, crushed and broken, groans in shock-induced cardiomyopathy; it’s a sad parallel to what modern-day pandemic grief is pushing on the world’s human family.

Our reality the past two years has developed a worldwide epidemic of languishing in lethargy and misery as a response to the ruin of COVID’s bio-physical symptoms.  It is the essence of King David’s spiritual malaise, his sins have “found him out,”[2] and his life has come to a grinding halt in an overwhelming sense of guilt/grief.  His heart can only stand in shock against the revelation of life’s fragile and tenuous nature.  What looms before him is the very-real possibility of slipping into the darkness; all else, kingdom, family, riches, and even the simple act of breathing, are superfluous compared to getting relief from the approaching darkness.  If it’s truly possible to “languish” in a panic-attack mode…this is it!

David’s reaction to the monster that stands ready to chew him (even the memory of him) to pieces, is confession.  As one who, in his youth, knew the presence of God well, David’s understanding of his guilt brought an outpouring of shame and inner urging to return to the place of forgiveness.  He longed to be clean.  Accepting responsibility for the calamity which now defined his character, David asked God to purge his guilt and shame, and come close.

Perhaps the pan-human response to the takotsubo broken-heart pandemia is a return to God the way David knew was right…confession…owning who we are, and what we’ve done in ignoring our Creator’s way.  That seems to be the only first step in the right direction.

For You Today

Each of us can only take the first step in our own journey.  I cannot take yours, nor can you take mine.  With God, repentance is a singular affair.  Like breathing, air in my lungs does no good in keeping your life afloat.  There are some things each of us needs to do to address that which breaks our Heavenly Father’s heart.

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

[1] Title and other images:  Harvard Health Publishing  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

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[1] Harvard Health Publishing

[2] See Numbers 32:23

When the Demons Laugh

 

Thursday, February 3, 2022

Though I am surrounded by troubles, you will protect me from the anger of my enemies.  You reach out your hand, and the power of your right hand saves me.  The Lord will work out his plans for my life—for your faithful love, O Lord, endures forever.  Don’t abandon me, for you made me.  Psalm 138:7-8

C.S. Lewis, after he’d been converted, wrote many wonderful things to defend the faith of the Christ he’d come to love.  One of the deepest (for me) of these is The Screwtape Letters, an imagined conversation between a senior demon named Screwtape, and his nephew, Wormwood, a demon apprentice.  Uncle Screwtape is mentoring Wormwood on how to drag other humans to Hell.  In one training session, something of a debriefing on the work of an old devil, Lewis recounts something quite apropos to the last couple of years in our generation[1]:

′′One young devil asked the old man:  "How did you manage to bring so many souls to hell?"  The old devil answered:  "I instilled fear in them!"

Answers the youngster: "Great job!  And what were they afraid of?  Wars? Hunger?"  Answers the man:  "No, they were afraid of the disease!"

For this youngster:  "Does this mean they didn't get sick?  Are they not dead? There was no rescue for them?"   The old man answered:  "but no . . . they got sick, died, and the rescue was there."

The young devil, surprised, answered:  "Then I don't understand???"

The old man answered:  "You know they believed the only thing they have to keep at any cost is their lives.  They stopped hugging, greeting each other. They've moved away from each other.  They gave up all social contacts and everything that was human!  Later they ran out of money, lost their jobs, but that was their choice because they were afraid for their lives, that's why they quit their jobs without even having bread.  They believed blindly everything they heard and read in the papers.  They gave up their freedoms, they didn't leave their own homes literally anywhere.  They stopped visiting family and friends.  The world turned into such a concentration camp, without forcing them into captivity.  They accepted everything!!!  Just to live at least one more miserable day . . . And so living, they died every day!!!  And that's how it was very easy for me to take their miserable souls to hell....′′

For You Today

Fear is as much, if not more, of an enemy than any pandemic.  We must keep in balance the prudence of planning and appropriate caution for our own health, and that of others.  Jesus did encourage that his believers were to count the cost[2], meaning understanding there are risks, because we live in bodies that are susceptible to disease and injury.  At the same time, there is little sense in clinging to a miserable life, filled with fear.  Rather than live fearing that which can kill the body, our lives should be spent lovingly serving the One who gives eternal life.

