Songs in the Night

 

There are seasons in life when circumstances overwhelm us, exhaust us, and leave us grasping for hope.  In those times temptation stalks us– perhaps to work harder using activity to numb the inner pain; perhaps with the choice to engage in destructive behavior.  Christians might choose to become hyper-religious, hiding their true emotions in churchy cliches. What I know for certain is that despair is fertile soil for weeds like rage, stupidity, and short-sighted decisions!  We are not helpless victims, however.

I love the stories of David, who in spite of the promises of God, knew real hardship. After Samuel anointed him as the next king of Israel his fame grew in the nation and he became a hero to thousands. This provoked a  jealous rage in King Saul that literally drove him to insanity. Saul pursued David, seeking to kill him. As a result he existed on the fringe of society, attracting men of dubious distinction who formed a quasi-military force serving as private security at the kingdom’s frontiers.

For a time, David and his men moved to the neighboring region of Philistia and served in the employ of the king of the region. They were sent out as raiders and kept a portion of what they found as their pay. One of the saddest episodes of his life came during one of their campaigns.

Amalekites raided the village of Ziglag, where the wives and children of David and his men were living. Let’s pick up the story from the Bible. "When (they) saw the ruins and realized what had happened to their families, they wept until they could weep no more. David’s two wives, Ahinoam from Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal from Carmel, were among those captured. David was now in great danger because all his men were very bitter about losing their sons and daughters, and they began to talk of stoning him.” (1 Samuel 30:3-7, NLT)

With the smoking ruins of Ziglag in front of him, his wives gone, and the accusatory shouts of his men raining down on him, despair crashed down on David. Where was God? Why was all this happening?  There is a powerful statement about what he did next -  “David found strength in the Lord his God.”  He did not get drunk! He did not rage at the world. He didn’t look for someone to blame. He stepped away from the noisy shouts of his enraged men and looked to Heaven. It is not hard to imagine him taking his harp and finding a place alone outside of town, where he sang to God and asked for both help and wisdom. (David and his men did recover their families and their treasure several days later!)

In the Psalms we read David’s songs. They are rich with emotion, including high moments of victory and low places of failure, times of uncertainty, doubt, and fear along with bold proclamations of the goodness of the Lord. They show us the real dimensions of faith which reaches the complete range of our humanity. Who among us has not prayed as he did- "O Lord, how long will you look on? Rescue my life from their ravages, my precious life from these lions." (Psalm 35:17, NIV)  "You know what I long for, Lord; you hear my every sigh. My heart beats wildly, my strength fails, and I am going blind." (Psalm 38:9-10, NLT)

Then, too, there are the songs of faith’s assurance. "I cried out to the Lord in my suffering, and he heard me. He set me free from all my fears. For the angel of the Lord guards all who fear him, and he rescues them. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who trust in him!" (Psalm 34:6-8, NLT)

Has a season of darkness enveloped you?  Does the noise of the world rob you of peace? Is some personal disappointment or failure haunting your thoughts?

Take a lesson from David - “David found strength in the Lord his God.” 

A personal spiritual retreat reveals both faith and wisdom.
Job, whose story of brokenness leaves us horrified, came to the end of himself
and looked up to God in worship.
Jesus was led to the wilderness and there found himself subjected to intense temptation. His choice?
To speak the wisdom of God, the truth of the Psalms.
Paul, in spite great sacrifice, was rejected and criticized.  At a low point, beaten and chained to a wall in the jail of Philippi, he turned to God in worship, singing songs in the night, and God rocked his world. (see Acts 16) 

May God, the Spirit of Peace, teach how to walk David’s way and “find strength in the Lord!”

Our word from the Word is full of hope. May the Spirit whisper these words to the deepest part of our soul.

"Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act.
Don’t worry about evil people who prosper or fret about their wicked schemes. …
The steps of the godly are directed by the Lord. He delights in every detail of their lives.
Though they stumble, they will not fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand." (Psalm 37:7, 23-24, NLT)

(Video of this blog at this link)
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Precious Lord

Precious Lord, take my hand,
Lead me on, let me stand,
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn;
Through the storm, through the night,
Lead me on to the light:
Take my hand, precious Lord,
Lead me home.

When the darkness appears
And the night draws near,
And the day is past and gone,
At the river I stand,
Guide my feet, hold my hand:
Take my hand, precious Lord,
Lead me home.

