Tag: hard circumstances

God of the Living (Ezekiel 39:7-8, 21-29)

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

I will make sure that my people Israel know my holy name, and I will not let my name be disgraced any more. Then the nations will know that I, the Lord, am the holy God of Israel.”

The Sovereign Lord said, “The day I spoke about is certain to come….

The Lord said, “I will let the nations see my glory and show them how I use my power to carry out my just decisions. The Israelites will know from then on that I am the Lord their God. And the nations will know that the Israelites went into exile because of the sins which they committed against me. I turned away from them and let their enemies defeat them and kill them in battle. I gave them what they deserved for their uncleanness and their wickedness, and I turned away from them.”

The Sovereign Lord said, “But now I will be merciful to Jacob’s descendants, the people of Israel, and make them prosperous again. I will protect my holy name. When they are once more living in safety in their own land, with no one to threaten them, they will be able to forget how they were disgraced for having betrayed me. In order to show to the many nations that I am holy, I will bring my people back from all the countries where their enemies live. Then my people will know that I am the Lord their God. They will know this, because I sent them into captivity and now gather them and bring them back into their own land, not leaving even one of them behind. I will pour out my spirit on the people of Israel and never again turn away from them. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.” (Good News Translation)

“God is trying to sell you something, but you don’t want to buy. This is what your suffering is: Your fantastic haggling, your manic screaming over the price!”

Hafiz, 14th century Persian mystic poet

A lot of folks struggle with their relationship with God in trying to make sense of the hard things they go through. Some interpret their troubles as a punishment from God. Others resign themselves to the difficulty and, at best, believe there must be some purpose to it all; and, at worst, simply state in defeat, “It is what it is.”

God most certainly does allow some awful things to happen. Although the Lord is not the author of the evil, God providentially bends all circumstances for the divine glory and for our benefit.

We may still cry out and insist, “But why must God do it this way? Isn’t there another path than the one I’m on?” It’s not bad to ask those questions. After all, the Lord Jesus himself cried out, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup [of suffering] be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” And, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 26:39, 27:46, NIV)

In many ways, life is about detaching from all that hinders us from attaching to God. If we are mindful of this project, it’s likely we will realize a fulfilling connection with the divine. If, however, we lose sight of this, and become unaware of the vital relationship between God and humanity, then the Lord loves us enough to work on bringing us back into healthy relations.

It takes a lifetime of practice to let go and die to self.

And God will use every circumstance – both good and bad – to help us do that.

The Lord is glorified and shown forth as holy when we detach from all that is unhealthy and attach to everything that is just, right, and good.

God’s own Holy Spirit is the very person we need to guide us through each situation of our lives.

Typically, it is we ourselves who need to change, and not necessarily our circumstances. Yet, we too often fear change. The ego – the false self – hates change because it has bought into the belief that the outward projection of oneself to the world is the real thing (which it is not). Therefore, the ego tends to interpret each negative situation as an attack, rather than discerning that this might be the Lord getting at the inner heart of the person.

We must come to grips with the reality that one must change in order to love, and to love in order to change. Anytime we love someone or something else, we have died on some level; we let go of something so that we can grab hold of something else. The monkey who refuses to let go of the banana is trapped; the one who releases it grabs hold of freedom.

“Sin” is much less about moralistic religion, and much more about mistaking ourselves for someone we aren’t and not knowing to whom we belong. The ancient Israelites, whom the prophet Ezekiel addressed, had lost touch with who they are and whose they are. So, the Lord was determined to clarify it for them.

The realization of our true selves comes through love. And since God is love, knowing God enables us to regain our true essence.

The ego, although the necessary scaffolding for the emerging construction of the soul, must eventually be jettisoned. It would be weird if you erected a building, then kept up the façade. God is alive and deals with the living, and not the dead things around us.

Jesus said, “He’s not the God of the dead but of the living. In God’s sight all people are living.” (Luke 20:38, GW)

O Holy One, we call to you and name you as eternal, ever-present, and boundless in love. Yet there are times, O God, when we fail to recognize you in the dailyness of our lives. Sometimes shame clenches tightly around our hearts, and we hide our true feelings. Sometimes fear makes us small, and we miss the chance to speak from our strength. Sometimes doubt invades our hopefulness, and we degrade our own wisdom.

Holy God, in the daily round from sunrise to sunset, remind us again of your holy presence hovering near us and in us. Free us from shame and self-doubt. Help us to see you in the moment-by-moment possibilities to live honestly, to act courageously, and to speak wisdom. Amen.