The words of Jesus should be sufficient at this point:

Dear friends, don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot do any more to you after that.  But I’ll tell you whom to fear.  Fear God, who has the power to kill you and then throw you into hell.  Yes, he’s the one to fear.  

Luke 12:4-5

If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it.  Luke 17:33

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

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

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[1] C.S. Lewis in 1942 - Old Devil's Letters To the Young

[2] Luke 14:28

Getting the Good News

 

Thursday, January 20, 2022

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed.  He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord’s favor has come, and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies.  To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair.  In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory.  They will rebuild the ancient ruins, repairing cities destroyed long ago.  They will revive them, though they have been deserted for many generations.  Foreigners will be your servants.  They will feed your flocks and plow your fields and tend your vineyards.  You will be called priests of the Lord, ministers of our God.  You will feed on the treasures of the nations and boast in their riches.  Instead of shame and dishonor, you will enjoy a double share of honor.  You will possess a double portion of prosperity in your land, and everlasting joy will be yours.                     Isaiah 61:1-7

It’s safe to say everyone on planet earth is waiting for a bit of good news these days.  With pandemic the last couple of years, economic struggles, international tensions, isolation woes, restrictions-by-the-truckload, and a million other reasons, it’s like the good news train has been derailed in the night by a tsunami of whatever-can-go-wrong.  For a change, we want to hear a little good news!

The story of Israel in the millennial time before Jesus’ birth is the backdrop.  From the time God’s special people escaped captivity in Egypt and entered the land flowing with milk and honey ^{(Exodus 3:8)} they were the human poster child of what part of good news didn’t we understand!  God’s blessings were always forgotten within a few years, or a few generations.  They forgot their vows of allegiance to Jehovah and began chasing the rainbows of success and power.  Like the church today, hopping on political bandwagons of conservatism or progressiveness, they forgot who they were.  God would take them to the woodshed for discipline; they’d repent and cry-out for another Exodus kind of deliverance; God would hear and answer, and they’d do it all over again!

Then came Jesus with the final solution – good news that won’t ever be forgotten by posterity’s laziness, and won’t be forsaken by a righteous God who refuses to be forgotten.  The good news is that this kingdom, promised by Jesus’ word, and secured by Jesus’ death and resurrection, is now written on hearts. 

For You Today

No matter what social scientists, pandemiologists, and politicians may say about the present woes, or predictions about future disaster, the redeeming work of Christ is set in better than stone – it’s written on streets of gold in a temple built without hands.  It’s time the people of God get back to “getting” that Good News, and living by it every day.

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

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©    

Epiphany

 

Thursday, January 6, 2022

“Arise, Jerusalem! Let your light shine for all to see.  For the glory of the Lord rises to shine on you.  Darkness as black as night covers all the nations of the earth, but the glory of the Lord rises and appears over you.  Isaiah 60:1-2

My mother never talked about her twin sisters.  They died in the cradle during the influenza pandemic of 1918, around the time Mom was born.  As today, that was a dark time in this world’s history.  Approximately 500 million people were infected, and 1-in-10 died from its onslaught, taking about 1% of the world’s population.

If there is anything we can count upon in dark times, it’s how brightly the light shines through the backdrop of night, a perfect frame for the coming light.  

And that describes Epiphany well.  The coming of our Lord to a murky world had nothing to do with a biological darkness, but rather a spiritual darkness that enveloped 100% of the population.  The prophets preached that, as well as the New Testament apostles, that there are no exceptions; sin is a human virus, and we are all infected.

And then, the light dawned.  It was the appearance of light in great darkness.  Just as the greatest dark must give way to the smallest light, so the ravenous bitterness of total darkness must vanish in the presences of perfect light.  And that was Who was laid in the manger-cradle…the bright and Morning Star,[1] the one who would declare to the entire world:

“I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”  John 8:12b

For You Today

Scripture and history both affirm that Jesus was (and is) the light of the world.  The question for all of us is:  Is He the light that has come into YOUR world?

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

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

For other posts on this text see Catch and The Fullness of Time

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[1] Revelation 22:16