-      Tommy Dorsey, 1932

written after his wife died in childbirth

Mystery and Wonder

 

My Christian heritage is Pentecostal, meaning that I was trained to understand the world as a place where God, the Holy Spirit, is actively involved, where miracles can happen, where God is not just the Mystery behind the altar, but the Person in my heart! And, I am glad for that.  To be sure, in my lifetime I have witnessed some very strange things done ‘in the Name of God’ by people claiming to be filled with the ecstasy of the Spirit and I am quite sure they really needed to find stability and perhaps some care for mental health issues. I hasten to add that I have also seen God do the miraculous, known His Presence powerfully in ways that touch the deepest parts of my being. My lifetime of service to His Church resulted from a divine encounter in a little Pentecostal church in the Summer of 1971 that has no earthly explanation; as I was ‘called’ to vocational ministry.

I ponder the decline of the American church often, troubled in heart that the majority of this generation has left. There are many reasons we might explore, no single thread that unravels the knot. I am convinced that one of the reasons is the loss of the sense of the Presence of God, that we have tamed God to such an extent that He is no longer worth pursuing, that He does not captivate us with His love.  When we reduce Him to our insurance policy for Heaven, the Savior we hope to meet whenever our eyes close in death, while thinking of His as irrelevant to how we live today, He will disappear from our consciousness, forgotten like a far distant relative.

An excellent essay in Christianity Today addressed the loss of wonder and mystery in the modern mind.  “As children of the Western Enlightenment, we have emptied the cosmos of supernatural life, as surely as industry emptied Cape Cod of cod. Our default now, however subconsciously, is to imagine the cosmos as an empty sea on which we drift alone. It’s not full of enchantment, not teeming with mysteries, and certainly not crawling with angels. … We Christians can be tempted to make our faith less enchanted. We try to prop it up with respectability. But the fact is, we still believe in a lot of weird stuff. If we do not embrace an enchanted cosmos—the weird stuff—we miss the fullness of reality, the fullness of God, and we will never fully embrace the mystery of our own lives. To endure mystery, we must learn to surf the teeming waves of wonder.” Tish Warren Harrison – CT, 12/21

You may be wondering if I am suggesting that we need to become credulous, embracing superstition? Not at all. Ignorance is not godly! Arrogance, however, is deadly!  We do not know as much as we think we do. If there is a lesson in the last two years of pandemic it should be about the relative fragility of human life, about how quickly life can change. The wonder of God begins with humility. James urged us to "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up." (James 4:10, NIV)  If we are completely honest with ourselves, it should not be too difficult to bend our knee and say, “My Lord, my God.”  In that admission, we open ourselves to His Spirit.

The rituals and prayers of the Church and the Scripture are key to steady faith, too.

While I am thankful for my heritage as a Pentecostal, I also know the weaknesses of that tradition which tends to discard the ‘old’ preferring the novel and the emotional aspects of faith.  Life cannot be lived in a constant high, can it? Even human love ebbs and flows through the seasons. Marriage cannot be sustained by passion alone. There is commitment to working through the hard times, too.  When I find prayer hard I am glad for the Psalms that become my words. When my heart is stone cold towards my Father, I am thankful for the worship of the Church that carries me along on the current until the warmth returns. When challenged by pain or disappointment, the simple acts of Communion and corporate worship hold me together until healing comes.

When my wife died 6 years ago, I’d like to tell you that I knew God’s Presence in an immediate way, but I’d be lying. My pain was so acute that prayer was all but impossible, worship an effort. But, I allowed myself to be carried by the care of godly people past and present. More nights than I can remember, I found sleep only as the words of the Psalms played in the darkness reminding me that "The LORD reigns forever; he has established his throne for judgment. He will judge the world in righteousness; he will govern the peoples with justice. The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you." (Psalm 9:7-10, NIV)

Indulge me another quote. “Like practices of prayer, the practice of sleep helps us rest in God’s care in moments of utter frailty, when we have no promise of how or when morning will come. This is the ergonomics of salvation, the way we learn to walk in a world of darkness. There is more mystery in our brains and bedrooms than we could ever pin down. And so we lie down and sleep each night knowing we aren’t left alone.” - Prayer in the Night,  Tish Harrison Warren. Copyright © 2021 by Tish Harrison Warren.

Open your mind and heart to the wonder. Invite God to truly be God. Let His love find you and learn to lean into Him in faith, even when all around you seems to argue against His care. He is Life! Love Him.

Our word from the Word is familiar to my readers, one I turn to often because it is so rich with meaning. May these words carry you to the Presence, where you find life, health, and peace for this day.

"When I think of the wisdom and scope of God’s plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him.