A (Needed) Perspective on the Christian Life (Acts 27:39-44)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
Paul’s Shipwreck, by Ludolf Backhuysen (1630–1708)

When daylight came, they did not recognize the land, but they saw a bay with a sandy beach, where they decided to run the ship aground if they could. Cutting loose the anchors, they left them in the sea and at the same time untied the ropes that held the rudders. Then they hoisted the foresail to the wind and made for the beach. But the ship struck a sandbar and ran aground. The bow stuck fast and would not move, and the stern was broken to pieces by the pounding of the surf.

The soldiers planned to kill the prisoners to prevent any of them from swimming away and escaping. But the centurion wanted to spare Paul’s life and kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and get to land. The rest were to get there on planks or on other pieces of the ship. In this way everyone reached land safely. (New International Version)

Saul was an up and rising star among the Jewish Pharisees. He was committed to his religion to the point of approving the death of the first Christian martyr, Stephen. Saul saw followers of Jesus as an aberration to Judaism, and did whatever he could to stamp out the sect.

During one of his travels to do just that, he was confronted by a vision of Christ himself, who said to Saul, “Why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4-5) For days Saul was blind, mimicking his spiritual blindness. Both his physical and spiritual eyesight were restored when he came to faith in Christ and began following the words and ways of Jesus. His name changed from Saul to Paul the Apostle.

Paul’s conversion was a complete transformation of life. Yet, this in no way meant that the rest of his life was all rainbows and butterflies. Just the opposite. Saul the Persecutor ended up becoming Paul the Persecuted One.

With the same drive and desire that he once had to do away with Christians altogether, so now the Apostle Paul put all that energy into proclaiming the good news of grace and forgiveness in Jesus Christ his Savior and Lord. And, as one might expect, this put Paul in the crosshairs of his former partners, the Jewish Pharisaical leadership. They now despised Paul.

The Jewish religious authorities hated Paul so much that they made sure to stir up trouble for him everywhere he went, even when it was way out in the Gentile sticks of Galatia and the Gentile strongholds of Greece. And that is essentially why Paul landed in prison. He was portrayed as a rebel and a troublemaker, an enemy of the social order (even though Paul himself was actually a citizen of Rome).

As a Roman citizen, Paul invoked his right to appeal to Caesar. And so, he was put on a Roman prison ship, bound from Palestine to Italy. And that is where we pick up today’s New Testament lesson.

Paul had been through an awful lot of adversity, hardship, and persecution. His faith had become so robust that a terrible storm and a shipwreck could not at all wreck his commitment to Christ. In fact, it only strengthened it.

It’s not always easy to see, but Paul’s words to the Roman Christians are true, even for us today:

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

The Apostle Paul (Romans 8:28, NLT)

This is an understanding of God, a deep theological perspective, which is informed by years of walking with Jesus in the crucible of suffering and difficulty. It discerns the Lord as caring and loving, even when it appears on the surface that God is mean and capricious.

Many Christians today tend to believe that the redemption which Christ secured is a mere life insurance policy for heaven. And, if it has anything to do with the here-and-now, it means we ought to have all our desires met for earthly peace and abundance. If that were true, both Jesus and Paul were miserable failures as godly people.

God, however, cares about our salvation, our wholeness and integrity as people on this earth. Yes, we have eternal life, yet that life has already begun, and we are to live into it now.

Christianity is a paradoxical faith. The way to gain your life is to lose it. The path to glory is through suffering.

This, my friends, means that we do not gain a good and blessed life by attempting to make everything in life go our way, without any difficulty. Instead, the good life comes by acknowledging the grit and grist of life. It is in the full acceptance of suffering, persecution, illness, death, and our own psychological infirmities that leads us into becoming who God wants us to be – and thus more open to what joy really is.

On the practical level, this means that our failures, our missed expectations, and our dashed hopes are very important pieces to our faith and it’s development. All of this is what awakens us to compassion – both for others and ourselves.

So then, Paul’s perspective on all the difficulties in his life is that they are significant spiritual incubators of faith for him. Paul accepted his sufferings and hardships – and more than that – he valued them for the ways they developed his faith in God and ability to minister to others.

As one old Rabbi once put it:

“There are many rooms in God’s castle. There is, however, one key that opens every room, and that key is a broken heart.”

Ba’al Shem Tov (1698-1760)

Sovereign God, let our love be genuine; help us to hate what is evil, and to hold on to what is good; and empower us to love one another with mutual affection. Strengthen our spirits so that we might serve our Lord Jesus. With you as our faith, we choose to rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; and persevere in prayer, by means of your blessed Holy Spirit. Amen.

