How Dare We !!?

Do not gloat when your enemy falls;

when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice,

or the Lord will see and disapprove

and turn his wrath away from them.

(Proverbs 24.17,18)

I'll never forget how physically sick I felt the day a dangerous individual who had harmed others and sinned greatly died, or more accurately - was killed, and my Facebook feed was littered with celebration.  Many rejoiced saying that said individual deserved even worse than the consequences already received.

True enough. I really can't argue that.

Justice HAD been served.

The celebration, however, broke my heart. To know that a soul, one most likely not prepared to stand before God, had entered eternity unprepared? No longer did any opportunity exist for a change of heart for that individual. And people who love Jesus with abandon apparently felt no sorrow that a soul was now condemned to hell.

Actions have consequences. Absolutely! 

In fact, the consequences of my actions make hell a just destination for me, but for God's mercy and grace.

Sometimes I forget that. 

When I get all caught up in the hating of an antagonistic adversary or despicable foe, I totally lose sight of the fact that the only reason I only look any different in God's eyes than does "my enemy" is that because He sees me clothed in Christ's righteousness. Somehow, I start suspecting that my own righteousness and efforts are impressing the Almighty, if only just a little bit.

When that mindset creeps in, when I realize that I'm glad - rejoicing and celebrating because of another's 

• tottering,
• wavering and weakening where there was once strength,
• stumbling and falling,
• fainting,
• bereavement, 
• being cast down, 
• decaying, 
• failing, 
• feebleness, 
• ruin
• death?

I do not please God.

The only thing I can think of that begins to compare in my own life is when I see one of my children delighting and gloating in the deserved comeuppance of a sibling. Discipline is necessary and so critical as parents disciple children, but it pains to see one I love so much suffering through shame, guilt, conviction and/or consequences. 

It pains just as deeply, though, to see another one of my children enjoying their sibling's sadness, making merry as another reaps the aftermath they've brought on themselves. The more godly response would be sober sorrow.

Sober sorrow, however, must be the evidence of God's grace. This proverb warns, "Do not let...," words which remind me that rejoicing in another's just consequences or punishment is the natural and worldly-fleshly-sinful response. 

It is God's unfettered grace that enables His own to "not let" rejoicing ensue at the demise of a real or perceived enemy and to genuinely sit awhile with sober sorrow.

1st photo credit: adedip via photopin cc

2nd photo credit: Amarand Agasi via photopin cc

*originally published here, and slightly edited  and republished here.
Still convicting thoughts I regularly need to revisit, so revised and published once again..

Walk with Him Wednesday ~ Radical Reflection

Last week, as we've been discussing the practice of habits, Ann added a very specific qualifier, encouraging us to think about how we "...practice new habits. How do we begin again every day? How do we make a fresh start every day and begin anew?..."

Last week, I finished a book that it has taken me a very long time to read - I think a friend handed it to me sometime around Christmas last year. No joke! I've been reading a bit, putting it down, thinking lots on what I read, going over what I was learning, and asking the Holy Spirit to show me things to keep, use, apply...

One area where I was challenged was in the area of self-examination (or soul-searching, contemplation, introspection, rumination, reflection, whichever word you prefer). The author, Ruth Haley Barton, divided self-examination into two broad categories: 

1. Examining the consciousness - deliberately looking to see all the evidences of God's presence and the working of His hand throughout each day, and
2. Examining the conscious - choosing to see myself more clearly in the light of God's unmistakable presence by embracing the gift of who and how He created me to be as well as focusing on, instead of running from, the darkness within and what having a sin nature means.

When I typed "self-examination"  into the search box on openbible.com,  57 different verses popped up; one of the first portions of God's Word listed was Psalm 139.

O LORD, You have searched me and known me.

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

You understand my thought from afar.

You scrutinize my path and my lying down,

And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.

Even before there is a word on my tongue,

Behold, O LORD, You know it all.

You have enclosed me behind and before,

And laid Your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

It is too high, I cannot attain to it.

Where can I go from Your Spirit?

Or where can I flee from Your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, You are there;

If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.

If I take the wings of the dawn,

If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,

Even there Your hand will lead me,

And Your right hand will lay hold of me.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me,

And the light around me will be night,”

Even the darkness is not dark to You,

And the night is as bright as the day.

Darkness and light are alike to You.

For You formed my inward parts;

You wove me in my mother’s womb.

I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Wonderful are Your works,

And my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from You,

When I was made in secret,

And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;

Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;

And in Your book were all written

The days that were ordained for me,

When as yet there was not one of them.

How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.

When I awake, I am still with You.

