Destroyed

 

Friday, May 15, 2020

Genesis 7:1-5, 17-24

When everything was ready, the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the boat with all your family, for among all the people of the earth, I can see that you alone are righteous.  Take with you seven pairs—male and female—of each animal I have approved for eating and for sacrifice, and take one pair of each of the others.  Also take seven pairs of every kind of bird. There must be a male and a female in each pair to ensure that all life will survive on the earth after the flood.  Seven days from now I will make the rains pour down on the earth. And it will rain for forty days and forty nights, until I have wiped from the earth all the living things I have created.”  So Noah did everything as the Lord commanded him.

For forty days the floodwaters grew deeper, covering the ground and lifting the boat high above the earth.  As the waters rose higher and higher above the ground, the boat floated safely on the surface.  Finally, the water covered even the highest mountains on the earth, rising more than twenty-two feet above the highest peaks.  All the living things on earth died—birds, domestic animals, wild animals, small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the people.  Everything that breathed and lived on dry land died.  God wiped out every living thing on the earth—people, livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and the birds of the sky.  All were destroyed. The only people who survived were Noah and those with him in the boat.  And the floodwaters covered the earth for 150 days.

There are plenty of disasters from which to choose an image:

·       Wildfires in California destroying subdivisions and memories

·       Tsunamis in Indonesia decimating coastline life

·       Terrorist attacks and the incredible stench of death’s aftermath

·       People standing dazed in the rubble after a tornado

Noah is the poster child for disaster.  Yet, the magnitude of the destruction of that global flood is largely contained in just two paragraphs; essentially it boils down to:  God said he’d wipe the earth clean, and it was so. 

Just like the account of creation, God said – and there was!

This morning, when I went to the computer to post today’s devotion, I found the tech version of Noah’s world; everything was gone.  The physical computer machine was there, looking all innocent and 21^st century put-together, like the Earth after the flood.  But, when I booted up the criminal, all my files were under the deepest blue sea.  Here last night; gone this morning.  What now?  I felt the electronic equivalent of being cut-off from the past 40 years of ministry records, sermons, correspondence, bills, and (oh, my) FACEBOOK. 

I spent the next hour muddled in confusion about what to do next and recriminations over not being more diligent with backing up my files; I also prayed fervently…Oh, LORD, if you’ll just give me back my files I’ll be good….

I’m still not entirely sure what happened, but one word popped into my technologically-challenged brain – RESTART.  So, I did, and voilà, my files were back, and now I’m writing the next devotion. 

Noah wasn’t so lucky.  Or, was he?

There are two hinges to consider here:

·       Hinge #1.  God said He was going to do a new thing

·       Hinge #2.  God did it.

God told Noah to get in the boat, and then God closed the door on the previous chapter.  Then God opened a new chapter for the righteous man and his family.  This begs the question that is frequently my cling-to thought whenever it seems my world might fall apart (or be flooded over to 22 feet above the mountaintops):

What could be better than being in the center of God’s will?

Even when He decides it’s time for a restart?

For You Today

Our new normal after the virus flood is (at this moment) just a foreboding.  I’m not sure I’ve seen any pairs of animals gathering by twos…but, stay tuned, you never know what God is up to; our only certainty is the cross and an empty tomb.  Everything else is like what Noah left behind.

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 “Flood Recovery in Genesis see “After the Storm” Part 1 and  Part 2

Blessing and Cursing

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Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Like a lion, Israel crouches and lies down; like a lioness, who dares to arouse her?  Blessed is everyone who blesses you, O Israel, and cursed is everyone who curses you.”  King Balak flew into a rage against Balaam.  He angrily clapped his hands and shouted, “I called you to curse my enemies!  Instead, you have blessed them three times.  Now get out of here!  Go back home!  I promised to reward you richly, but the Lord has kept you from your reward.”  Numbers 24:9-11

Balak, the king of Moab, who was a sworn enemy of Israel, hired the prophet Balaam to work some magic prior to the battle that was coming.  Balaam liked getting paid for his dirty work, but when he opened his mouth, there came no curses against Balak’s enemy, Israel; instead, out came judgment against Moab, infuriating the king, who then refused to pay the prophet.