May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God." (Ephesians 3:14-19, NLT)

(Video of this blog at this link)
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How Great Thou Art

 

O Lord my God
When I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds
Thy hands have made
I see the stars
I hear the rolling thunder
Thy pow'r thru'out
The universe displayed

 

Then sings my soul
My Savior God to Thee
How great Thou art
How great Thou art
Then sings my soul
My Savior God to Thee
How great Thou art
How great Thou art

 

When through the woods
And forest glades I wander
And hear the birds
Sing sweetly in the trees
When I look down
From lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the brook
And feel the gentle breeze

 

And when I think
That God His Son not sparing
Sent Him to die
I scarce can take it in
That on the cross
My burden gladly bearing
He bled and died
To take away my sin

 

When Christ shall come
With shout of acclamation
And take me home
What joy shall fill my heart
Then I shall bow
In humble adoration
And there proclaim
My God how great Thou art

 

Stuart Wesley Keene Hine © Copyright 1949 and 1953 Stuart Hine Trust CIO Stuart K. Hine Trust (Administration: USA All rights by Capitol CMG Publishing, except print rights for USA, North, Central and South America administered by Hope Publishing. All other non USA Americas rights by the Stuart Hine Trust. Rest of World – Integritymusic.com.)

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Check out the mirror!

When I watch the political drama that passes for ‘government’ in this era, one of the great tragedies is the rewriting of the ‘facts’ by our politicians that keeps our nation from finding real solutions to our real problems. Each side points to the ‘failures’ of the other while seeming to be oblivious to their own. This refusal of the facts is not just a politician’s problem. We are all tempted to excuse or justify our choices, often to the point of hypocrisy. Jesus reminds us, in that well-known passage, about the foolishness of trying to take the splinter out of another’s eye when there is a fence post in our  own eye.

In my reading of Scripture, I read the words of John, the Baptist, who challenged his hearers to "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance." (Matthew 3:8, NIV)  Christians who are quick to point out the sins and failures of others while apparently blind to their own tattered robes of righteousness rob the Gospel of its beauty.

Spiritual pride is a terrible disease of the soul.  I hear myself ranting about ‘those people who do those things,’ sometimes. Thankfully there is the faithful witness of the Holy Spirit Who challenges me to go look in the mirror!  Yes, He says, Jerry, "produce fruit in keeping with repentance." (Matthew 3:8, NIV)  

Grace-filled disciples are called to be holy as God is holy, overcoming temptation. When we are authentic about our own needs and God’s grace, we will lead others to Christ, rather than point out their sins. Paul, who acknowledged his own need of mercy and grace, invites people to “follow me as I follow Christ.” Such a statement in the absence of humility and authenticity is the height of arrogance.

Jesus told the Pharisees who insisted that others that they should emulate their efforts at spiritual purity that they were the equivalent of like “whitewashed tombs, gleaming outwardly but full of death.”  Why? Because they were unwilling to see the truth, preferring to look good over actually being good.

My friend, when we are obedient, submitted to the Spirit, and in daily prayerful conversation with Christ He will lead us into a beautiful wholeness of life. This does NOT grow out of our own religiosity. It is the ‘fruit’ (the evidence) of the presence of the Spirit living in us, by faith.  In such people there is a beautiful and undeniable reality that, while often understated, makes Jesus visible.

Timothy Keller, a now retired pastor from New York City, speaks of Christians  who lives with a “contextualized Biblical Gospel.” These Christians do not segregate their ‘spiritual’ life from their work or home life. They seeks to integrate the Gospel of Christ in each decision. The good news of Jesus is taken out of the pulpit and into to the streets and leads people from evil that enslaves into the freedom of the Spirit.

An understanding of the Gospel like that does not allow us to be hypocritical! It is a transforming experience, something that happens by working the inside out. Jesus said it is like a seed that germinates and pushed to the surface, growing until it bears fruit.

Here is the word from the Word. It challenges us to live authentically, starting with knowing ourselves. "Don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. 

But if you keep looking steadily into God’s perfect law—the law that sets you free—and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are just fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrupt us." (James 1:22-27, NLT)

Let’s let His beauty shine today!

(Video of this blog at this link)
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No Longer Slaves

I'm no longer a slave to fear
I am a child of God
I'm no longer a slave to fear
I am a child of God

You unravel me with a melody
You surround me with a song
Of deliverance from my enemies
Till all my fears are gone

From my Mother's womb
You have chosen me
Love has called my name
I've been born again into Your family
Your blood flows through my veins

You split the sea so I could walk right through it
My fears were drowned in perfect love
You rescued me so I could stand and sing
I am a child of God

Brian Johnson | Joel Case | Jonathan David Helser

© 2014 Bethel Music Publishing

CCLI License # 810055