O that You would slay the wicked, O God;

Depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed.

For they speak against You wickedly,

And Your enemies take Your name in vain.

Do I not hate those who hate You, O LORD?

And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?

I hate them with the utmost hatred;

They have become my enemies.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me and know my anxious thoughts;

And see if there be any hurtful way in me,

And lead me in the everlasting way.

These words are not unfamiliar words. Yet there is one part of this particular passage that has always confused - even disturbed - me, making me feel uncomfortable.

O that You would slay the wicked, O God;

Depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed.

For they speak against You wickedly,

And Your enemies take Your name in vain.

Do I not hate those who hate You, O LORD?

And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?

I hate them with the utmost hatred;

They have become my enemies.

These words of imprecation just seem out of character with the rest of the psalm, at least to me, as I read it. 

Am I the only one that thinks that? 

Yet since this is God's Word... I need to try and figure out what they mean and why they are there.

My first... and maybe primary thought is that...

I find preschoolers refreshing. While they imagine and play, they don't tend to pretend when it comes to what they are thinking and feeling. They tell you what they think. I rarely have to guess about what M&M wants. She tells me with her words, her behavior and her facial expressions pretty much exactly what is going on in her heart, soul and mind. In other words, what you see is what you get. 

On the other hand, she's often clueless about herself, and can't explain why she does what she does... why she chooses disobedience or flies off in a rage and hits her sister for picking up her toys or walks around with a sour expression when she has to help put away her brother's laundry.

What does that have to do with Psalm 139?

Well, David starts off by saying: "You have searched me and known me." Then he goes on to describe the intimate totality of the Almighty's knowledge of him. Isn't that sort of like what Ms Barton (that author I mentioned earlier) means by examining our consciousness, recognizing the traces and clear evidences of God's hand and presence in our lives? The first many verses of this Psalm, penned by David, are words counted  beautiful and precious in Scripture because of the truth that God knows us better than we know ourselves, and still chose love and enormous sacrifice because of His choice. David wrote, right before he launches into that imprecatory section, these words: "How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You."

Then he writes words that rain judgment, asking God to visit His wrath on the wicked. Please note that I'm not trying to negate the more traditional applications of these verses, but as I read this time, I wondered, especially in the context of David writing about God's thoughts, if these verses couldn't also be a little bit of that second type of self-examination, examination of conscious, about which Ms Barton wrote. Could David be asking the Lord to reveal the dark, sinful, loathsome things within himself, of which he is unaware - and in the recognition of God's abiding presence, help David rid those things from his life? 

What if David's imprecation is not just directed towards the visible, tangible, physical enemies of God, but also the very things inherent within standing contrary to God, His character and His holiness? 

What if David's angry words are for the deep darkness that comes from a sin nature and which needs God's revelation before we are even capable of knowing and recognizing it?

In this context, the last words of this Psalm pack quite a punch. It was another one of those curious things I'd noted previously about this psalm. At the beginning, David says "searched" - past tense. So why here, at the end of the psalm, is he speaking in the present imperative? 

David's example fleshes out what God-dependent, always present and continual soul-searching and contemplation just might look like. 

Working to develop this as a daily habit might, by God's grace, make me into a woman after His own heart.

The book to which I refer in this post is  

Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation, 

by Ruth Haley Barton

What's the point?

You shall therefore 

love the LORD your God, 

and always 

keep 

His charge, 

His statutes, 

His ordinances, 

and His commandments.

Deuteronomy 11:1

I noticed this verse as I was preparing to speak with leaders from the local Christian teacher's association last week. It was another one of those instances where something new in a verse I'd read several times all of the sudden registered for the first time. As I stopped to ponder this verse, I wondered if... and if so, why... God had Moses repeat the same basic thing four different times. After all, how different, really, are the following words in the context of this verse: charge, statutes, ordinances and commandments.

chart and Hebrew text from biblos.com

So I did what I normally do under those circumstances... well sort of. I usually use an on-line concordance, but our internet was so slow that evening we couldn't even get email to download, so instead, I pulled out my 20 year old, very well-used concordance. (There's a story behind that - it was a Christmas gift from an old boyfriend... one of only two good things that came out of that relationship...) and started looking up the meanings of each of those words. One of the first things I immediately noticed as I looked at the transliterations and the actual Hebrew characters was that there were definite similarities. 

Could it really be that all four words are essentially synonyms - repeated to emphasize the significance of obedience as the evidence of a sincere love for God? 

Or are there nuances in meaning that would have been seized by the Israelite listeners, giving these words a richness that I was missing reading it translated to English?

I dove into a bit of research.

