Tag: waiting on god

Psalm 130 – Believe, Hope, and Love

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

I cry out to you from the depths, Lord—

my Lord, listen to my voice!
    Let your ears pay close attention to my request for mercy!
If you kept track of sins, Lord—
    my Lord, who would stand a chance?
But forgiveness is with you—
    that’s why you are honored.

I hope, Lord.
My whole being hopes,
    and I wait for God’s promise.
My whole being waits for my Lord—
    more than the night watch waits for morning;
    yes, more than the night watch waits for morning!

Israel, wait for the Lord!
    Because faithful love is with the Lord;
    because great redemption is with our God!
He is the one who will redeem Israel
    from all its sin. (Common English Bible)

Throughout church history, the book of Psalms has been used and understood as the Church’s prayer book.  Indeed, the psalms are much more than a collection of beautiful poems, words of assurance, and songs of praise – they are designed and meant to have regular and ongoing use as prayers. And I’m not just talking about the psalms being somebody else’s prayers; they are my prayers and your prayers. 

There are times when words fail us – where we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place and want to pray. Our stress and/or anxiety is so high, we can neither think straight, nor form anything coherent with our mouths. It’s in such times that the psalms present themselves to us as the path forward. 

What’s more, psalms are meant to be spoken out loud and more than once. And I’m not talking about saying them with a quiet mumble or a flat monotone.  No! These precious prayers of Holy Scripture are meant to be declared with full voice and a large amount of flavor!  They are to repeatedly roll off our lips with all the emotional and spiritual gusto which resides within us!  Tears and yelling are both appropriate and encouraged. 

For we do not possess a mere heady faith of thoughts and ideas; we also possess a faith that is robustly heartfelt, and dwells down deep in the gut where our bowels of compassion have their abode. 

Even with a cursory reading of today’s psalm, we can easily observe there’s more going on here than beliefs of faith, hope, and love. 

The psalmist is expressive, clinging to faith with a patient longing for God to make good on divine promises. It is chocked full of emotion, a prayer coming from the depths of the gut. The whole being is involved, and rightly so, because our faith affects the entirety of a person and everyone in the community of the redeemed.

If this psalm resonates with you in any way, let your proclamation of it be with the expanse of feeling inside you. After all, as people created in the image of God, we share God’s own deep sense of love – and love is genuinely love when it is outwardly expressed with a sacred combination of words, actions, and feelings.

Waiting, watching, hoping. We as humans do a lot of that. While we anticipate God’s response, we keep up the praying. We keep reminding God to be God. We encourage others to watch and wait and hope, all the while encouraging ourselves, as well.

Whenever we are stressed, more often than not, we thrash about, like a desperate swimmer in the middle of a lake, just trying to keep his head above water. Yet, the psalm tells us to do the counterintuitive: Don’t do something. Just stay there and relax. Why, in heaven’s name, should I do nothing?

Because the Lord will act.

And that action of God will redeem, renew, refresh, and revitalize. It will be new, like the morning dawn. A fresh day, that will not be like any other day before it.

God does his best saving work in the worst and most impossible of circumstances. We need not fear the overwhelming depths of difficulty and trouble. We can trust the Lord.

Perhaps the most awful of deep holes are emotional – deep depression and/or anxiety – a lostness inside oneself because of mental disorder. In such a dark oblivion, and terrible morass, one tries to survive into another hour, not just another day. Like a watchman waiting for the night to dissipate and dawn to break, there is a longing for God.

Deliverance and rescue seem slim. Hopelessness begins to calcify the spirit. Only love can release the hardening situation; the steadfast love of God is a gentle hammer, picking away at the grief.

This is a love which never gives up.

Today’s psalm begins as a desperate cry for help. It ends with an awareness of the need to trust, hope, and wait….

Blessed Jesus, in the comfort of your love, I lay before you the memories that haunt me, the anxieties that perplex me, the despair that frightens me, and my frustration at my inability to think clearly. Help me to discover your forgiveness in my memories and know your peace in my distress. Touch me, O Lord, and fill me with your light and your hope. Amen.

