With Ears Like That...

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.  I will advise you and watch over you.  Do not be like a senseless horse or mule that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control.”  Psalm 32:8-9

God made us different from the rest of sentient beings (fish, animals, and plants). God gave humans consciousness (awareness) of meaning and the importance of intrapersonal connection.  More than merely an affiliation with our own species, God gave us an innate sense of the purpose and worth of each other’s existence, as well as the sacredness of all creation.  And on top of that gift God placed a requirement that we use all that awareness better than a stubborn mule. 

We humans are a particularly strange lot, especially in our lack of intelligent choices.  One would imagine humans possessing sensory understanding, or (if you wish) ears like a mule , humanity might pay better attention to our Creator’s instructions.  That is so strange, considering God has given us a promise (as the Psalmist clearly stated) of guidance to the pathway of a better life.  And it has been so from the opening gun.  Adam and Eve were told not to dine on one particular tree…that lasted a half-second.  Cain and Abel were told what to bring for a worship offering.  Cain completely ignored God’s instructions, got angry with jealousy, and killed his brother for spite.  If you’ve ever had the responsibility of a parent, to make important choices for your child, you know first-hand what that child will do when you say clearly, authoritatively, and lovingly:  Child, don’t go near that road.  In the next heartbeat he or she will be dancing on the pavement!

We have ears to listen and, generally, turn them to a deaf side.

Occasionally, however, there is a revival of God’s Spirit, like the one currently in progress at Asbury University.  

By many social media accounts and news outlets, it isn’t a wild jumping-over-the-pews, shouting goofiness.  Rather, its calm sitting in His presence, praying for each other, boldly trusting that waiting before God for His next word is more important than classes, jobs, spreadsheets, schedules, or anything else in which we dabble-away our time.  It is joy without giddy foolishness.  It’s healing of the spirit, building of the spirit, and connection with God’s family.  It is, frankly, koinonia, the common Greek word used in the New Testament to describe how the real church acts when they truly listen to God’s voice.  It is the combined atmosphere of community, communion, sharing, and deeply-held intimacy.[1]  This is the spiritual garden where God’s Holy Spirit produces excellent fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control[2].

For You Today 

The spiritual fruit of revival begins in the church, when God’s people, who have surrendered Lordship to Jesus Christ, promising to walk in the Spirit, nail their sinful desires to the cross, and invite the transforming power Jesus offers, to change their deaf ears to deeply-listening ears.  And with ears like that…there’s no telling what good Christ will produce in your life!

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: 

Oh! What Joy  and  The Problem With Pharisees      

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^©  

---

[1] For more understanding read κοινωνία in Wikimedia.com

[2] See Galatians 5:22-25

Radiation Retrospect - Part 1

[1]

Friday, September 15, 2017

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God.  Mark 11:22^(NLT)

Wilson is what I named him, that device the firing squad used to pin me down to the radiation table every weekday for the past seven weeks.  

It was made to fit this preacher precisely, so the target (my vocal cords) would be in the same place every time they turned on what I affectionately call the BBQ beams.

The radiation treatments finished on Tuesday, so now Wilson sits in the corner of my study, indifferent to the pain he inflicted upon me…or the usefulness he brought in this whole drama of fighting the tumor in my throat.  Rest, Wilson…I mean it…stay put!

When this dance with radiation began I knew I would have to revisit the meaning of Wilson’s relationship with my physical health once the course of treatment was accomplished.  And, because this Rocky Road Devotional is what comes out of my unscripted devotional life, I knew you’d have to read about it.  Sorry!  But maybe not!

I’ve had many thoughts about the meaning of oncological treatment these past weeks, while pinned under Wilson’s embrace.  Lying helplessly on a cold slab, mashed by a mesh mask, perfectly still, unable to speak (or scream), under a two ton machine with atomic power focused on the most vulnerable underside of your neck will make you think of your mortality and the big why question. 

Wilson and the split atom have helped me think of radiation as a metaphor for submitting to the power of God.  So over the next several days I’d like for us to think about some of the basics of our faith in God’s power. 

Radiation is powerful stuff.  Each time the tech team put Wilson over my face, snapped the clasps to the table, and gave me a reassuring pat on the arm…they then ran out of the room before the switch was flipped.  I don’t blame them…when that machine started whirring I wanted to run also! 

I mused quite often on the word radiation; visions of the victims at Hiroshima and Nagasaki played in my mind’s theater; there were burning flesh and crippled lives.  I had to keep reminding myself that the singular beam of radiation had a singular aim of killing the cancerous tumor, not all of Russell’s body.  This was a good thing…the tumor was an evil force within, and the machine possessed a powerful force directed with skill towards that evil.  That beam was my big brother come to rescue me from a peril. 

In such moments of awareness I mused that all of God’s creation works like that.  Consider the tree of knowledge of good and evil placed in Eden.  God told the couple to stay clear of that one.  It held such power as to run the universe, but it also held the key to understanding evil.  Like a radiation beam, knowledge can focus on doing good, like destroying cancer or bringing a smile to a child’s face.  In the hands of evil or ignorance it can indiscriminately destroy everything in its path, like an army’s plans for attack which has been carelessly or purposefully leaked to the enemy.

Knowledge by itself is neither good nor evil; it’s like the facts written in a book.  Rather, it is how knowledge is used that makes all the difference. 

Adam and Eve were not ready for the knowledge of good and evil.  They should have had faith in God and kept their cotton-pickin’ hands off that tree!

For You Today

It’s a good thing to have as part of your daily/hourly prayer:  Lord, keep me mindful of the power of knowledge to destroy or build up; give me wisdom to choose wisely.

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

---

[1] Title Image: Russell Brownworth (own work)