According to Strong's, shamar, the word translated keep, means 

beware, be circumspect, take heed to self, keeper, self, mark, look narrowly, observe; a primitive root; properly, to hedge about (as with thorns), i.e. Guard; generally, to protect, attend to, perform a vow, etc. 

So the word keep has both a protective as well as a restraining sense - hedge about and guard the charge given to you by God. A large component necessary to accomplish that goal meant understanding the covenant vow implicated and included self-control and restraint in action, thought and choice. 

Then came the four seeming synonyms. And while in English, at least the last three words could be used as synonyms, in the Hebrew I found some  of those subtle nuances I mentioned before.

KEEP HIS CHARGE: 

This included the ideas of observing (i.e. keeping) as well as preserving, teaching to following generations and foreigners, and protecting the integrity of the Giver's original intent - mission given to them by God - to love Him as their Lord and God.

KEEP HIS STATUTES:

Statutes seems to refer more to the customs, traditions, methods and places where prescribed ceremonies were to occur as well as determined and specific of behavior that the Lord had appointed, or commissioned His people and by which He expected them to abide. I wonder if this word referred more precisely to the ceremonial laws and expectations related to the temple/tabernacle, sacrifices and worship.

KEEP HIS ORDINANCES:

Ordinances appears to refer more specifically to those measures put into place to help keep order. It has a more legal connotation and abiding by both the privileges granted and penalties proscribed. This directs my thoughts more to civil and criminal law issues - regulations that cover human interactions... or the legal code.

KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS:

I think this refers specifically to the divine commandments given to Moses on the Mount, what most commonly refer to as the Ten Commandments. This is the heart... the intent behind the specifics given in the statutes and ordinances. According to the New Testament, it is man's failure to abide by these commandments that clearly focuses our eyes on our need for a Savior.

Now, I'm not a trained, diploma-ed Bible scholar. I don't know Greek and Hebrew, so these thoughts could, very probably, be way off base. Knowing that, I decided to ask someone who knows a lot more than I, particularly in this domain. We've got some friends staying with us for the weekend - and he's a Bible translator - both in Mali and Benin. He said that maybe all 4 words were used because Psalm 119 uses every word, broad and specific that could possibly refer to God's Law, at some point within that chapter. These four words would probably be considered the main broad categories under which all the others could fall... and all four were used to "cover the bases," to use a cliche.

Two things really stick out to me, though, after thinking about this verse for a nice chunk of time over several days:

1. The amazing richness of God's Word; and
2. God cares - the way we follow traditions and customs, the way we submit ourselves to the legal code and whether the intents of our hearts obey His commandments - He cares about all of that because it is one way we can express how much we love Him and how much He means to us. As we protectively hedge about and act circumspectly in our efforts to obey God, we say, "I try to obey and please You because I love You that much." 

After all, He first loved me infinitely more than that much.

Five Minute Friday ~ Join

"Stop, drop & write. It’s Five Minute Friday [over at Gypsy Mama's - & you should join us, too...]!

Where a beautiful crowd spends five minutes all writing on the same topic and then sharing ‘em over here.

So, set your timer, clear your head, for five minutes of free writing without worrying about getting it right.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

OK, are you ready? Please give us your best five minutes on...

Join…

GO!

He hadn't seen any travelers, not even one, as he wandered the long, dry, dusty, dreary desert road. Did God made a mistake? What in the world was he doing here? He didn't understand.

He'd had to flee the persecution of Jesus-followers perpetrated by Paul. The bullying and worse that the growing flock of fledgling disciples had lived so recently was nothing short of terrifying. He'd wondered if imprisonment, torture, or even death loomed in his near future. So he's left, seeking escape and relief from the endless harassment, and found a place where he'd joined together God's Spirit, no matter what. Samaria, of all places??!! But if his Master considered a sinful Samaritan woman a kingdom investment, who was he to question his presence in this detestable place?

He unabashadly proclaimed the Gospel there. And the result? It was nothing short of amazing... miraculous... joyous. Of course, he should have known. That would be what happened when a soul consented to search and listen carefully for God's plan, determined to follow - even when it doesn't make sense or sound appealing. And the persecution shouldn't have caught him off guard. After all, the Lord had said there would be difficult times like that.

But when the outcome is this? Lonely wandering, accompanied only by his thoughts. After experiencing first God's protection... and then hearts so receptive to the new life offered by following a new way? This present just didn't make sense. Had he misheard the angel? "Get up and go south, towards Gaza?"  Gaza? It might as well be the end of the world. Not even Joshua had successfully subdued that place during the Conquest of Canaan.