Listen and See (Isaiah 42:14-21)

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

For a long time, I, the Lord,
    have held my temper;
now I will cry out and groan
    like a woman giving birth.
I will destroy the mountains
    and what grows on them;
I will dry up rivers and ponds.

I will lead the blind on roads
    they have never known;
I will guide them on paths
    they have never traveled.
Their road is dark and rough,
    but I will give light
to keep them from stumbling.
    This is my solemn promise.

Everyone who worships idols
as though they were gods
    will be terribly ashamed.

You people are deaf and blind,
but the Lord commands you
    to listen and to see.
No one is as blind or deaf
as his messenger,
    his chosen servant,
who sees and hears so much,
    but pays no attention.

The Lord always does right,
and so he wanted his Law
    to be greatly praised. (Contemporary English Version)

The Christian season of Lent serves to remind us that we must cultivate awareness by opening our eyes and unstopping our ears. Spiritual blindness and deafness are the result of failing to pay attention, ignoring the moral vision of God, and not listening to God’s voice.

It’s not unusual for people to complain about God being silent and ignoring them. But do we ever consider how the Lord feels about us living our lives as functional atheists? There may be expressions of belief, yet God doesn’t factor into the daily life of many. And the Lord is not okay with this.

At least we have assurances throughout Holy Scripture that the Lord is attentive to us, even when silent or seemingly not there. However, when it comes to us, our silence and lack of being present to the Lord is outright spiritual blindness and deafness on our part.

Today’s Old Testament lesson almost seems as if Yahweh is like the person trying to get your attention in a crowded place – jumping up and down, waving his arms, yelling our name – doing whatever it takes for us to see and hear, listen and look up. Yet, alas, we don’t.

Maybe we need to remember what God’s divine eyes and ears have already seen and heard. The Lord heard the awful groanings of the Israelites in Egypt under their harsh slavery. And God took notice of them and saw what was happening. (Exodus 2:24-25)

Perhaps we must recall all the times the Lord heard the cries of the people and sent a deliverer (Judges 2:16-19); and looked from heaven, saw those in bondage, and freed them. (Psalm 102:18-20)

If we put our fingers in our ears, and cover our eyes for too long, our hearts will become hard, and we shall be unable to turn from unhealthy ways of living. We’ll become so obtuse and clueless that we cannot repent and be healed.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” He said, “Go and tell this people:

“‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
    be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’
Make the heart of this people calloused;
    make their ears dull
    and close their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
    hear with their ears,
    understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.” (Isaiah 6:8-10, NIV)

This might seem rather hard. And yet, none of us can truly know comfort and consolation apart from facing the hard truth in front of us and the hard heart inside us. Everyone wants happiness without pain. However, we cannot have a rainbow without a storm, and a resurrection without a cross.

We can have a different experience of God. It’s not too late. The message of Lent is that we can prepare ourselves for the Lord’s deliverance – and it is likely to come in the form of great sorrow and great joy of which we could not have anticipated.

The wisdom I proclaim is God’s secret wisdom, which is hidden from human beings, but which he had already chosen for our glory even before the world was made. None of the rulers of this world knew this wisdom. If they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as the scripture says,

“What no one ever saw or heard,
    what no one ever thought could happen,
    is the very thing God prepared for those who love him.” (1 Corinthians 2:7-9, GNT)

We humans struggle with the hard things of life. Yet, what we don’t always see or hear is how those adversities are shaping and forming us as a people.

For how would we ever know the Lord as our:

  • Deliverer unless we were in bondage?
  • Comforter unless we were in trouble?
  • Helper unless we were weak?
  • Healer unless we were broken?
  • Provider unless we were poor?
  • Protector unless we were in danger?
  • Warrior unless we were under attack?
  • Rock unless we were being tossed about?

Every day is a fresh opportunity to experience the presence, power, provision, and protection of a God who sees and hears us. Believers are to honor and respect the Lord by listening to God’s voice and obeying God’s words.

So, let us use this season to offer prayers of repentance and faith:

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways,
and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Evicting Complaints (Exodus 16:1-8)

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

On the fifteenth day of the second month after the Israelites had escaped from Egypt, they left Elim and started through the western edge of the Sinai Desert in the direction of Mount Sinai. There in the desert they started complaining to Moses and Aaron, “We wish the Lord had killed us in Egypt. When we lived there, we could at least sit down and eat all the bread and meat we wanted. But you have brought us out here into this desert, where we are going to starve.”

The Lord said to Moses, “I will send bread down from heaven like rain. Tell the people to go out each day and gather only enough for that day. That’s how I will see if they obey me. But on the sixth day of each week they must gather and cook twice as much.”

