Bandaged

 

Friday, February 5, 2021

Praise the Lord!  How good to sing praises to our God!  How delightful and how fitting!  The Lord is rebuilding Jerusalem and bringing the exiles back to Israel.  He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.  He counts the stars and calls them all by name.  How great is our Lord!  His power is absolute!  His understanding is beyond comprehension!

This Psalm was written in the wake of the joyful return of exiles from Babylon.  It would be hard to underestimate the thankfulness God’s people experienced.  They had been defeated captives; now they were going home.  There is something about being bandaged up and encouraged when you’ve been beaten to a pulp!  Freedom is sweet enough to make even those who can’t sing praise God in joyful song. 

This week I (literally) had my eyes opened once again to that reality.  These old, badgered eyes saw everything as sepia-toned, dull, no vibrant colors or definition.  Blurry-drab was the focus of my lens, until the surgeon did his thing with the laser to remove the cataract.  Now whites are dramatically-white, and are becoming clearer every day.  I feel like the brokenhearted, having been bandaged and healed. 

It was no surprise that John Newton’s hymn, Amazing Grace, came to mind after eye surgery.  That hymn proclaims, once I was blind, but now I can see!  Of course my healing this week was merely physical; Newton’s words announce the spiritual truth of a soul’s redemption, the healing bandage of salvation.

The returning exiles cried out How great is our Lord…His power is absolute!  We believe every word of that, and not just because seeing clearly is a euphoric reminder of how bad my vision had gotten. 

We believe it because this little reminder of God’s healing mercy is only a portent of things to come, when faith becomes sight in every delightfully possible way as God banishes sin, sorrow, death, and removes even the memory of pain, wiping away every tear.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” Revelation 21:4

This is the glorious bandaging up of the brokenhearted, badgered, and beleaguered…the eternal balm of Gilead for those who walked in great darkness, but now see beyond the pain to the glory of God’s majestic throne, where sits the King of Glory.

For You Today

It has been said that the stuff and events of our lives are an example of Scripture’s hope for us, and that Scripture, in every way, explains our lives.  One preacher said it this way:  a preacher ought to stand before his flock with a Bible in one hand and the daily newspaper in the other.  If we read that right, it means you can open the Book of Books to any page and you’ll read about what’s going on in your life.

That’s so; like I trusted my surgeon this week to open my physical eyes, let the Great Physician open yours…his Scalpel is sharper than a two-edged sword.[1]

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

For another post on Psalm 147 see City of David 

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[1] Hebrews 4:12

 

Pay Attention

 

Wednesday, August 12, 2020

“Pay attention to this, Job.  Stop and consider the wonderful miracles of God!  Do you know how God controls the storm and causes the lightning to flash from his clouds?  Do you understand how he moves the clouds with wonderful perfection and skill?  When you are sweltering in your clothes and the south wind dies down and everything is still, he makes the skies reflect the heat like a bronze mirror.  Can you do that?  Job 37:14-18

Then Jesus got into the boat and started across the lake with his disciples.   Suddenly, a fierce storm struck the lake, with waves breaking into the boat. But Jesus was sleeping.  The disciples went and woke him up, shouting, “Lord, save us!  We’re going to drown!”  Jesus responded, “Why are you afraid?  You have so little faith!”  Then he got up and rebuked the wind and waves, and suddenly there was a great calm.  The disciples were amazed. “Who is this man?” they asked.  “Even the winds and waves obey him!”  Matthew 8:23-27

The haunting questions here have a focal point on storms, one of the earth’s more awe-inspiring and powerful realities: 

Do you know how God does that with the lightning, controlling the clouds?      

Can YOU do that? 

And the disciples watching the live feed of Jesus doing just that ask:

Who is this man?

Scripture does not go wanting when it comes to the connection between the creation and Creator; that connection is the all-powerful hand of Jesus Christ.  When Jesus was trying to straighten-out the skewed thinking of some Bible scholars among the leaders of Israel, He simply uncluttered the issue; He told them:

“You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!  John 5:39

Paying attention to the questions within your heart, mind, and soul, about where you come from, who you really are, and, therefore, where this is all going – where you’re going to wind-up, is more often on the front-burner during times of crisis.  Frankly, considering this pandemic, with all its quarantine, game-changing social distancing, and attention to the case and death tolls…if you are NOT thinking more about your soul and the reality of mortality, I’d be worried about your connection with reality!