Illustration Credit



Then he saw the chariot. It was still quite far off in the distance. But it was moving so slowly, it was hardly moving. In fact, at their current rates, he'd overtake it... walking. "What could be the problem?" he mused aloud.

Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot...”

Philip did.

STOP!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The inspired Biblical account of this story can be found in Acts 8.

Saul was in hearty agreement with putting [Stephen] to death.

And on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Somedevout men buried Stephen, and made loud lamentation over him. But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house, and dragging off men and women, he would put them in prison. 

....Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and began proclaiming Christ to them. The crowds with one accord were giving attention to what was said by Philip, as they heard and saw the signs which he was performing. For in the case of many who had unclean spirits, they were coming out of them shouting with a loud voice; and many who had been paralyzed and lame were healed. So there was much rejoicing in that city.

But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, “Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road.)

So he got up and went; and there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure; and he had come to Jerusalem to worship, and he was returning and sitting in his chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah.

Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot.”

Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

Now the passage of Scripture which he was reading was this:
“HE WAS LED AS A SHEEP TO SLAUGHTER;
         AND AS A LAMB BEFORE ITS SHEARER IS SILENT,
         SO HE DOES NOT OPEN HIS MOUTH.

“IN HUMILIATION HIS JUDGMENT WAS TAKEN AWAY;
         WHO WILL RELATE HIS GENERATION?
         FOR HIS LIFE IS REMOVED FROM THE EARTH.”

The eunuch answered Philip and said, “Please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of someone else?”

Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus to him.

As they went along the road they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?”

[And Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.”

And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”]

And he ordered the chariot to stop; and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing.

But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he kept preaching the gospel to all the cities until he came to Caesarea.

Just amazing when something like THIS happens ~

...when the very ideas and thoughts I'm mulling over, meditating on  and praying through as I sit reluctantly awake one long night with sick little one...

And the very next day, there they are, just like my thoughts!

More eloquently written, probably longer prayerfully pondered, but...

...my mostly-exactly-the-same-sort-of-soul-searching-ramblings were also thought by someone else, someone else whose love and understanding of Scripture, perspective and point of view I respect enormously and almost always find challenging!

Did the Holy Spirit just whisper soft in my ear: "Yep, You heard Me right... Now that you know, I expect you'll put it into practice."?

I'm not really one of those touchy-feely-all-blown-by-emotional-winds-types (well, at least not on most days - though on some days I wish I was), but truthfully, I got goosebumps this time, because that was what it felt like.

Frankly, my faith is driven by the truth and practicality I find as I study God's Word - I'm a words-sorta-gal, after all. I love that love letter to me from my Heavenly Daddy. I turn to the Scripture first and foremost; it is my primary guide and I believe that is the way God wants it to be. So I'm not so much into mystical faith experiences. Those numinous incidents of which I hear others speak make me nervous, because when it comes to God, I much prefer things I can pin down, at least a little bit (yes, I know, pinning God down is a bit of an oxymoron - but He is unchangeable and He does always keep His promises, so...). I also know the Almighty, All-Powerful Alpha and Omega is not, under any stretch of my imagination, a domesticated deity - and so I refuse to accept the more comfortable-to-me premise that He never works in those more mystical ways.

You know that cliché?

It's the one about the glass being either half empty or half full. If you tend to see it full,  you are the classic optimist. If not, you are, as one of my friends likes to say, an Eeyore.


from everystockphoto.com

I started thinking about it because M&M had asked for some water, so I got her some. She took a few sips and sat it on the floor beside us on the couch. Then I promptly knocked it over... as I was standing to get a towel, seriously wishing I'd only filled the glass halfway...

when the following sequence of thoughts flitted through my mind - and I shared them with little tike as they did:

• "Don't bother - we live in the desert and have a tile floor - the floor will dry...
•  "...and maybe the evaporation will cool things off a tiny bit."

That surprisingly happy sort of thought coming from me caught me off guard ~

• "That was a surprisingly glass half full thought from one who, late at night and in a sleep deprived state, ALWAYS considers the glass half empty." (If you have any doubt about that reality, ask my husband.)
• "I wonder why I tend to see half full glasses in the daylight and kick over my half empty glasses in the dark?"
• "Can a glass really be half empty?"
• "Scientifically? Only in a vacuum because the part that doesn't contain water (or some other liquidish type thing) is full of air."
• "Air is even more urgent for life than water... both are necessary, but the absence of air? That is certain death in a very short time."
• "When God only provides a half glass of water, He's also gifting a glass half full of air."

