The Return of Joy

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

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love.  Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins.  Wash me clean from my guilt.  Purify me from my sin.  For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night.  Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight.  You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just.  For I was born a sinner—yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.  But you desire honesty from the womb, teaching me wisdom even there.  Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.  Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me—now let me rejoice.  Don’t keep looking at my sins.  Remove the stain of my guilt.  Create in me a clean heart, O God.  Renew a loyal spirit within me.  Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.  Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you.  Then I will teach your ways to rebels, and they will return to you.  Forgive me for shedding blood, O God who saves; then I will joyfully sing of your forgiveness.  Unseal my lips, O Lord, that my mouth may praise you.  You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one.  You do not want a burnt offering.  The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.  You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.  Psalm 51:1-17[1]

Twice in this Psalm David prays for joy to return.  The first joy is personal, the relief from his pain of living in rebellion against God’s will and commandments.  The second is a desire for the return of the joy of participating in God’s salvation, that freeing experience of being able to proclaim loudly for the sake of others how everything the heart craves is bursting his insides with light, love and peace.  For anyone who has ever confessed to God, there is no adequate explanation for this sense of joy – both personal and communal.

When David prays for a clean heart, he’s looking for that assurance of God’s acceptance; he’s looking for a miracle.  The miracle of God’s forgiveness would be like having a stage four metastatic cancerous tumor suddenly disappear.  David knew the Scriptures.  He knew of Cain’s sin, and how it was too great to bear; he knew how sin eats a person alive from the inside out.  That was his tumor, and only the joy that accompanies God’s forgiveness could reach that far.

For You Today

Are you still having a difficult time thinking your sin is that one God can’t forgive?  Was it as horrible as David’s?  David, who was the sweet, God-loving, God-trusting shepherd boy who became king, who became a sexual predator, who became an adulterer, who became a conspiring murderer, and coverup expert?

This Psalm was the prayer of one who was in a position to understand the night and day difference the rescue of God’s forgiveness makes to those who are broken, but still believe.  Let’s hear David’s final word in his prayer of confession:

Unseal my lips, O Lord, that my mouth may praise you.  The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.  You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God. 

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

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[1] For other posts on Psalm 51 predicament see Repentance  and Lenten Walk #21 and The Face of Rebellion   

Radiation Retrospect - Part 3

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Tuesday, September 19, 2017

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

Yesterday we considered the issue of collateral damage.  In the case of my radiation treatment, there is the fact that some healthy tissue was sacrificed as collateral damage.  This was necessary so as to make sure the doctor got the entire cancer tumor in my throat.  It’s a small price to pay in order to continue living.

We see Jesus’ version of this idea in Mark’s Gospel as he employs the collateral damage concept of sacrificing the physical body part (representing our natural desire to sin) in favor of the real target for humanity:  restored relationship with God for eternity:

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one hand than to go into the unquenchable fires of hell with two hands.  Mark 9:43-44^(NLT)

This makes perfect sense in many ways.

·       Diet – say “no” to the éclair; avoid all those despicable me thoughts later

·       Driving – there’s a bunny on the left and a human on the right; you choose to run over the bunny rather than the person

·       Your buddy wants you to play golf, but you’d miss your son’s birthday party…

We call it doing the right thing, this collateral damage stuff.  And it’s pretty easy to recognize, but there is always a cost.

My question this morning is:  Are WE in the crosshairs of God’s collateral damage? 

Is it ever a reality that God gets pushed into some cosmic corner with all that goes on, so that, in order to accomplish His divine will God must do harm to an innocent person, in order to bring about the most good for the largest number of people?  Does God ever employ the end justifies the means in His conduct of the universe?   

In order to answer that question you’ve got to make a decision about the character and ability of God as opposed to the character and worth of humans. 

If God is utilitarian – just the God who gets things done like a business person working the art of the deal – then collateral damage is just an acceptable cost of doing business.  A deeper question would then be:  how can a God who claims to know/love us infinitely, and care for us immeasurably, be so cold?  Is He a business man doing a deal, and some of us are just collateral damage?  Or is He the God who is love?