And these two passages, one from the oldest text in Scripture (Job), and the other God’s veritable defining answer to life’s basic need, unveil what we need to know about life’s basic questions, those with which we wrestle; namely,

·       Who made me and everything I see?

·       What am I supposed to do?

·       Where will I wind up?

·       Who will guide me?

So, Job, Russell, anyone…pay attention…the answer is Jesus.  And He loves you.

For You Today

It’s okay to place your faith and trust in God, His Son, and His Holy Spirit; it was God who created it all, controls it all, and offers it all to us in His Son.  Don’t be afraid of the waves on today’s seas of storm; you’ve got the answers to the questions…you KNOW who this man is!

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 Job 37 see The Wisdom of Elihu for Matthew 8:23-27 see Hanging-In There; or Just Hanging?

 

When Job Got It Right

[1]

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind:  “Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.  “Will you discredit my justice and condemn me just to prove you are right?  Are you as strong as God?  Can you thunder with a voice like his?  All right, put on your glory and splendor, your honor and majesty.  Give vent to your anger.  Let it overflow against the proud.  Humiliate the proud with a glance; walk on the wicked where they stand.  Bury them in the dust.  Imprison them in the world of the dead.  Then even I would praise you, for your own strength would save you.  Job 40:6-14

Then Job replied to the Lord:  “I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you.  You asked, ‘Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?’  It is I—and I was talking about things I knew nothing about, things far too wonderful for me.  You said, ‘Listen and I will speak!  I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.’  I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes.  I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.”  Job 42:1-6

Somewhere along the way Job forgot his connection to Adam and Eve; Job forgot about original sin and that sin nature we all inherit from our first parents.  Job somehow managed to consign to the back burner that need we all have for God’s grace-filled forgiveness.  Job was a moral, God-fearing man who, as a paragon of virtue in his community, was respected and did the right things.  He was like the good brother in the story of the Prodigal Son, obedient, compliant, useful, and the kind of dependable, unselfish guy every church elects as chairman of the board.

However, when the unfair, tough times came and his life’s train got derailed, Job defended his purity level, demanding an answer from God.  For 39 chapters Job tried to pry an accounting from Heaven.  When God did answer it shook the “good man” to his core.  The only sound heard from him the rest of that day was the clicking of his teeth as his mouth closed its’ complaining.  That was how Job finally got it right.

Many in our day who have ditched “church” in favor of just being good people are making the same mistake Job made.  They assume their goodness is measure enough to pass whatever test God (if He’s really up there) can pass out.  It’s a kind of macho-bravado that dares God to question their freedom to determine their chosen pathway.  And that attitude holds enough truth to get them in as big a dilemma with God as Job experienced.  That’s because God does, indeed, allow us free choice in how we will live our lives; it’s just that the consequences of our choices are just as tied to those choices we make as night is connected to the next morning’s daylight.  It’s like the proverbial domino reality; when you choose to push that first one, the second, third, fourth, and each one thereafter will fall the same way.  Years ago, the Alaskan highway was just a rough, unpaved trail through the wilderness.  During the rainy times the ground was soft and muddy.  A sign was erected at the start of the trail:

Choose your rut carefully; you’ll be in it for the next 200 miles.

We could apply that same wisdom to choosing grace, or our own strength.  God has given us the gift of free will; humility applied to that choosing will go a long way towards losing that arrogance that says its my life, I’ll do what I want.

For You Today

Job’s biggest mistake (before he heard that thundering voice from Heaven cataloging an indictment of his ignorance) was to think he’d been a self-made man, that his popularity, wealth, and “goodness” were enough.  He may have been right in the eyes of his neighbors and friends.  That day’s culture and community elected him man of the year every year, until the bad times and boils made their appearance.  Then all Job had was God.  And when he realized that, he realized he had all he needed!

