Ohhhh, proverbs

If you are anything like me, your are frustrated that the reading plan we're on spends four days in Psalms and Proverbs and skips completely great places like Ruth, Nehemiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Esther and Job. I don't want to suggest that Psalms and Proverbs aren't valuable to dig into. But, Proverbs especially, is ripe for proof-texting and being taken out of context. Because it is just a collection of sayings that can at times even seem randomly assembled, it's very easy to take one that we like and ignore the ones that we don't. But there is a more slippery issue to deal with as well. This is what a proverb is.

a short popular saying, usually of unknown and ancient origin, that expresses effectively some commonplace truth or useful thought

There is certainly truth in proverbs and even more truth in Proverbs. But, one thing that neither of them are is a promise. I often see people claim proverbs as thought they are some kind of personal promise directly to them from God. Proverbs 22:6 is notoriously used this way.

Train^[a] a child in the way he should go,
    and when he is old he will not turn from it.

As parents, we love this. There is truth here. Teaching kids things in their formative years has a way of embedding those teachings in a way that is not possible at older ages. Recent research in to early childhood education certainly support this truth. But, does this eliminate the free will of that child? And, if child does turn from it does that mean that the parents are failures as parents? See the danger? These are general truths. These are wise sayings. This is good moral teaching. But but that's it. In fact, take a look at the next verse.

The rich rule over the poor,
    and the borrower is servant to the lender.

This is another reality that we see around us. We see that there is wisdom and truth in this statement. But, it also sounds like something that Jesus blows apart when he hits the scene. This is an observation of how things are now, but clearly God has better plans. Clearly, the Kingdom that Jesus comes to establish looks very different from this reality.

So, read Proverbs. Let God speak to you though them. But, always keep in mind that followers of Jesus are regularly called to act contrary to "common sense." A life of faith will, on practically a daily basis, take you outside of and often in direct contradiction to common sense.

Thoughts?

Leaving a wake of goodness and love

Psalm 23 is well traveled ground. I mean WELL traveled. So, there probably isn't anything that hasn't already been said. But, I would politely request that you give it a read anyway on the off chance that it sparks something in your brain.

This time through, two things stood out to me. First, the psalmist admits that his tendency is to over-commit and never stop moving. Look at verse two again.

He makes me lie down in green pastures

He makes me. Not, he offers to me, gives me permission, tells me it's ok, but he makes me lie down. The psalmist is getting at something that we all deal with in some way. It may not be your career or your school work, but there is something that you are constantly tempted to keep your brain on overdrive about. Maybe it's your kids, maybe it's your volunteer responsibilities. For us pastors, often it's how many folks are connected to the church, how many people are being actively discipled, how many visitors we are bringing in, etc. It doesn't matter what the subject is, there is at least something in our lives that God has to get up in our face, shout at the top of his lungs, STOP!!!!! Take a break. Rest in me. Let me renew and restore you. Let me reenergize you. You can't sustain this level of activity, no matter how noble the cause. When God gets in your grill, my best advice to you is to listen and do what he says. Don't argue. Don't challenge him. Just obey.

My second observation is kind of complicated. Notice a series of thoughts in the rest of the psalm. God guides us in paths of righteousness, but where does that path lead? It leads straight into the most dangerous place in town. It leads straight into the valley of death. And why is that? Because that is exactly where the life that God offers is needed most. That is exactly where we are called to go. God charges into the darkness and death so that he can bring life and light and hope. And if we are walking with him, that's exactly where he's going to lead us. We just have to be brave enough to know that if we follow him in there that we have nothing to fear. We don't have to fear, not just because he walks there with us, but because we are already dead! We are crucified with Christ. It's not us who is living anymore, but Christ who lives in us.

I want to leave you with this thought. Look how the psalmist finishes his prayer.

Surely goodness and love will follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.

Goodness and love will what? Follow me. If we wait for goodness and love, we will be waiting for a really long time. When we step into the life that God calls us to, when we follow him into the valley of the shadow of death, we leave behind an enormous wake of goodness and love. All the people watching us (and there are lots even if you don't know) will get caught up in that wake. Our obedience, sacrifice, and submission will overwhelm them with God's grace and mercy.

So that is my challenge to us today. What can you do today that leave behind a wake of love and goodness? Think about it. Pray about it. Ask God to show you which valley of death he wants to lead you into. And then follow him into it! It may hurt. It may be frustrating. It may require you to sacrifice. But it will be the most meaningful thing you've done all week.

Thoughts? Join in the conversation.