For some inexplicable reason (other than evil) ever since God blessed Abraham with the promise that his heritage would be a kingdom of God’s people forever, nations have been trying to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.  It didn’t work for Pharaoh, who seemed to have all the power, but got clobbered by the slave nation he tried to punish.  It didn’t work for the Philistines, or the city of Jericho trying to stand against God’s people.  Adolph Hitler thought he was exterminating Jews; he didn’t realize he was bringing down his house of cards on his head.  In the end he cowered and committed suicide in his bunker.  Time after time, often at great odds, Israel has survived and been the emblem of God’s promises kept.

God loves Israel with an everlasting love; Scripture calls her the apple of His eye.  Cursing Israel is something no thinking person who believes in God would ever want to do.  You might as well shake your fist towards Heaven and try to threaten the Almighty.  That’s never a fair fight and doesn’t end pretty! 

However, cursing the nation of Israel is only a microcosm of what plays out on a worldwide scale in humanity’s collective rebelliousness against Israel’s God.  Just as in Noah’s day when the entire earth had forsaken God, living in anger, chaos, selfishness, and utter disregard for the God who had created them, our culture presumes we have the answer for any problem which faces us.  We get along quite comfortably without God, thank you.  Technology is our new Balaam, prophesying prosperity, ease, and entertainment to soothe the empty places in our souls.

Someday the paid Apple or Android prophet will open the app of our choice, but instead of entertaining us, what will come forth is God’s judgment reality of conviction; no one will like it or believe it, but denial never stopped truth from being truth.  Thinking to heap blessing to our own lives by cursing God’s commandments, we will reap a whirlwind of judgment.

For You Today

Even in a day of swift judgment, those who honor God by accepting truth, believing truth, and living in truth can (and will) be saved.  Blessing, not cursing Israel or Israel’s Lord, God, Jehovah, is a matter of living in truth with His Son, Jesus, and being led by His Spirit.

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

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[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com  
             Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©

Letting Go of the Relic-Life

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Thursday, December 20, 2018

“The day is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah.  This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt.   They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,” says the Lord.  “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord.  “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts.  I will be their God, and they will be my people.  And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’  For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the Lord.  “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”  Jeremiah 31:31-34(NLT)

In kindergarten they gave me crayons and paper with lined spaces, big enough for a 6-year old’s lack of fine motor skills.  I could never color within those lines, nor manage to keep my alphabet on the page.  My Mom produced church bulletins on her Underwood™ typewriter and a stencil.  (If you don’t recognize those pre-historic office tools, think “print dialogue and keyboard”). 

When I packed off to seminary in 1980, the Underwood of the day was my portable electric typewriter, complete with dual ribbon, black AND red, thank you!  Half a dozen years later my Father (born in 1918) got his first computer, a Franklin – no hard drive or cloud, it ran on 5¼” floppy discs.  He upgraded two years later, and I inherited the Franklin.  But I held on to the electric portable typewriter with the dual ribbons…just in case this new-fangled deal was more trouble than it was worth!

As we sit here, I’m typing on a laptop running on a lithium battery.  It has storage for everything I’ve written since 1981, home and ministry financials, entry portals for the world’s knowledge via Google, and maybe a thousand programs, some of which I can’t even pronounce, let-alone understand.  Most of my relics are in the landfill, including the Underwood and Franklin.  I am now my chief relic.

All that ruminating on the past and its technology developments merely points-up a sometimes-painful reality that, in human experience, today’s improvements become tomorrow’s expansion at the garbage dump.  We learn, we grow, we change as we let go of the crayons of the past, and embrace (perhaps) better ways and means.

There are caveats that go with that last statement; over the centuries we have embraced the new and lived to rue the day.  War comes to mind.  We embrace new ways of destroying one-another – always with flag-waving and nods towards benevolence which can only be accomplished through bloodshed.  

Not all new things are improvements; for instance, the machines we carry around with us that instantly connect us to the world can also isolate us from each other, as the machine becomes our new BFF[2].

Now, all that stands in opposition to what God promises is coming.  The day is coming says Jeremiah, when you won’t need a new machine, or a new medicine, or a new device to replace the old Underwood.  The day is coming when God will, by virtue of the New Covenant, restore His creation.  That which has been corrupted will be cleansed, and that which has been discarded will be reclaimed.