And that thought, in the wee hours of the morning, was, well, almost revolutionary... if by God's grace I choose to keep seeing that perspective, even when I can't see it...

Reading her blog post today reminded me of all that... I'm glad... and I wanted to share...  

"You are the salt of the earth!"

...she begins singing to me after she has crawled up into my lap, taken my face between her two sweet little hands and looked me straight and seriously, directly in the eyes. Yep, that would be our M&M.

But what? Why in the world? Let me explain...

Our littlest squirt loves to come snuggle first thing in the morning... whether she finds me reading in bed (like in these pictures here), whether she finds me making bread in the kitchen (means I've got to wash dough off my hands-find and aunt free spot-and pull her onto my lap while she gently pinches my face in those sweet chubby hands, or as of more recently, whether she stumbles out to the terrace and then backs up to my chair saying "Pick me up... I want to pinch you." And she often will have something else, something funny and strange that she wants to say - expressed in a sleepy two year old voice.

Shortly before the long vacation began, Sahel Academy students performed an adaptation of the Broadway musical Godspell (note - said adaptation was significantly different than the original Broadway production and did include the resurrection). Tim then spent many, many hours editing a 2 camera taping of the production to give the students (and anyone else who so desired) a video memory of all that hard work.

Not only did our children attend the performance, they listened to the music time and time and time again as their daddy edited the video... and thus came to know the songs "purty well." For little songbirds like our Elsie Mae and Mary Michelle... they love to sing and pick up music like they learn new vocabulary... new songs are pure delight. As a mama, I love hearing my kids wander around the house, singing words like these!

You are the light of the world!
You are the light of the world!
But if that light is under a bushel,
It's lost something kind of crucial
You've got to stay bright to be the light of the world


You are the salt of the earth
You are the salt of the earth
But if that salt has lost it's flavor
It ain't got much in its favor
You can't have that fault and be the salt of the earth!


(chorus)
So let your light so shine before men
Let your light so shine
So that they might know some kindness again
We all need help to feel fine (let's see us shine!)


You are the city of God
You are the city of God
But if that city's on a hill
It's kinda hard to hide it well
You've got to stay pretty in the city of God


(chorus)
So let your light so shine before men
Let your light so shine
So that they might know some kindness again
We all need help to feel fine (let's see us shine!)


You are the light of the world
You are the light of the world
But the tallest candlestick
Ain't much good without a wick
You've got to live right to be the light of the world

I also love when God uses my sweet little ones to speak His message... one He knew I'd need to hear, and so I started thinking along those lines as I began my day... kids are such willing, delightful tools in the hands of an awesome God. Truly... outta the mouths of babes!

How is it that I've never heard of HER?

I've been reading the book Captured by Grace (David Jeremiah) and in chapter 8 of the book, he writes the following words:

"Can we allow ourselves to be such total captives of His grace that we trust Him completely with life's most terrible moments?" (p. 159)

Dr. Jeremiah then continues with the story of a lady who did answer "Yes!" to that question.  Helen Roseveare...

...was a British medical missionary in the Congo. She stayed at her post during some of the worst turmoil in the country's history in 1964. Many Westerners fled, but Helen believed she should be willing to make any sacrifice for a Savior who had made the ultimate sacrifice for her.

Someone tried to poison her, but her dog at the food and the attempt fails. Still she stayed on.... Even when her house was looted of every item within it, she refused to leave her post.

It's not as if Helen had no fear. She rarely slept well, knowing that at any moment someone could enter her home and take her life. But she concentrated on learning to trust God more absolutely.

On Saturday, August 15, 1964, a truckload of soldiers commandeered her hospital. Helen would later recall, "They were brutal and coarse, rough and domineering. Their language was threatening and obscene. All of us were cowed. We did exactly what they demanded, mostly without argument." They caught the local chief, flayed him alive, and ate him.

Eventually, Helen Roseveare was beaten, raped, and humiliated. Barely alive, she finally had to be taken from the country. During her long and painful days of recovery, she found herself closer to God than she had ever been before. She even loved the Congo more deeply than ever. There was no bitterness within her, though Helen had experienced terrible, mindless evil. It would have been so easy to demand of God why He allowed these atrocities, when she had been so faithful to His service. But in her heart of hearts, she felt that God's question would be, "Can you thank me for trusting you with this experience, even if I never tell you why?" (p. 159-160)

 

This video contains a small piece of her testimony as she responds to a question. She begins speaking about 35 seconds into the video and continues for about 5 minutes. It is worth a listen!

What do you think?

How would you answer this question:

"Can you allow yourself to be such a total captive of His grace that you trust Him completely with life's most terrible moments?"