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

 

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[1] Title Image:  By Hult, Adolf, 1869-1943; Via Wikimedia Commons     Unless noted, Scripture used from The New Living Translation©

Pain in the Parsonage

[i]

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

This is a trustworthy saying:  “If someone aspires to be a church leader, he desires an honorable position.”  So a church leader must be a man whose life is above reproach.  He must be faithful to his wife.  He must exercise self-control, live wisely, and have a good reputation.  He must enjoy having guests in his home, and he must be able to teach.  He must not be a heavy drinker or be violent.  He must be gentle, not quarrelsome, and not love money.  He must manage his own family well, having children who respect and obey him.  For if a man cannot manage his own household, how can he take care of God’s church?  A church leader must not be a new believer, because he might become proud, and the devil would cause him to fall.  Also, people outside the church must speak well of him so that he will not be disgraced and fall into the devil’s trap.  1 Timothy 3:1-7(NLT)

I’m not the only pastor who takes a deep breath when he reads this passage.  It’s a formidable list of qualifications; who, besides Jesus, lives up to this?  I think the one that troubles most preachers greatly is that sticky one about managing his household.  I was going to write a book once entitled Pain in the Parsonage, but decided I’d wait a while on that like Pastor Bruce McIver who wrote the series on Stories I Couldn’t Tell While I Was a Pastor.  Some things are better if you sleep on them and put a little distance between reality and revelation.

One painful memory from my youth is about Dave[ii], who was the son of my pastor when I was just a boy.  This preacher’s kid was just a baby when Pastor Olson and the family hit town.  He was much younger than me, so I didn’t hang out with him.  Dave’s Dad was a great pastor; he hung out with the youth mostly, and the church grew like wildfire.  It seemed overnight the little sanctuary was overflowing.  By the time I graduated high school the congregation had built a brand-new building and parsonage.  But the pressure on Dave was building.

Dave was a sensitive young man and the occasional criticism that came with the job of being a pastor surfaced.  Dave’s Dad, usually congratulated for everything good that happened, was now being vilified for not pleasing everyone.  Some of the older members assumed he should have been visiting them, rather than taking the youth group on a camping trip or playing softball at the children’s day.

When Dave’s high school days came to an end, the open door was too appealing, and Dave left home, hitchhiking to California for a vastly different life than his small-town upbringing.  Pastor Olson took Paul’s letter to Timothy at face value, judging that he had not managed his own family well, so he was disqualified from serving as pastor.  He resigned his position and took up carpenter’s tools to earn a living.  But all the while Dave was in the far country, Mr. and Mrs. Olson kept praying for their son.

One night the phone rang; it was Dave.  He’d had enough of the good life that really wasn’t very good; Dave was somewhere in the Midwest, hitch-hiking towards home.  He needed to know if it was alright to come all the way.  Dave and my former pastor cried together and prayed together on the phone and made plans for the reunion.  Their prayers had been answered.

But, somewhere on the long road home, something happened, and the phone rang again.  This time it was the police; Dave’s body had been found in a ditch beside the highway.  He’d been beaten, robbed and left for dead.  Dave, the blond haired, blue-eyed twenty-something sensitive son of a preacher never made it home…at least to his earthly father’s embrace.

I never heard whether they found out exactly what happened, or whether Dave’s murderer was held accountable.  It’s just a fact of life that sometimes there is no such thing as closure; it is only faith that God holds all things in His trustworthy hands, and Dave, having given his life to his Redeemer, did make it to his eternal home with Jesus. 

For now, that is enough.

For You Today

You may have never lived in a parsonage, but you have dealt with pain.  For followers of Jesus Christ, it is our chief blessing that we do not have to shoulder it alone!

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

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[i] Title Image:  via Pixabay.com

[ii] This true story is based on my recollections and a recorded program of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family

Job's Story - From Hero to Zero (and Back)

[1]

Thursday, January 3, 2019

To rightly understand the lessons of Job’s life we must consider both the height of his ease as well as the depth of his trouble.  As his story opens, we have the good times:

There once was a man named Job who lived in the land of Uz.  He was blameless—a man of complete integrity.  He feared God and stayed away from evil.  He had seven sons and three daughters.  He owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 teams of oxen, and 500 female donkeys.  He also had many servants.  He was, in fact, the richest person in that entire area.  Job 1:1-3(NLT)

Job was a rich man, but also righteous (not perfect, but always remembering God was God, and Job was not).  The Accuser, Satan, wanted Job…for lunch:

One day the members of the heavenly court came to present themselves before the Lord, and the Accuser, Satan, came with them.  “Where have you come from?” the Lord asked Satan.  Satan answered the Lord, “I have been patrolling the earth, watching everything that’s going on.”  Then the Lord asked Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job?  He is the finest man in all the earth.  He is blameless—a man of complete integrity.  He fears God and stays away from evil.”  Satan replied to the Lord, “Yes, but Job has good reason to fear God.  You have always put a wall of protection around him and his home and his property.  You have made him prosper in everything he does.  Look how rich he is!  But reach out and take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!”  “All right, you may test him,” the Lord said to Satan.  “Do whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don’t harm him physically.”  So Satan left the Lord’s presence.  Job 1:6-12(NLT)

The story continues with Job’s children dying in a freak accident, his health, possessions and position in the community being taken from him, and his wife giving up, counselling Job to just curse God and die.  The man went from hero to zero in 25 verses; he’d been the richest, most respected man in the region, enjoying the ease of the good life to a childless beggar, sitting in the misery of dust and ashes, nursing the boils that covered his body, and enduring the snarky harping of his less-than-pleased wife.

The next forty chapters of Job’s story are the meat of humans (Job and his three friends) trying to figure out why bad things happen to good people.  Or, if Job wasn’t a good person underneath, and his life was all a sham, a pretention to Godliness, what, exactly, had this sufferer done to tick God off that bad?

Fast-forwarding to the end of the story, we find God speaking to interrupt heaven’s silence in light of Job and his friend’s questions.  God answers Job with a hard challenge:  Job, if you have it figured out, YOU instruct me; you tell ME how this should end.  And to Job’s credit, he knew when it was time to shut his mouth.  He listened, waited, and kept obedient through the storm of his death valley, and God did what God does – He gave Job a lesson more valuable than his previous riches.  God taught him to look outside the feeling in his gut, to the troubles others face:

When Job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes.  In fact, the Lord gave him twice as much as before!  Then all his brothers, sisters, and former friends came and feasted with him in his home.  And they consoled him and comforted him because of all the trials the Lord had brought against him.  And each of them brought him a gift of money and a gold ring.  So the Lord blessed Job in the second half of his life even more than in the beginning.  Job 42:10-12(NLT)

Job learned that the response to tragedy and adversity is trusting God.  Truth be told, Satan understood human nature, and went right for the jugular in pushing all the buttons connected to Job’s trust in God.  He knew that this rich man’s dream life hadn’t been tested with a choice between his wealth and his Creator.  Satan had it figured out that the temptation to sell-out for a few pieces of silver can overcome a shaky faith.  After all, Adam and Eve had caved for just a single bite of what God had and they didn’t!

The one thing Satan never figured out (and perhaps still hasn’t) is that God will allow tests of our strength.  He will at times even allow the beating, bruising, battering ordeal of crosses and tombs.  Every bit of it must pass under the scrutiny of a sovereign God!  Our ever-present question, WHY? Is never answered until, in hindsight, and in trust, we see the marks of God’s guiding presence in what we’ve been through. 

For You Today

God’s purposes are our blessing, and they are rarely understood in the ease of being on top of the heap; sometimes it’s got to fall on us to do any good!

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

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[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com

Broken Pieces

[1]

Friday, May 18, 2018

The Lord looks down from heaven and sees the whole human race.  From his throne he observes all who live on the earth.  He made their hearts, so he understands everything they do.  Psalm 33:12-15^(NLT)

A fellow Pastor wrote a post on Facebook yesterday that got my attention.  He shared a recent experience of noticing the individual “broken” pieces of glass in a church window.  It is true that God takes our broken pieces and makes of our shattered lives a picture we could never have imagined.  Truthfully, when I think of this in the context of my own circumstances there are so many applications it is difficult to choose any one direction in which to reflect:

·      Do I think about the brokenness of my past, present, or future?

·      Shall I focus on my ground-level view, or God’s aerial panorama?

·      Do I think in terms of the constant battle between good and evil?

·      Dare I even mention the brokenness of churches caught in scandal, nepotism, individualism, heresy, and the like?

·      Can I view the montage of crushed shards of families, government, plans, dreams, bullet-ridden schools, and all the other devastation in life that forms our ground-zeroes?

There are certainly a lot of broken pieces in human experience.  And yet, in the hands of a master artisan, they form such interesting and beautiful finished works.  It is always amazing to me that God fashions the greatest blessings out of our most excruciating moments. 