*Above painting of Psalm 130 by Virginia Wieringa

Pentecost: Where We Want to Be, and Where We Are

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality BlogLeave a comment

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope, we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. (Romans 8:22-27, NIV)

Pentecostal Groanings

“Pentecost” is the Latin word for “fifty.” Each year, fifty days after Easter, Christians celebrate the Holy Spirit coming upon the early church with power. This Pentecostal energy is not just dynamite with an explosion of spiritual gifts and energizing ministry. Spiritual power certainly is and can be optimistic, positive, and full of faith. 

More than that, Holy Spirit power can also be found in the travails and tribulations we face. It can be discovered in the dark night of the soul, in times of loneliness and doubt, and in the constant need for prayerful intercession. The Spirit is both a mighty wind and a gentle breeze.

The good news of Pentecost is that when we are not powerful, the Spirit helps us in our weakness – that is our hope and our quiet strength. The Apostle Paul used the experience of childbirth to communicate and illustrate what the experience of the Christian life is like. Growth, wonder, expectation, hope, patience, pain, and joy are all words to describe pregnancy and childbirth. 

Pentecostal Prayer

When it comes to the Church and the Christian life, believers are in the gestation period. Our salvation has not yet come to full term. Meanwhile, we must remain encouraged and healthy, keeping our future hope always in front of us so that we will not lose heart. When we are limited in what we can do, we pray. When we are flat on our backs, overwhelmed with our circumstances, we may not be able to utter any words in prayer.

My dear wife and I know something about pregnancy and prayer. We did not know, twenty-six years ago, whether we would have our third child, or not. Our lives were turned upside-down for nearly four months, as we did everything possible to deal with an overwhelming situation, not knowing if our little peanut of a daughter was going to live or die in the womb.

Pentecostal Patience

We had to wait. We had to force patience on ourselves. It really was a life and death situation. As Christians, we are waiting for our complete redemption. If we are not patient and do not focus on our hope, we will not make it. 

To be sure, in difficult times it does no good to be like Eeyore and feel sorry for ourselves. Yet, on the other hand, it equally does no one any good to always be smiling, positive, and upbeat as if nothing is worth grieving over. To take such a posture toward the awful challenges of life is to, at best, ignore the power of lament, and, at worst, live in abject denial about what our true situation really is with all its weakness and inability to control most of what is going on.

In the teeth of adverse circumstances, enter God in the person of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit resides with us and strengthens us with Pentecostal power. So, on this Day of Pentecost, we not only celebrate the Spirit’s mighty power to blow a violent wind and upturn history; we also proclaim and praise the Spirit’s power to come alongside and provide the deep inner strength necessary to fortify us for all we must face.

Pentecostal Awkwardness

We cannot run away from what God has put in front of us. We live in an awkward time of spiritual pregnancy in which we possess salvation but do not yet possess it in all its fullness. There is so much groaning going on because we realize there is such a large gap between where we are and where we want to be.  If women could have babies without nine months of struggle, limitation, and pain, I think they would opt for that instead of the way it is now (I know I would!).

All of creation groans because where it is now and where it will be seems like such a long time in coming.  Every creature and all living things are presently experiencing decay and death. The earth is not yet redeemed from its cursed bondage. So, the planet convulses and contracts with natural disasters and diseases because we live in a fallen world that is not yet redeemed.

People groan because they fall victim to circumstances beyond their control. We also groan because of our own poor choices which grieve us. Although we have been delivered from sin, death, and hell, and experience spiritual power, we still must wait eagerly for the redemption of our bodies. 

We are keenly aware of the terrible disconnect between where we are as people and where we want to be. It feels like Pinocchio, who is not yet a real boy, and must deal with strings and other puppeteers who don’t care about him, who feels the need to lie because of his situation and pays the consequences of his nose growing.

But we are not left to fend for ourselves. Because the Spirit groans on our behalf, uttering prayerful sounds that words cannot express. The Spirit helps us in our weakness, in our pregnant state of discomfort and wondering. 