But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.  1 John 4:8^(NLT)

Sometimes, when it seems like you are the collateral damage in God’s plan to save someone else, the question of God’s love may come into view.  You begin to pit all the good stuff you’ve ever done against this unjust suffering you must go through.  And you begin to ask/whine the why me question…almost as a demand that God step up with a justification for not keeping up His end of the bargain.

Where was God when your marriage ended, or your child died?  Where was God when bankruptcy was the only option left?  Where was God when your world crashed-down around you?  Where was the loving God then?  That’s the question of the sufferer. 

And then that cross thing shows up again to answer our question:  Where was God? 

·       He was in the same place He was that Friday afternoon when His child died. 

·       He was in the same place when His bride left home. 

·       He was in the same place when His prodigals woke up in the far country’s pigpen, having spent their inheritance. 

His heart was busy being broken as the collateral damage for all our sinful choices. 

For You Today

If God really is love, and His Word really is true, then we are the target of that love…and you can never be collateral when you’re right in the center of the target!

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

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

Radiation Retrospect - Part 2

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Monday, September 18, 2017

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

We are wading through the idea of submitting to God’s power, voluntarily giving the Lord control over who we are, what we do and say, even inviting Him to change what and how we think.

In Part 1 we introduced Wilson, the mask-warden that kept me in place while the power of radiation attacked the cancer in my throat.  Like the tree of knowledge of good and evil in Eden, that powerful radiation is neither good nor evil until it is pointed at something.  It is in the mind of the one who points the force that either healing or destroying is born.  This brings us to the next issue of collateral damage.

Now, nearly a week after the radiation is done, my throat (inside and outside) is raw and peeling off bits of burned flesh.  My oncologist explained that the target for his machine included not only the cancerous tumor, but most of the voice box area.  While that powerful machine was healing me it was also destroying some of the surrounding tissue to make sure they got everything.  The innocent, healthy tissue was collateral damage.  This immediately reminds me of Jesus’ warning about the collateral thinking of surgery:

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one hand than to go into the unquenchable fires of hell with two hands.  Mark 9:43-44^(NLT)

I get it about the priority of going to heaven over hell.  I also draw the parallel between cutting out a tumor that, if unchecked, could send me to one of those places a lot sooner than necessary.  But I also know that surgically removing a hand will cause my entire body to ache, just as my body is now sympathizing with my throat’s trauma.

So here’s the point:  that radiation beam will destroy whatever’s in its path.  And if we’re comparing that raw power of the divided atom to the power of God…and we’re suggesting we open ourselves willingly to God applying that power to destroy or heal, there’s almost a 100% certainty that sometimes there will be the pain of collateral damage; THAT takes a lot of trust!

Consider the statement of Jesus when he was describing for his disciples the effect his presence and power in our lives would have:

‘Father will be divided against son and son against father; mother against daughter and daughter against mother; and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’”  Luke 12:53^(NLT)

For the past two months I’ve willingly driven to the cancer center in High Point, climbed onto a cold slab, much like the morgue’s exam table (it’s even in the hospital basement), allowed a team of techs to pin me to that table, and aim harnessed lightning at my throat.  The effect has caused an incredible uproar of complaining in my whole body because of the decision my brain and throat made.  My joints ache; my voice is kaput; I can hardly swallow, and the fatigue makes me drag myself around like a snail crossing the Grand Canyon.  This is the collateral damage of radiation.

And yet, I chose to do it!

Why I made that choice is profoundly simple.  The tumor that grew in my body over a period of years was a threat to the whole body; it was a threat to life.  My body is a conglomeration which includes soul and spirit.  An attack on the vocal cords is an attack on all of Russell.  So my whole body had to participate in the effects of healing.  The joints said “yes” and the throat said “go for it” and all the muscles that can barely drag this carcass from the bedroom to the couch whined:  “If it’s gotta be, get on with it!”

For You Today

When it comes to sin in our lives, and what to do about life and eternity, the effect of what God will do when you submit your body, soul, and spirit to His power will seem like an awful lot of collateral damage sometimes. 

It’s a small price for an eternity in glory!

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

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

Radiation Retrospect - Part 1

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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!

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