Tag: faith

Facing Our Sadness (Psalm 42)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

As a deer longs for a stream of cool water,
    so I long for you, O God.
I thirst for you, the living God.
    When can I go and worship in your presence?
Day and night I cry,
    and tears are my only food;
all the time my enemies ask me,
    “Where is your God?”

My heart breaks when I remember the past,
    when I went with the crowds to the house of God
    and led them as they walked along,
    a happy crowd, singing and shouting praise to God.
Why am I so sad?
    Why am I so troubled?
I will put my hope in God,
    and once again I will praise him,
    my savior and my God.

Here in exile my heart is breaking,
    and so I turn my thoughts to him.
He has sent waves of sorrow over my soul;
    chaos roars at me like a flood,
    like waterfalls thundering down to the Jordan
    from Mount Hermon and Mount Mizar.
May the Lord show his constant love during the day,
    so that I may have a song at night,
    a prayer to the God of my life.

To God, my defender, I say,
    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go on suffering
    from the cruelty of my enemies?”
I am crushed by their insults,
    as they keep on asking me,
    “Where is your God?”

Why am I so sad?
    Why am I so troubled?
I will put my hope in God,
    and once again I will praise him,
    my savior and my God. (Good News Translation)

Sadness. Every human on planet earth knows the feeling. Since we are emotional creatures, profound sadness – even to the point of depression and/or despondency – will happen.

Despite the universal nature of discouragement and tears, many Christians buck the sadness. Far too many believers focus so exclusively on victory in Jesus through his resurrection, ascension, and glorification that they use religion as their denial when unwanted emotions like sadness come banging at the doorstep of their soul.

So, I most emphatically say: Depression is not sin. To be discouraged is not the Enemy. Experiencing sadness is neither wrong nor selfish. Quite the opposite, in fact.

It is necessary to sit with our emotions and feel the breadth and depth of them. Both our spiritual and emotional health come through an awareness and robust engagement with our feelings. To refuse to feel is to put the stiff arm to God.

The psalmist does anything but deny his feelings. He brings them before the Lord and spreads them out before the Divine. Why am I discouraged? Why am I restless? Why the sadness? Could it be that God has forgotten me? Where is the Lord? Is God angry with me? Are my troubles the result of divine wrath?

To blandly say we have never uttered or thought such questions is a telltale sign of denial. The bottom line for many folks is that they do not want to feel these emotions because it complicates their lives. Besides, discouragement and sadness hurt. “Why feel,” we reason, “when it only brings pain?”

Oh my, the avoidance of pain. And there is no pain quite like emotional and spiritual pain. Much like an open wound which needs a liberal application of painful peroxide, our spiritual wounds must sting with the salve of emotional feeling. Healing is neither cheap, easy, nor painless. It typically hurts like hell.

The psalmist’s own pain revolved around feelings of alienation from God, being cut off from fellow worshipers, and harassed by others around him. Understandably, he experienced despondency and loneliness. The psalmist wondered if anyone, including God, even cared what he was going through. In other words, he is desperate for God to show up.

Here’s a simple observation about this psalm: The psalmist did not get any answers to the several questions he posed. He even repeated them, to no avail. The only form of comfort the psalmist received was to remember what God had done in the past. Somehow, someway, this will help with the difficulties of the present.

There are times in life when we must recall what we know about God, ourselves, and others. If the Lord has delivered in the past, God can do it again. If others helped before, perhaps they will be present in the here and now. And just maybe, even likely, you and I will discover a resilient spirit within. We already possess everything we need to not only survive but to grow and thrive in life.

Hope arises from holding the big picture of the past, present, and future together at the same time. When present circumstances are difficult, and it appears we are about to be swallowed up into the now, we must hold the past and future along with it, in careful tension. Then, we shall find the enablement to keep going.

Trust in the future, and a confident expectation of hope is born from the trustworthiness of the past. A prayerful song in our heart will carry us through till our hope is realized.

Almighty and merciful God, you heal the broken-hearted, and turn the sadness of the sorrowful to joy. Let your fatherly goodness be upon all whom you have made. Remember in pity all those who are this day destitute, homeless, elderly, infirm, or forgotten. Bless the multitude of your poor. Lift up those who are cast down.

Mightily befriend innocent sufferers and sanctify to them the endurance of their wrongs. Cheer with hope all who are discouraged and downcast, and by your heavenly grace preserve from falling those whose poverty tempts them to sin. Though they are troubled on every side, suffer them not to be distressed; though they are perplexed, save them from despair. Grant this, O Lord, for the love of him who for our sakes became poor, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ.