“The Holy Spirit is an expert on knowing our concerns, knowing God’s will, and bringing the two in harmony with each other.“

Mit Tdrahrhe

Pentecostal Hope

So, we focus on hope – the confident expectation we will not always be in this position. In the meantime, we learn to enjoy the process of growing in the Lord and discovering the ways of Jesus. We learn to slow down to listen to the gentle voice and the refreshing breeze of the Spirit. During this interim time, this gestation period, we develop new rhythms of life, moving back-and-forth between rejoicing and groaning; praising and grieving; hoping and lamenting; believing and doubting – all with agonizing patience.

Living patiently and hopefully in the Christian life will be worth it all when we see Jesus. We must walk through the valley; yet we never do it alone – God’s presence is with us in the personal provision of the Holy Spirit.

Do not give up in prayer. Even if you do not know what to say or cannot even speak, you can groan because the Spirit will pick up those groans and groan them in the ear of our gracious heavenly Father. The Holy Spirit stands in the gap between where we are and where we need to be. The Spirit intercedes for us, bridging that wide chasm, and bringing us practical deliverance from our impatience.

One of the oldest definitions of prayer is this: Lifting mind and heart to God. Too often in our efforts to pray formally, we fail to truly lift our hearts and minds to God. That’s because what is really in our hearts and minds is not something we generally connect with prayer, at all. Our frustrations, bitterness, jealousies, lusts, curses, sloth, and quiet despair are sometimes understood to be the opposite of prayer, as if they are things overcome so that we can pray.

Pentecostal Power

However, something deeper is happening within: Our frustrations, longings, lusts, jealousies, and escapist daydreams, the things we are fearful and ashamed to name in prayer, are in fact already lifting our hearts and minds to God in more honest ways than we ever do consciously.

If you are carrying a heavy burden, take the light yoke of Jesus and offload your worries to the Holy Spirit who is waiting to intercede for you. And if there is no immediate relief, persevere in prayer without giving up. Pentecostal power is available, but it is not cheap; it will cost us time in prayer as well as patience for the Spirit to work on our behalf. For the Christian life is a lifelong process of becoming.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill our hearts. Kindle within us the fire of your love. Send the gentle breeze of your Spirit, and we shall be renewed into patient people, growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Spirit of the living God, we invite you to wring the death out of our hearts and saturate our souls with your breath and life.  Hoping against all hope we lay defeat aside. We grab for the corner of your cloak and wait for a miracle. Amen.

*Above artwork by Rebecca Brogan

2 Peter 3:8-13 – It’s Time

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

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.

Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. NIV)

The Apostle Peter invites us to see the moving of history as God sees it. Peter addressed two questions and concerns the people had about the Lord’s coming: Will this coming be worth the wait? And what should I be doing in the meantime now while I wait?

The people in Peter’s time were impatient. They saw time from a mere human perspective and needed a bigger understanding of God’s purposes. The fact of the matter is that God’s timing is different than ours. There are two words for “time” in the New Testament: chronos and kairos. 

Chronos is where we get our English word “chronological.” This is time measured by the clock and is the way much of our lives are governed. The other term for time, kairos, is seasonal time. Kairos is not determined by the clock but is event oriented. 

God is not time-oriented in the sense that we are, that is, God is not ruled and controlled by the clock. God is event-oriented, which is why the Lord’s understanding of time is that a thousand years are like a day, and a day like a thousand years. In other words, God measures time differently than most Westerners do. When the Bible says Christ is coming soon, it means there are no events left in the course of history except the Day of the Lord, the return of Jesus, to judge the living and the dead.

I admit I am a clock-oriented guy. I also confess that my wife and girls are not. They are much more event oriented than me, so I suppose when it comes to time, they are the godly ones. After all, the seasons will continue to come and go but a clock will eventually die, that is, when its time is up.

I cannot begin to count how many hours of my life have been spent waiting on my wife and girls. I used to get frustrated and impatient because I thought they should be clock-oriented, like me. Yet, over the years, I have learned to accept this reality. Now I take the time of waiting and read. I have read a lot of books over the years through my waiting. I used to want to time travel because of wasted time, but that is all in the past now.