As C.S. Lewis reminds us, God whispers to us in our joy, and shouts to us in our pain.  And, if there is such a connection between our pain and the Master’s paint brush, perhaps we can use my colleague’s imagery with “broken glass windows” to stretch the metaphor a little farther down the road.

What if the broken stuff isn’t random at all?

Seriously; what if there’s a plan to all our pain?  What if God actually planned it that way?  Wait a minute, here, Russell; you’re getting weird on me…how could a loving God inflict pain on those He loves?

Well, consider the broken pieces of that stained glass window; are they random?  Not if you ask my bride.  She spent many hours crafting stained glass projects, and, although she doesn’t have the artistry of God, every piece she placed in a window or frame was cut with skill and design to fit into the picture; better, to create the picture that was in her mind.  She planned those cuts, scored the glass, and purposefully “broke” them to suit her plan.

Now, there may be holes in my thinking here, and I’d love for anyone to straighten me out if you see a cloud in all this.  But, I’m thinking God not only uses our pain, struggles, and sinfulness to create a stronger “us” – I’m willing to at least entertain the thought that sometimes He plans it that way. 

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.  Romans 8:28^(NLT)

Now for just one more little stretch on this thought – God did that for His own Son too! 

·      The cross, more painful than anything we’ve ever known…

·      The sins of the world, more stressful and shameful than our divorces, betrayals, and killings…

·      Three days in a borrowed grave, the reputation of an executed criminal…

Tell me God didn’t plan that!

For You Today

Whatever brokenness you’ve got going on, or the painful memory of some sharp, shattered hope that never quite worked-out, or the devastation of a clear window to the future that now lies in a gazillion pieces on the floor of God’s workshop…remember, He’s got this; and He’s up to something beautiful in your day.

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

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy Pixabay.com

When Life Gets Broken

[1]

Thursday, December 28, 2017

This is what the Lord says:  “A cry is heard in Ramah—deep anguish and bitter weeping.  Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted—for her children are gone.”  But now this is what the Lord says:  “Do not weep any longer, for I will reward you,” says the Lord.  “Your children will come back to you from the distant land of the enemy.  There is hope for your future,” says the Lord.  “Your children will come again to their own land.  Jeremiah 31:15-17^(NLT)

Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him.  He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance.  Herod’s brutal action fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:  “A cry was heard in Ramah—weeping and great mourning.  Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead.”  Matthew 2:16-18^(NLT)

Through Jeremiah God foretold the wickedness of King Herod trying to eliminate the threat of a child who might grow up to replace him.  In one monstrous, terrifying night of genocide he had all the male children less than two years old killed.  A night of weeping is bad; a generation of sadness of that magnitude is life broken beyond measure.

I have been (too often) with a group of people gripped by sadness over one of life’s twists – a child’s death, or a loved spouse taken too soon...news of tragedy from a distance where no hug is possible.  And we have heard these words offered as a sincere, well-meaning attempt to make sense of the darkness:  God won’t put any more on you than you can bear.

I have an idea that if you offered that to the mothers of Ramah that night it would have brought little comfort.  Their pain was too deep; a clichéd you can do this is just too hollow and shallow…just not enough.  Somehow philosophical or theological whistling in the dark just cannot blunt the pain of loss beyond imagination. 

Telling someone she is strong enough to bear the unbearable, because God has given her faith, is not comforting – it merely lays another burden on an already broken life.  And it is that life, grappling with the loss over the following weeks, months, perhaps decades, which will learn to receive the comfort we long-for, but can’t imagine, exists.  As with cooking a meal, stirring a pot faster doesn’t get supper on the table any sooner.  Pain takes time to simmer.

A word to the wise:  If you would be a caregiver, let it simmer; just be there to hold whatever needs holding.

For You Today

Today I’d like for Dr. Mitch Chase to have the last word:

Trials come in all shapes and sizes, but they don’t come to show how much we can take or how we have it all together.  Overwhelming suffering will come our way because we live in a broken world with broken people.  And when it comes, let’s be clear ahead of time that we don’t have what it takes.  God will give us more than we can handle—but not more than he can.[2]

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

[2] Mitch Chase in God Will Give You More Than You Can Handle