On journals and prayer and the hidden hand of God

I've been encouraged to write more lately. I don't think hardly any people read this blog, but that's okay.

Late November I ended a journal. I love my journals--they let me peer back into my life, and having been a history major, I guess I really like that.

In late April, when I began the journal, I started with an entry on prayer. My goal was to become a more consistent pray-er by the time the journal ended.

Seven months later (eight now), and nothing has changed in that department.

Wow. You don't realize how long your prayer life has been suffering until you look back at a date in a journal.

"As I sat listening I saw plainly that it was true the Lisu church was born in prayer travail, and I decided that I must also employ this weapon of 'all-prayer.' It is so obviously effective and is attainable to any of us. I recieved a life-pattern at that moment for which I have ever been grateful."

--Isobel Kuhn, By Searching

 

I haven't grown in prayer. But I still believe in the power of God to answer our prayers. The other week I was frustrated and prayed for something to happen that night. It did, and I was blown away at God's answer. And wondered that I don't pray more.

 

But anyway, something that I HAVE seen in the last 7-8 months is more puzzling, more personal to how God has chosen to work in my life in this/that season.

 

I have been able to see God working in me apart from me.

 

I have seen Him work in me, increasing my trust and faith, for example, without any help from me.

 

Personally, I don't think this is His normative way. I think His normative way is to work in us as we seek Him and spend time with Him.

 

But graciously, He hasn't led me through a dry spell these last several months where one feels alone and without direction.

 

Instead He's led me through a winter spell. Where the growth of a seed is working beneath the surface even if the outside looks barren.

 

And I thank the Lord for His mercy. Because it is nothing that I have done. And that answer to prayer the other week? It was not because I had earned it, because I hadn't. I have been neglectful and self-full. It is wrong. But God has been so gracious to me, and for that I am very grateful.

 

If we are faithless,

He remains faithful;

He cannot deny Himself.

2 Timothy 2:13

 

 

P.S. You know, if He has been gracious to me in that, then He will be gracious to me in other areas of my life that I can see. And usually I don't think there is anything outside of God's power to do, but today I unearthed one area that I really do think cannot be changed, no matter how much prayer. What then? Pray believing. Because while God may not choose to do a miracle, I have every evidence in the world that He is able. Pray, believing not He will do a miracle, but pray believing for this instance what I believe to be true in every other instance, that my God does amazing, absolutely outside of our power things.

Thoughts on the current cultural ecclesiastical trend

Disclaimer: This may just be an emotional vent because I don't like when others change and I don't want to. Or it may just be a vent based on the truth of observation and what I believe. Use your own judgment. Oh yes, I said the word "judgment." I expect you to judge for yourself if what I say is beneficial or way off. And I will have to continue to re-examine my own position as time moves on.

Christianity is being examined and redefined. (So is marriage interestingly enough.)

The surgeon's knife is being brought down between Bible and culture.

Traditions are being re-examined.

Assumptions re-examined.

It is almost as if the Church has finally caught up with the '60s and everything is turned on its head and the battle cry is peace and love.

~*~

Thinking, logic, reason, analysis. Amazingly important. Is there a time for traditions without any current meaning to be looked at again? Yes. Because traditions without any current meaning could be just meaningless appendages on a growing organism.

Then what is my problem?

I am feeling a lust for change.

I am feeling a bandwagon mentality--let's all jump on it together!

I am feeling that the new course has been set and it's no longer about understanding what's Scriptural and what's merely cultural. Instead it's about seeing how much present-day culture we can pour into the church and say that it's not culture but Biblical.

Grace is the Churchese translation of tolerance.

Love is the Churchese translation of "don't worry, be happy."

Relationship with God is the Churchese translation of I don't want any pressure.

~*~

My question: Are we really getting back to the Bible or are we just remaking the church in the image of our present culture? If we are really getting back to the Bible, then don't let me stand in the way.

But if we are remaking the church in the image of our culture, do I have to like it?
No, because everyone has their own culture and that's okay.
It's OKAY if a church is influenced by the culture it's in.

Funny though. Churches are striving to be culturally relevant. It's not a passive issue--the culture seeping into the culture. Churches are actually actively going out and trying to bring the culture into the church.

Doesn't that just sound odd?

Not bad, per se, just odd.

I thought the whole point was to get back to the Bible.

And now you're trying to get back to the culture?

Or maybe, more accurately, we're just trying to annihilate any traditions, assumptions, etc. that have been passed down to us from generations of believers before us that might be an offense to our culture.

But you know what? That's our history. That's our family. A couple thousand years of church history, thousands upon thousands of Biblical history--that's our history.

Yeah, mindsets might need to be updated. Heaven forbid that I should feel irreverential if I go to church without wearing highheels and a hat. But...argh...how does one say it?

In the process of revamping, can we just remember that the church has value to us?

In the process of weeding out misconceptions and whatever else isn't popular, in the process of bringing in modern life so we are culturally relevant and can reach the unchurched, can we just remember that it is ALL about Scripture and God and that it is NOT all about altering the structure of the church institution?

The point is not diversity.

The point is not cultural relevancy.

The point is not being missional.

The point is not being purpose-driven.

The point is not heralding back to Augustine or Martin Luther or John Calvin or Irenaeus or Tertullian.

The point is not getting on the bandwagon of tradition or the bandwagon of nontradition.

The point is the Truth. That's the point. That's what we live and breathe for.
It's simple.
And it's timeless.
And it's worked through all times and all cultures.

P.S.
I saw myself in this post: http://narrowpathstohigherplaces.com/what-you-see-is-what-you-get/ "No church was safe from criticism."