God says he will write his ways on our deep inward parts, our hearts, souls, minds.  This will be light years upside-down from how we see things today.  These days we see a concentration on the physical body, its look, performance, and length of stay on earth.  When God finally brings all under His rule, it will be the relationships that count.  The bodies will be new, certainly, but the emphasis is on the lack of what the body carries now – pain, tears, sorrow, heaviness, craving that which harmful.  In its place will be joy, unspeakable joy – that which only complete, unhindered fellowship with our Creator can bring.  The relics of hatred, anger, violence and deception will be destroyed; shalom, the peace of God will endure!  Think of what you read in Genesis:

Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.  Genesis 2:25(NLT)

This is the same couple that talked freely with God and heard God clearly.  This is the restoration of Revelation, where God says:

“Look, I am making everything new!”  Revelation 21:5a(NLT)

Our current life is a training ground for letting go of the relics and embracing the new.  For now, we get to play with technological advances, new toys, cars, computers, exploring our little galaxy…but then, at the time when God chooses, we will let it all go.  And in its place…an eternity of the best.

For You Today

Do you have any relics for the landfill?

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

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[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com

[2] Screen shorthand for Best Friend Forever (in case you’re reading this centuries after screens have disappeared)

Patience

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Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Dear brothers and sisters, be patient as you wait for the Lord’s return.  Consider the farmers who patiently wait for the rains in the fall and in the spring.  They eagerly look for the valuable harvest to ripen.  You, too, must be patient. Take courage, for the coming of the Lord is near.  James 5:7-8^(NLT)

One of the hardest things to do is wait patiently.  The fact is we have conditioned ourselves against patience.  Everything manufactured these days requires little assembly or consideration.  The computer I use came with only a single page instruction sheet, and the rechargeable battery was already charged…plug-in and get going!

We are in a hurry today.  That “hurry” builds tension and uneasiness into our daily lives which can only be measured with a bucket loader.  There is hardly an un-anxious person to be found among us.  Yet that is exactly the advice given to pastors, to be a non-anxious presence as antidote to the fear and worry that pervades anxiety.

I had a hard time with that this past Sunday.

One of our churches uses multimedia to enhance worship; you could have fooled me.  At the first church (without screens and projector) the service went well, with several changes and unexpected shifts; it’s ok, we get used to last-minute hiccups! 

Elizabeth and I jumped in the car and noticed it was still early…we had a whole, extra two minutes to enjoy, getting down the road 11 miles to our second church.  That was the last bit of non-anxious in the day! 

Our choir-director, along with her son, the sound/multimedia technician, were gone on their annual vacation.  So, Russell, ever ready to take on much more than he is able, or qualified to do, said sure – I’ll run the computer for those two weeks; no problem! 

Poor, deluded monkey! 

Disclaimer:  if you’re not a technology genius, never agree to this; it’s difficult enough to stand before even a small church and stay sane while conducting a worship service.  If you throw-in having only 11 minutes once you arrive at church to set-up the laptop with the PowerPoint presentation, connect all the thingamajigs, turn-on the projectors, set-up the camera, video your wife standing at the piano saying “hi” to cousin Billy in Arizona, get to the bathroom (hey-it’s a long morning), and rush back into the sanctuary in time for the call to worship…you have a perfect storm waiting when you begin to lead the congregational call-to-worship printed in the bulletin – especially if you have in your hands the bulletin from the first church, and you’re trying to lead the congregation at the second church. 

And then, of course, the batteries in the remote control choose that exact moment to go belly-up!  And there you stand, non-anxious presence smile on your face, created in the image of God, faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, Super-pastor….and you just want to cry.

Note to self:   If you’re going to be a non-anxious presence, it would be a smart thing to stay within the boundaries of common sense and follow the advice you give to others from Scripture:  what makes the church THE CHURCH is not a Super-Pastor, able to do it all.  Rather, it is the Body of Christ being THE BODY OF CHRIST with each part doing that loving task to which it has been called. 

Stay in that; live in that; proclaim that – trusting God with everything.  That’s how the peace of God, which passes all understanding will create a non-anxious presence even in the midst of technological chaos!  It’s called the gift of patience.

For You Today

Waiting patiently may be the most anxious thing we do…and the most useless when we wind up faking the “patiently” part.  So, come with me; let’s take a deep breath and recite the Lord’s Prayer early this morning.  Call on the Father; fellowship with the Son; let the Holy Spirit have all that anxiety, and rest in His peace…patiently!

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

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com