When God Sings

When God Sings
The lord your God is with you, he will rejoice over you with singing. Zephaniah 3:17(a,b)

My wife has a preoccupation with lambs. She thinks they are cute. But when I see them I only think of lunch... Anyhow, Ursula gave me a birthday card one year. The cover displayed a cartoon of a lamb dancing at sunrise. On the inside the smiling lamb seemed to be hovering over the words, "The lord rejoices over you!" The first thought that came to mind was, "Nice sentiment, but I wish God would have said that for real." I looked on the back of the card and it showed that the words did indeed come from God in Zephaniah 3:17.

Maybe you feel so low, so guilty that you figure God would never dance when He thinks of you. And if that is true, then like me, you would be wrong. The lord loves you without equivocation and indeed He celebrates when He thinks of you. The lord loves you. The lord loves you. The lord loves you. The lord loves you. The lord loves you! No, I am not stuttering. I am repeating myself in the hope that you will believe me.

When we turn away from sin, it is cause for celebration in the heavens. And the lord is celebrating with a song, over you right now!

Path to the Blessed Life

Path to the Blessed Life Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:3 New International Version In my mind the path to the blessed life sort of looks likes the yellow brick road from the Wizard of Oz. My imagination presents a gold path that is lined with precious jewels. I imagine the occasional rest stop where I can pick up pocket sized blessings that will tide me over until the big blessings come. As I get nearer to the end of the journey, I can see a big welcome sign shaped like a hand with a pointing finger. The words on the sign are, "Acquire Blessings here". But the truth is that the path to the blessed life is paved with hopes not yet realized and with tears of others before us. You will leave a trail of your own hopes, sort of loaning out your faith to weary travelers. I like that Jesus says we can be blessed. I like that God sees our circumstance and makes accommodation for our varying conditions. But I don't like where I have to be to receive His blessings. I have to be hungry to be fed and I need to mourn to receive comfort. It seems we need to be emptied of something to receive God’s endowment. Have you ever noticed that Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven is ours, but the other blessings are in keep for us? He says that we will receive comfort, our daily needs, mercy etcetera. Maybe Jesus is saying that in the life to come, He will dole out the stuff we need to overflowing. Or, maybe he is giving a warning; if you want the blessed life, you will need to mourn, to be hungry and to hope to reach the ultimate destination. And you know what’s funny? When we reach the “end of the road”, I think we will look back and see that instead of acquiring the blessed life, we were living it all along.

Looking For Trust In All the Wrong Places

Looking For Trust In All the Wrong Places 

So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.
Matthew 6:31-33 New International Version

If you want to find godly trust, you have to look in the right places. When I find myself looking in the wrong places I find anything but a benevolent God.

Television news seems to portray God as an absentee landlord. In the newspaper God seems more like an untrustworthy scallywag that seeks to pilfer our joy and peace. Not long ago I spoke to a man about God. He felt that God should always say yes and as it seemed NO was the answer to a particular question; He summed God up as an ecclesiastical masochist that delights in our suffering. Looking for a trustworthy God in the midst of grief might be a mistake as well. In A Grief Observed, C.S Lewis said that when he lost his wife to cancer, he went running to God “in desperation only to find a door slammed in your face and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.” Does this sound like a God who can be trusted?

I think this verse gives us an unusual place to look for godly trust. Jesus gives us an example of nature. Maybe almost jokingly with a smile on his face, Jesus asks,
"When is the last time you saw a bird worry about where to find worms?" "When is the last time you saw grass embarrassed at its shabby attire?" Then I imagine Jesus comforting our worries, saying that if God cares for these, don’t you think He will take pride in you, care for you? Don’t be so preoccupied with 'getting' that you forget to respond to what God has already been giving. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. My dad will take care of you, and I'll see to it myself, one nail at a time."

Now this sounds like a God I can trust.

Make it count

Make it count Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. James 4:14 NIV I have been thinking about this verse. It has occurred to me that life is so short that it can easily be missed. Maybe a person can overlook the idea of “living” when there are so many responsibilities. Maybe we forget to live vibrant lives when the days seem to roll into each other. And at the end of this life, I wonder if I will have made time for the things that have real value, Kingdom Value? I have this recurring dream that I have to speak at a funeral. And I always start off by mentioning that life is like a book. I tell people that our lives are filled with highs and lows, excitement and intrigue. But what is the constant theme that runs through those pages? Is the one constant some addiction, a constant reliving of the past or maybe it is Christ? If you take stock of the pages of your life right now, what would come to the forefront? Would we the readers find adventure and excitement, would we find risk and danger? Would we find that you have suffered grief in all kinds of trials? Think of it like this… Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it's your faith that God will have on display as evidence of his victory. Now that’s the stuff that has Kingdom Value!

Finding the Father’s Way

Finding the Father’s Way Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the LORD’s anger. Zephaniah 2:3 NIV I think that the easiest and most difficult thing in the world is to follow God. God makes it possible (and sometimes) easy to follow him. God gave us Christ so we might have the right to call Him Father. He bestows righteousness on us from the cross, so that we might have good standing with the Father. God even imparts the Holy Spirit so that we may have direction and understanding. And not to be forgotten, God wrote it down on paper and upon the hearts of His children. Man however, we seek to do well but sometimes unravel the work of Christ in men’s hearts. When we try to “help God along” we heap up rules and protocols on an already struggling fellow believer. We might say some thing like, “If you do this, I know God will keep His end of the bargain”. And God may have never offered such barter. Or we may say to someone, “If you follow these rules, you will be saved” and God may not have asked for anything other than to follow Christ. In our zeal, shouldn’t we let God speak for Himself? If we humble ourselves He may choose to speak through us indeed. But if we seek the Lord, seek the righteousness that is only found in Christ and humble our minds, perhaps we too will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s return. Perhaps we will find that we have found the Fathers way.