A clock-oriented guy like me needs to grasp that God has all the time in the world. God serves no clock. Clocks are merely playthings for the Lord. When God wants a hot time, he just puts a clock in the oven. I, however, tend to get antsy, impatient, and frustrated, believing that God must operate on my time schedule. However, what looks like divine tardiness to me is really something else.

God seems slow in keeping divine promises. But the truth is, the Lord takes all the time in the world because of divine mercy. While I am beating my chest trying to get everyone on my time deadlines, God beats up the clock, just to kill time.

In the face of so much that is not right with the world, we might wonder why God is not just stepping in and taking care of all the evil and unjust situations on this earth. What we view as a lack of mercy is, in fact, sheer grace on God’s part – patiently waiting for all kinds of people to confess their guilt and shame and come to Jesus. God is waiting for that lost soul to make their way to forgiveness. You cannot bear your secrets with a clock around because time will tell.

Whereas I tend to think I am waiting on God, God is waiting for me, too. What should I be doing in the meantime while I wait? We ought to be living holy and godly lives as we look forward to Christ’s coming and speed its coming. Yes, God is the One who is waiting on us. Do you know the time of the Second Coming? No, me neither; we have not met yet.

The holiness and peace of God’s people will influence the timing of the Christ’s return. When God upends our current situations, it is time to get a new set of circumstances. In other words, since God is an event-oriented God, the Lord has all the time in the world to wait on us to be the kind of people we need to be.

The fact that we are two-thousand years removed from the first Advent of Christ probably does not speak very well to the church in general. It will do no good to sit on our watches so that we can be on time. God is still waiting for a lot of folks to come to repentance, as well as the church to take up her mandate of making disciples.

God is gracious and does not bully us or strike us with lightning when we disobey. Rather, God is patient, wanting us to approach and receive mercy. The Lord is waiting for us to avail ourselves of divine help to live holy and godly lives. Holiness simply means to be separated from evil and attached to God. Godliness means to live a worshipful and spiritually disciplined life.  Our Lord’s patience means deliverance from all that disconnects us from Jesus so that we might rightly attach ourselves to Christ.

Robby Robins was an Air Force pilot during the first Iraq war. After his 300th mission, he was given permission to immediately pull his crew together and fly his plane home. They flew across the ocean to Massachusetts and then had a long drive to western Pennsylvania. They drove all night, and when his buddies dropped him off at his driveway just after sun-up, there was a big banner across the garage—”Welcome Home!”  How did his wife know? No one had called her, and the crew themselves had not expected to leave so quickly.

Robins relates, “When I walked into the house, my wife came running down the hall—she looked terrific—hair fixed, make-up on, and a crisp yellow dress. ‘How did you know?’ I asked.  ‘I didn’t,’ she answered through tears of joy. ‘Once I knew the war was over, I knew you’d be home one of these days. I knew you would try to surprise me, so I was ready every day.'”

In the history of redemption, the war has been won. There is only one event left on God’s calendar: The return of Jesus. When a clock stops ticking, it just hangs around. That is not what the Lord wants. Throwing the watch across the room will not make time fly; Jesus will come when he comes. Meanwhile, our focus is on living holy and godly lives as we wait….

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Psalm 27 – Waiting Patiently

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
The Waiting Room by South African artist Gerard Sekoto (1913-1993)

The Lord is my light and my salvation—
    so why should I be afraid?
The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger,
    so why should I tremble?
When evil people come to devour me,
    when my enemies and foes attack me,
    they will stumble and fall.
Though a mighty army surrounds me,
    my heart will not be afraid.
Even if I am attacked,
    I will remain confident.

 The one thing I ask of the Lord—
    the thing I seek most—
is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
    delighting in the Lord’s perfections
    and meditating in his Temple.
For he will conceal me there when troubles come;
    he will hide me in his sanctuary.
    He will place me out of reach on a high rock.
Then I will hold my head high
    above my enemies who surround me.
At his sanctuary I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy,
    singing and praising the Lord with music.