Remember and Learn (Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

My people, hear my teaching;
    listen to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth with a parable;
    I will utter hidden things, things from of old—
things we have heard and known,
    things our ancestors have told us.
We will not hide them from their descendants;
    we will tell the next generation
the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,
    his power, and the wonders he has done….

He did miracles in the sight of their ancestors
    in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.
He divided the sea and led them through;
    he made the water stand up like a wall.
He guided them with the cloud by day
    and with light from the fire all night.
He split the rocks in the wilderness
    and gave them water as abundant as the seas;
he brought streams out of a rocky crag
    and made water flow down like rivers. (New International Version)

Every day I read in the biblical psalms. There are two reasons I do this. First, the psalms are the church’s prayer book. They are more than reading material; the psalms are designed to be owned by us as prayers. And second, I need their reminders – a lot!

Remembering is a major theme throughout the entirety of Holy Scripture. It’s just part of the human condition, fallen and forgetful as we are, to lose sight of what has taken place in the past. Today’s psalm invites us to seek the Lord through remembering all the good and wonderful works he has done.

For Israel, remembering meant continually having the events of Passover in front of them. God redeemed the ancient Israelites out of Egyptian slavery and into a good Promised Land. They were to never forget God’s miracle through the Red Sea, God’s protection over them from other nations, and God’s provision of food and necessities in the desert.

We are to remember because we are made in God’s image and likeness. God remembers. God has an ongoing reminder in a divine day timer – Fulfill the promises I made and keep the covenant I initiated with the people, even when they’re stinkers and forget who I am and what they are supposed to be about.

As old as God is, there is no danger of the Lord getting some sort of divine dementia. God doesn’t forget. The Lord always keeps promises made to people.

For the Christian, all God’s promises are remembered and fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Deliverance from sin, death, and hell; the gift of the Holy Spirit; and ongoing presence and provision are given to us graciously and freely by the God who loves and cares for people.

For Christians, remembering means coming to the Lord’s Table, entering the once for all loving sacrifice of Christ on our behalf.

We remember the past action of the cross – the once for all sacrifice of Jesus for all the world.

We are mindful of Christ’s continuing presence now in the person of the Holy Spirit.

And remembering these things helps us to look forward with confidence when the Lord shall return and we will eat with him at a grand heavenly banquet table.

One of the reasons I write and journal about my life and Scripture is to remember. Sometimes I forget. There are times when I’m overwhelmed with life and it feels as if God has forgotten me. In such times, I look back into my journal and see what God has done.

And I peer into the psalms and see that the Creator God is active in the big, created world, always attentive to working what is just, right, and good – bending twisted circumstances and evil machinations back toward the great arc of love.

Psalm 78 is designed to recall historical events for the theological education of ourselves and the next generation. Through passing on eventful stories from the past to future generations, God’s people continue to remember and realize the incredible action of God in the world.

In recalling stories of care and deliverance, God’s commandments are kept. Putting trust in the powerful and benevolent God of all brings assurance and encouragement.

Using the psalms as a means of recollecting past events is a wise way of edifying God’s people and living into the command of the Law. As the Israelites were about to enter the Promised Land, Moses restated the Law for them, and then said:

These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. (Deuteronomy 6:1-12, NIV)

Since psalms are meant to be recited repeatedly throughout one’s spiritual life, doing so inoculates worshipers from faithless rebellion; and it counteracts the temptation toward trusting in idols. It’s a preservative which gives life, purpose, and wholeness.

Regular spiritual consumption of the psalms provides a pattern of instruction which molds and maintains the soul so that, when hard situations arise, the supports are there to hold us up under the adversity.

The life that is truly life – and the life of those who will come after us – happens through intentional remembrance and learning. Today’s psalm is a fitting invitation to set our hope in God, remember God’s wonderful works, and keep God’s commands.

O God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ:
Give me strength to live another day;
Let me not turn coward before its difficulties or prove recreant to its duties;
Let me not lose faith in other people;
Keep me sweet and sound of heart, in spite of ingratitude, treachery, or meanness;
Preserve me from minding little stings or giving them;
Help me to keep my heart clean, and to live so honestly and fearlessly that no outward failure can dishearten me or take away the joy of conscious integrity;
Open wide the eyes of my soul that I may see good in all things;
Grant me this day some new vision of your truth;
Inspire me with the spirit of joy and gladness;
and make me the cup of strength to suffering souls;
in the name of our Deliverer, Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Pathology of Complaining (Numbers 20:1-13)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

In the first month the whole Israelite community arrived at the Desert of Zin, and they stayed at Kadesh. There Miriam died and was buried.

Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. They quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the Lord! Why did you bring the Lord’s community into this wilderness, that we and our livestock should die here? Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!”

Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the tent of meeting and fell facedown, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. The Lord said to Moses, “Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.”

So Moses took the staff from the Lord’s presence, just as he commanded him. He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.

But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.”

These were the waters of Meribah, where the Israelites quarreled with the Lord and where he was proved holy among them. (New International Version)

Moses Strikes the Rock, by Rivka Korf

Every heinous sin you can think of – the worst of the worst – initially began as complaining and quarreling. Wherever you find murmuring and disrespect, you are looking at a spiritual illness which, if untreated, will poison the soul and result in apostasy, that is, a complete failure and repudiation of faith.

Today’s Old Testament lesson is a reminder and a warning that people’s faith can weaken to the point of becoming almost non-existent. There is a pathological process which brings people to a point of turning away from their faith:

  1. Complaining. It all starts with muttering some discontentment under the breath; murmuring dissatisfaction; and grumbling some ingratitude for what one already has. The Israelites complained about the lack of water. They quarreled with Moses about it and directed their anger at him.
  2. Psychotic depression. Most depression is normal, understandable, and even needed. However, psychotic depression is expressing a wish to be dead because of spiritual instability and an inability to see God at work. In other words, it’s manipulative. It’s a passive-aggressive type of anger directed at those who represent God. This is not a depression you can diagnose or put on someone; it’s a grief reaction gone sideways in wishing harm at self or others.
  3. Daydreaming. This is a preoccupation with “the good old days.” Back there in Egypt, the Israelites had figs, and grapevines, and water. But out here, they’ve got nothing. The people were experiencing extreme tunnel vision, only remembering the food they used to eat, instead of the bland manna they had to gather every day. They had completely blocked out the reason they were in the desert – because God brought a miraculous deliverance from slavery. Egypt was, in fact, anything but the good old days.
  4. Blaming. The people blamed Moses for bringing them into the wilderness. They criticized him for their lack of food and water. In reality, Moses was just doing what God wanted – and actually what the people wanted. The Israelites wanted out of Egypt; and then, when they left and things got hard, the people shifted the blame of hard circumstances onto Moses (and God).
  5. Disobeying. Why obey Moses or even Yahweh if you believe they’re out to get you, or don’t care? Maybe we just look out for ourselves and do what we think is best. (Exodus 16:1-28)
  6. Idolatry. Eventually, the people formed a “Back to Egypt” campaign. They turned their backs on Moses and on God. They lost faith, made a golden calf, and called it their god. (Exodus 32:1-8)

Despite all the whining and twisted thinking, God was gracious. The Lord told Moses to take up his staff, gather the people, and speak to a rock. God would provide by causing water to gush out of it.

At this point, Moses was upset. It seems to me he had enough of the people’s insolence and complaining. So, he ends up speaking to the people instead of the rock; and striking the rock with his staff instead of letting God do the striking.

It looks like rebellion rubs off and infects everyone, because Moses is chided by God for his own rebelliousness. Specifically, he was rebuked for not trusting God. As a result, Moses would not join the rest of the community in entering the Promised Land.

This is really a sad ending to the story. Moses was just trying to obey the Lord and lead the people. I can totally understand how exasperated he must have been from the constant griping of the people. Yet, Moses was held to account for his own lack of faith. And the people would eventually experience a harsh judgment for their faithlessness.

Don’t be misled. Bad company corrupts good character. (1 Corinthians 15:33)

Being around a bunch of ingrates will cause the good person to quit giving thanks.

Surrounding oneself with faithless people will result in that person eventually losing faith.

And hearing other people continually complain about their circumstances will cause you to grumble, setting the whole group on the road to spiritual death.

I don’t want that. And I don’t want it for you, either. If you are in such a group, get out, go, and be around people with the sort of values you care about. Life is too short to mess around with a bunch of complainers.

Lord Jesus Christ, you prayed for your friends that they would be one as you and your Father are one. We confess our resistance to your prayer. We have failed to maintain the unity of the Spirit. We have broken the bond of peace.

For the times we have not listened to each other, when we have spoken in anger, haste or fear, we are sorry. For the times we have not loved each other, when we have competed, or insulted or judged each other, we are sorry. For the harm that our disunity has done to our witness to the Gospel, we are sorry.

Have mercy on us, we pray. Restore us to friendship with you and with one another, through the power of your Spirit. Amen.

Be Careful What You Ask For (Numbers 11:18-23, 31-32)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

Now tell the people, ‘Purify yourselves for tomorrow; you will have meat to eat. The Lord has heard you whining and saying that you wished you had some meat and that you were better off in Egypt. Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will have to eat it. You will have to eat it not just for one or two days, or five, or ten, or even twenty days, but for a whole month, until it comes out of your ears, until you are sick of it. This will happen because you have rejected the Lord who is here among you and have complained to him that you should never have left Egypt.’”