Moses and Aaron told the people, “This evening you will know that the Lord was the one who rescued you from Egypt. And in the morning you will see his glorious power, because he has heard your complaints against him. Why should you grumble to us? Who are we?”

Then Moses continued, “You will know it is the Lord when he gives you meat each evening and more than enough bread each morning. He is really the one you are complaining about, not us—we are nobodies—but the Lord has heard your complaints.” (Contemporary English Version)

Every person on planet earth knows what a complaint is. That’s because we’ve all complained about something and we’ve all been the brunt of someone else’s complaining. To handle grumblers, we need to first deal with our own complaining spirit. 

Early in the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve disobeyed God. That caused their attitudes to change. Whereas their original reflex responses in the Garden of Eden were to enjoy God and be open, their automatic emotional reflexes after the fall were to hide, blame, and guard themselves. 

Adam’s first response to God after his disobedience was to point the finger at Eve: “The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”  And Eve’s initial reflex attitude was to shift the blame, as well: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (Genesis 3).

Ever since, people have had an automatic attitude of blaming, quarreling, and complaining. The heart drifts toward complaint as if by some gravitational pull because grumbling seems a reasonable response to disappointing events.

Generally, complaints show up as an uninvited guest. You return home from a frustrating day to discover that complaint has moved into your guest room, unpacked its luggage, started a load of laundry, and is rooting through your fridge.

Even as you work to evict complaint—as you move its bags to the curb and change the locks on your doors—it somehow crawls back into the guest room window. Complaint is highly resistant to eviction. 

Before you know it, over time, complaint becomes familiar, even right. With every struggle, we become like the Israelites murmuring in the desert (Exodus 16-17). Although God wants to prepare our faith for works of service in the world, we are hunkered down with complaint, watching TV together, and grumbling through every show and each conversation.

We can discourage complaint’s residency in our lives by inviting another guest to move in with us. That new guest is a prayerful attitude of trust and gratitude. When we choose to trust God and give thanks in the face of deep disappointment, complaint has less space to maneuver.

While attempting to unpack for an extended stay, complaint discovers that trust and gratitude have taken all the drawers in the guest room and already occupy the empty seat at the supper table. Faith and gratitude evict complaint because faith and a grumbling spirit are not able to live in the same house together. One inevitably pushes the other one out.

The ancient Israelites experienced a miraculous deliverance from harsh slavery in Egypt. The Lord parted the Red Sea so that they could walk across on dry ground and escape the Egyptian army’s pursuit. It’s easy to praise God when great things happen, and the Israelites had a whopper of a praise and worship service after that deliverance. Yet it’s quite another thing to praise and trust God when trouble happens – and when it keeps happening over and over again. 

Immediately after the praise and worship, Moses led the people into the desert. There was no water. God deliberately led the people into a difficult situation to test their faith. The Israelites quickly forgot the blessings and began grumbling about their situation. 

Their reflex response was to complain and ignore God’s direct commands. Maybe they did so because they spent four-hundred years of slavery in Egypt, and complaint had made such a home with them that it was second nature to murmur about their situation.

I keep a small c-clamp in my office to remind me that I am not in control, but God is. It isn’t my job to hold the universe together. The c-clamp also reminds me that I need to keep a clamp on my tongue when it comes to grumbling and complaining. Sins of the tongue are some of the most dominant forms of disobedience to God throughout Holy Scripture. 

All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and sea creatures can be tamed and have been tamed. But our tongues get out of control. They are restless and evil, and always spreading deadly poison. (James 3:7-8, CEV)

I wonder, can any of us go 24 hours without complaining about something or someone? 

Those who cannot answer “yes” must recognize that’s a real problem. If you cannot go 24 hours without drinking liquor, you are addicted to alcohol. And if you cannot go 24 hours without grumbling about something or someone, then you have lost control over your tongue and you are addicted to murmuring and have an adulterous relationship with complaint.

We must invite everlasting life to take up permanent residence. We need to evict the squatter of complaint. 

God is with us. Difficult circumstances, trouble, hard situations, problem people, and the seeming impossibility that things will not change doesn’t mean God moved out of your house. Instead, it’s evidence that the Lord wants us to exercise our faith.

Let God do it.

O God:
Give us all strength to live another day without grumbling, arguing, or complaining;
Let us not lose faith in other people and withdraw from them, or you, out of spite;
Keep our hearts tender in spite of the ingratitude, treachery, or meanness around us;
Help us to maintain purity of heart, and to live in faith and confidence, so that failure cannot dishearten us;
Open wide our spiritual eyes so that we may see the good in all things;
Inspire us with the spirit of joy and gladness;
and make us worthy and competent servants to suffering souls;