Strike that, reverse it

The person of Solomon confounds me. I have not spent a great deal of time studying his life or his writings in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. When I do encounter him, he confuses me. Take today's reading for instance. Chapter two is all about his quest (seemingly given to him by David) to root out and eliminate his political rivals so that he can secure his position on the throne. One of them he even has killed in the Tabernacle while the man is clinging to the Mercy Seat. He then goes and offers sacrifices in the high places, to gods other than the one true God.

And after all of this God appears to him in a dream and offers him a blank check. He says ask for anything and I will give it to you. Solomon asks for wisdom to lead God's people. So God give him that and riches and honor. I have two initial thoughts. First, I think, "God, didn't you see him worshipping false gods earlier the very same day you give him a blank check?" Second, I think that all of this wisdom that Solomon is looking for would have been really helpful as he was worshipping false gods and having people killed in the Tabernacle. This seems insane to me. This guy is acting like the king of any other pagan nation and God comes to him and blesses him with wisdom, riches, and honor beyond anyone who ever lived. How does that make sense?

And then it hits me. That's grace. That's how it works. God doesn't bless us far beyond what we deserve because we seek him and walk in his ways. It is completely the opposite. God seeks us out. God chases us down. God rains down his love and mercy on us, and it's in response to that undeserved favor that we tap into the power and strength of the Spirit that allows us to live the life he has for us. To steal a line from Relient K, "the beauty of grace is that it makes life unfair." The mystery and miracle of grace is not that we don't get what we do deserve (although that's part of it) but that we get what we could never deserve.

Solomon didn't deserve wisdom, riches, and honor any more than we deserve the love, salvation, and peace that is offered to us in the person of Jesus Christ. But, just like Solomon, when we respond to God, when we accept his gift, when we accept his invitation,  he lavishes his blessings upon us.

I am so thankful that life is unfair. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to experience the limitless grace, mercy, and love of my Father. Thoughts? What did God say to you today through the scripture?

. . .who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel

I understand the difficulty of trying to cover the entire narrative of scripture in 40 days. Obviously some things will be left out. But I'm really disappointed that the powers that be decided to skip from Exodus all the way to Judges. Take some time and go back and dig into those books we missed. Especially Leviticus. It gets a bad rap for being boring, but there is some great truth in there.

With that, I LOVE the book of Judges. I wish that someone would turn it into a series of movies. It is so cinematic, so epic, so amazingly entertaining. It would rival even the Avengers on sheer action alone, much less the faith conversations that would emerge. But, I digress. Don't just read the selected readings if you haven't read Judges before. Read the whole thing. It's amazing. It will change your life. I'm not kidding.

But today, we have the introduction. We have the prologue to the period of the Judges. Joshua has finally led the people into the promised land, but now he is dead and the rest of his generation who witnessed first hand God's miraculous provision. And then we get this statement.

After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. 

 I don't know that is a stronger case for the church's need to be intergenerational than these few verses. Notice what this says, and notice what it doesn't say. It says that they grew up not knowing the Lord or what he had done. It does not say that they grew up knowing God and his power and decided to turn away. As a word of clarification, the Hebrew word translated "know" is the word yada. This is the knowledge of experience. This is first hand knowledge. I'm guessing that this new generation knew all the facts. They probably had heard all of the stories and could recount the chronology of the Exodus. But, they did not KNOW the Lord. They did not have a relationship with him. They did not voluntarily participate in the covenant. This new generation had not EXPERIENCED God.

We need to tell our children the stories of our faith. We need to teach them proper doctrine and all of the facts that God has revealed to us. But, and I think even more important, we need to give them opportunities to experience God, to encounter him and his majesty. We need to, from a very early age, involve them in ministry. Certainly kids need to be ministered to, but much earlier than is common, we need to allow them to minister to others.

I know of a Nazarene church in Yakima that takes every month that has five Sundays and the entire children's ministry makes sandwiches and then goes out to feed homeless people. It all started, not because some adult had a great idea, but because a child was on the way to have lunch at a ministry event, saw someone who was hungry, and gave away his lunch. The adults then came along side the child, offered encouragement and resources and turned a prompting of the Holy Spirit into an ongoing ministry opportunity. If we want something to change, empowering our kids to serve others, to share grace, and to lavish mercy on others is the best way to make sure that they KNOW God.

Idols, Anger, and God's presence

Today's reading was a lot to take in. Not only was it three long chapters, but there was a lot going on. The golden calf, God wanting to wipe out the Israelites, breaking tablets, new tablets, Moses' glowing face, and something about boiling goats in milk. It was a lot to take in. So, I'm not going to attempt to elaborate on all of that here. What I want to do is point to just a couple of places where I see foreshadowing of the Gospel. These are two of many places, that for me, break apart any of the theories that somehow the character of God (or perhaps God himself) is different in the Hebrew Scriptures than in the Gospels. Take a look first in chapter 33.

Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”

This reminds me of Jesus telling his disciples that the world will know them by their love. Moses understands that unless they carry the presence of God with him, unless they reflect his character, unless they live a life that is defined by and empowered by a continually deepening relationship with God, they will be no different than any other human on the planet. It is impossible to live into the covenant without living in the presence of God.

Now jump ahead to chapter 34.

And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord,the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.

This doesn't sound like the "god of the old testament" does it? It's because God is God. He always has been, always is, and always will be. He is no different today than he was when he spoke to Moses on the mountain. Now if you read on, you see that he reminds Moses that there are consequences for our rebellion. When we sin, there are punishments. But, that does not mean that we are not forgiven. It does not mean that his love does not continue to abound. Just as much in this moment with Moses as today, God desires that all of humanity would come to repentance and choose to live in proper relationship with him.

In closing, I admit that I dove into the parts of the text that are encouraging. However, there is lots of difficult stuff in these chapters. God wanting to wipe out the Israelites, the Levites slaughtering 3,000 of their own people, Moses sprinkling the ashes of the golden calf on the water and making the people drink it. What did you think? What part of the text are you wrestling with? Let's discuss.

Closer than you think

The reading for today feels incomplete. It's only part of the story. It feels a little bit like getting up intermission and not going back for the conclusion. But, we will get the rest of the story tomorrow. So, as I often do when I need to clear my head, I went for a run and a chat with God. Today, rather than a podcast, I turned on Pandora. As I set out, I immediately reconsidered this decision because the first song to come on was "All Alone" by Fun. Not exactly a "set a personal best" kind of inspiring song. Here is the chorus.

And I feel so all alone
No one's gonna fix me when I'm broke
How do you cry with inanimate eyes?
You're never gonna smile with the way that you're wired

And I feel so all alone

Kind of a bummer. However, as a church planter, I can totally relate to this feeling of isolation. I have moments every day where I am tempted to wallow in this emotion. But I quickly discovered that God speaks through my Pandora quick mix because the next song up was "Closer than you think" by The Classic Crime. Here is part of the chorus.

I still hold the belief that we are free
That we don't need the rules to see
That despite what we've done we're not alone
We're closer than we think to home

Despite what we've done, there is someone to fix us when we're broken. There is someone to fix us when we break ourselves and the same someone is there to fix us when others break us. Despite how we feel, despite what our circumstances are, despite how many people desert us, we are not alone. Thank you Jesus for speaking to me through Pandora today. Thank you for always walking beside me.

A family legacy

The pages in my Bible that contain the story of Jacob are well-traveled and heavily annotated. I love this story. In many ways it is my own story. What continues to blow me away about this story is how it is always fresh for me. I don't ever come away with boredom. There are issues of deception, conditional obedience, and poor conflict resolution. But what stuck out to me today was the family legacy.

Take for instance, the moment when Jacob steals the blessing. Look at how not only Jacob, but Rebekah, Isaac and Esau factor into the story. First, Esau. Now you might think that he is the innocent one in this story. But if you go back a couple of pages, you see how he tosses his birthright aside for a bowl of stew. You see how little he thinks of his family and of God as he focuses purely on his immediate impulses. Jacob (who already has devious tendencies) now has an easy mark. He sees that his brother is someone he can take advantage of. Then there is Rebekah. He hears the prophecy when her boys are in utero, but figures that God needs a little help making things happen. She figures that she will give God a hand by suggesting this whole crazy plan in the first place. Then when Jacob objects to the plan (not because it's wrong, but because he thinks he will be caught), she disrespects God again by saying, let the curse fall on me. Then there is Isaac. Three separate times he is skeptical that this is actually his firstborn son, and yet he ignores those concerns and blesses him anyway.

Jacob gets most of the blame here (and deservedly so) but this is a colossal failure on the part of this entire family. And then when Rebekah sends Jacob away, the lying and scheming just keep going. It only gets worse. And if you read Jacob's story to his death, you will see that he deals with the effects of these horrible decisions for his entire life. As a parent of young children, this kind of freaks me out a little. The pressure is on. Even the small decisions I make now have the possibility to cause negative (or positive) ripples for the rest of their lives. This is the part of the story that I'm going to wrestle with this time around, but I'm sure that Jacob and I will step in the ring together again soon.

But, this is fertile ground. How did God speak to you through this passage? Please share your insights in the comments.