Moses said to the Lord, “Here I am leading 600,000 people, and you say that you will give them enough meat for a month? Could enough cattle and sheep be killed to satisfy them? Are all the fish in the sea enough for them?”

“Is there a limit to my power?” the Lord answered. “You will soon see whether what I have said will happen or not!”…

Suddenly the Lord sent a wind that brought quails from the sea, flying three feet above the ground. They settled on the camp and all around it for miles and miles in every direction. So all that day, all night, and all the next day, the people worked catching quails; no one gathered less than fifty bushels. They spread them out to dry all around the camp. (Good News Translation)

I can just imaging the dialogue around the campfire at night with some of the ancient Israelites. Out in the middle of nowhere, delivered from Egyptian slavery, but not yet to the Promised Land, they were feeling the awkward space of being in-between those two places:

“Manna, again!? Geez, are we ever going to get anything else to eat?”

“Doesn’t look like it, does it? Every single day we get up, go out on the desert, collect the manna, eat it all day, go to bed, then get up and do it all over again.”

Do you remember back in Egypt, we had garlic and leeks and stew and meat? Oh, glorious meat! Sometimes I think we were better of there. Dang it, I want meat! Don’t you want meat, too!?”

“Yeah, I’m sick of this manna. Hey, there’s Moses. Get us some meat, Moses! Did you bring us out here to bore us to death with manna!? What are you doing about it? Where are you leading us? Where’s the meat?”…

And on and on it goes, the murmuring about food and conditions in the desert.

When life is topsy-turvy and upside-down, it is so amazingly easy to grumble and complain. The ancient Israelites sometimes didn’t have water to drink. They had a limited diet of manna. They were anxious, nervous, and scared, wondering if things would get better, or not. The people were in a life-and-death sort of situation.

How would you respond?

Complaining, unlike our emotions such as fear, is a volitional response. We choose to grumble. The problem with gripes and complaints is that it sets a person down a dark path. The criticisms and grievances begin easily and are seemingly harmless, that is, at first. They are, however, anything but innocuous or innocent.

The murmuring under the breath did not stop with getting meat to eat. If we look ahead in the story of God’s people in the exodus event, the moaning and complaining quickly returned. The people became so disillusioned with their circumstances that they began longing for the “good old days” back in Egypt when they had plenty to eat and drink, forgetting about their cruel bondage in slavery. (Exodus 16:1-3)

The psychological progression continued with beginning to blame their situation on God, as if the Lord were some mean malevolent deity. From that point, it was inevitable that the people would disobey God and eventually succumb to the idolatry of the golden calf. (Exodus 32:1-8)

Despite the grand celebration of leaving Egypt and experiencing a miraculous deliverance through the Red Sea, the people quickly forgot because of their present mundane circumstance of eating manna every day.

If they were spiritually healthy, they would realize that the mighty God who saved them with incredible acts of power would care for them in a desert. Yet, for many, there was no faith to be found in a new situation they had not faced before.

Failure of faith begins neither with ignorance nor an egregious sin. It begins with grumbling and complaining. And if allowed to run amok, complaints will bear the fruit of discouragement, disobedience, and finally, a disavowal of God.

Sometimes, if you want something bad enough, God will give it to you. And you won’t like it. That’s because the heart has already been attuned to grumbling and murmuring. The heart’s hunger will never be satiated; it’s sick. And it can become so sick that a heart transplant is needed – an altogether new heart. Yet God will even help with that:

And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations. (Ezekiel 36:26-27, NLT)

Acceptance means practicing a conscious effort to acknowledge and honor difficult situations and emotions. Fully accepting things as they are, instead of ignoring, avoiding, or wishing the situation were different, can be a critical step in moving through a difficult experience to experiencing more meaning.

Learning to be satisfied and content begins with accepting our current reality and present circumstances. The state of our minds and our hearts will determine whether we will ever be happy or not. When we discover how to synchronize ourselves with the groove of God’s Spirit, then we shall enjoy an abundant life of contentment – no matter the situation.

May we be able to say along with the psalmist:

I will bless the Lord who guides me;
    even at night my heart instructs me.
I know the Lord is always with me.
    I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me.

No wonder my heart is glad, and I rejoice.
    My body rests in safety.
For you will not leave my soul among the dead
    or allow your holy one to rot in the grave.
You will show me the way of life,
    granting me the joy of your presence
    and the pleasures of living with you forever. (Psalm 16:7-11, NLT)