My Wonderful, Manly God

I understand that God is spirit, but how anyone could read Isaiah and then put God in the form of a woman, whether hypothetically or in a novel, is beyond comprehension.

"Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; and His own righteousness, it sustained Him." (Is. 59:15-16)

Doesn't this sound like some medeival knight/rugged cowboy who comes to his home town, sees that evil is rampant, is surprised that no one is doing anything about it, and so decides to take on the whole evil system himself? ♥

Jeremiah 1

Jeremiah chapter 1 is like a guy chapter.

Background: Jeremiah first hears from the Lord during the reign of Josiah. Josiah was one of the last of the kings of Judah (Israel by this time had been scattered by Assyria). Josiah finds the law of God during some temple repair, reads it, and tears his clothes in mourning. "Go, inquire of the LORD for me," he tells his servants, "for great is the wrath of the LORD that is aroused against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book" (2 Ki. 22:13). So his servants go and inquire, and the word comes back that Josiah is too late. Israel's sin has gone on too long. Basically, the hammer started falling before Josiah came on the scene, and although God will spare Josiah, the hammer still must fall.

So here is Jeremiah, who describes himself as a "youth" (I don't know if this means teens, 20s, or anything under presedential eligibility). God comes to him, and the first thing Jeremiah records God saying to him is:

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you

Whoah. God zooms down, out of all the people in the world, and before Jeremiah was a crying baby, God had his focus on Jeremiah. Wait. No, it's even more extreme: before Jeremiah was even a blip on a sonogram, God knew him...! I cannot comprehend that. But that's what God says.

Before you were born I sanctified you (set you apart)

 

Again, wow.

 

I ordained you a prophet to the nations.

 

Nothing like destiny, eh?

 

But I am a youth! says Jeremiah. Don't say that, says God, because I will lead you, and you will say what I command you. Don't be afraid. I am with you to deliver you. (*including when you are left in a pit*)

 

Then God tells him what his task as prophet is going to be. And is it a man-sized job or what?!

 

See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms,

To root out and to pull down,

To destroy and to throw down,

To build and to plant.

 

Yowzers! Here's this young guy. God tells him, I've had my eye on you since before you were born. You are my prophet. I will send you, I will tell you what to say, don't be afraid, I'm with you. Now, your life's task, starting now as a young guy, is to prophecy over full-fledged nations and to root out, pull down, destroy, throw down, build, and plant.

 

No wimpy job for Jeremiah. No starting nice and easy.

 

So prepare yourself, Jeremiah. Is there a back door he can slink through right now? God lays it on the line:

 

Do not be dismayed before their faces,

Lest I dismay you before them.

 

It's all or nothing. It is time to man up and trust God completely.

 

(Funny, isn't it, how the Bible's definition of strength and wisdom and "manning-up" is to depend fully on God? But that's truth for ya!)

 

God then gives Jeremiah some strong backing. He says he's made Jeremiah:

 

-a fortified city

-an iron pillar, and

-bronze walls against the whole land

 

And then the last send-off before Jeremiah starts his work. I've never seen Braveheart, but this seems like a Braveheart moment:

 

"They will fight against you,

But they shall not prevail against you.

For I am with you," says the LORD, "to deliver you."

 

And that's it. Jeremiah has received his call. His destiny. His task. His life's job. His empowerment (totally God and God alone). And he's off to take on nations!

 

It's like the beginning of an adventure movie. Only, like romantic weddings that segway into the trenches of marriage, Jeremiah's commission would lead him into the life of the mourning prophet.







Living

Last year I taught 1st grade Bible at a Christian school to a small handful of 1st and 2nd graders. The curriculum started with creation, moved through Genesis, skipped to the 12 spies, and then skipped to Saul (or something like that).

Being me, I couldn't stick with the curriculum.

Instead of just telling stories, we read through much of Genesis. Then we skipped along the surface of Numbers and Deuteronomy, dipped in for Joshua, and PLUNGED in for Judges. After all, I had boys in this class. And what's more exciting to a boy then reading the book of Judges? Especially the left handed swordsman and the guts coming out. :-P By that time we were behind (no, really?), so I was only able to touch Samuel, Saul, David, Solomon, and Rehoboam before having to pull out and go to the New.

But since I had started reading and really THINKING about what I was reading so that I could read and explain and dramatize it for the kids, since I had started with creation and had worked my way up, and since I didn't get to spend hardly ANY time on David (which was just a shame), I decided to spend some time in Kings and Chronicles in my personal devotions over the summer.

It was such a blessing!

And now I've been reading Isaiah, with the full background of the time in which he was writing and the time preceding then. I repeat, a blessing!

I no longer teach at that school, but if there was only one thing I gleaned from that year (and of course there is much more than one) I know I gained a lot from teaching Bible to those kids. Because I actually had to think about what I was reading. I had to make it come alive to the kids, and in the process, the Bible came alive to me!

There is something to be said for reading the Bible chronologically and understanding the history. You start to see a pattern of who God is through how He interacts with His people.

You can tell we're created in God's image. We are feeling beings. We change. We feel frustration and imploring and anger and vicious love that will do anything to protect those we love and resignation and joy. We reason, we make statements, we beg, we pronounce, we promise, we talk. SO DOES GOD. God is so much higher of course. He is authority. And He can keep His promises without fear of circumstances subverting intentions. He does not beg because He's powerless like we sometimes do but because He cares and wants a heart response. More like wooing. He is sovereign and can decide fate. And He is perfectly just, which we aren't. He's consistently loving and faithful. It is in His nature to be faithful.

In our terms, He's a person. In His terms, we are in God's image. (On a finite, created level, and now imperfect/corrupted level.)

God is ridiculously faithful.

And human beings are ridiculously unfaithful.