 Hear me as I pray, O Lord.
    Be merciful and answer me!
My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.”
    And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.”
Do not turn your back on me.
    Do not reject your servant in anger.
    You have always been my helper.
Don’t leave me now; don’t abandon me,
    O God of my salvation!
Even if my father and mother abandon me,
    the Lord will hold me close.

 Teach me how to live, O Lord.
    Lead me along the right path,
    for my enemies are waiting for me.
Do not let me fall into their hands.
    For they accuse me of things I’ve never done;
    with every breath they threaten me with violence.
Yet I am confident I will see the Lord’s goodness
    while I am here in the land of the living.

Wait patiently for the Lord.
    Be brave and courageous.
    Yes, wait patiently for the Lord. (NLT)

The message of the Advent season is perfectly and succinctly encapsulated in this heartfelt psalm to wait patiently for the Lord. Oh, how impatient we can be as people!  Not only do we anticipate the celebration of Christmas with the coming Christ child, but we long for deliverance, courage, help, strength, and, of course, patience.

The way to wait patiently is through hope. And hope is one of those things which needs to be continually be fortified. Whatever it is that we desire to see realized – the return of a wayward son or daughter; revitalization and revival within the church; courage to face the high wall of adversity; protection and deliverance from mean-spirited people; an end to pandemic; freedom from racism and injustice – whatever the situation we long for, patience is to be our breakfast every morning to help us through each day, living one day at a time, putting one foot forward.

Apart from patience and faith in God, we will lose our spiritual zeal and settle for a mediocre existence with tepid relationships and lukewarm engagement of the world. God desires more for us than simply having a marriage in which two people only exist under the same roof; for church to be more than buildings, budgets, and butts in the pews; for our work to be more than a necessary evil to make a living; for our lives to be more than fear, worry, and anxiety; more than broken dreams, messed up relationships, and situations gone sideways.

The confident expectation of hope neither eliminates trouble from our lives nor magically makes everything better. Deep faith, like the psalmist expressed, does not change reality – but it does change us. The way in which we view and handle our troubles is understood differently through the filter of faith and the lens of hope. The mammoth adversity in our lives is no longer feared because of settled trust in God; the danger which lurks about has no teeth to hold us when we are secure in the Lord.

The actions we ourselves take toward God amidst the fallen nature of this world are to wait and hope, be strong and take courage. It is precisely when we are totally discombobulated that these actions are to take effect. “I believe…” and “I have confidence…” become the beginning pronoun and verbs to every sentence we utter. So, let us flesh out those words:

I believe the Lord is the Light which keeps me safe and illumines my path.

I believe the Lord is my Fortress, a castle to protect me.

I believe the Lord is an Army surrounding me, defending my life.

I believe the Lord is the Rock of my salvation, keeping me secure.

I believe the Lord is a Parent who holds me close and does not let go.

I believe the Lord is the righteous, just, and good Judge, always extending grace and mercy to me.

Therefore, I have confidence and courage to engage the world, knowing God has my back.

I have confidence God will handle malevolent persons, systemic evil, and sinister forces on my behalf.

I have confidence I can approach God, since God’s character is always gracious and loving.

I have confidence to pray with authority, understanding God is the Sovereign of the universe.

I have confidence better days are ahead, that the Christ is soon coming.

I have confidence God bends to attentively listen to me praying.

I have confidence God is neither angry at me nor hidden from me.

I have confidence God shall lead me, guide me, and teach me in the way I ought to go.

Rather than losing heart, we can be strengthened with solid theology. Making daily affirmations of faith, persevering in hope, and performing small acts of love are our daily tasks while we wait and watch….

Almighty and everlasting God, the One who sees, knows, and protects, by the power of your Holy Spirit, you are refining us, purifying our discipleship, pulling us into following Jesus in this scary new world of uncertainty. Grant us mercy and grace to trust you more deeply, for the only secure place is with you, our light and our salvation, the stronghold of our life. We pray in the name of Jesus, the first-born of your new creation, and our hope, our life. Amen.

Psalm 27 by British songwriter and producer Jonathan Ogden