A Living Being

A Living Being.  Living is more than doing or achieving, just like going is more than arriving at a destination or making good time. After all, making good time is rather disconnected from making time good. A lost art exists in off-ramping the super-highway of gettin’ stuff done, taking instead the inefficient backroads and wandering a while. In this way, prioritizing the essence of being over the efficiency at doing is one of the multiple ways that we bear the image of our Creator. “Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7). 

Among the most stupendous details about God’s creation is not so much that he accomplished a “very good” work in six short days (Gen. 1:31), but that he took six long days to do a work that might have taken a fraction of a nanosecond. God clearly moved intentionally slower than his ability allowed. Maximum speed evidently is not God’s highest value.

When God made the earth, he left it intentionally under-cultivated, idyllic but not perfected. Notably, God planted the garden after he formed the human (Gen. 2:8). In other words, God did not make a worker to manage his creation, he made a companion to join his work of cultivation—a living being who could and would reflect and represent God in the created order, a privilege which God unmistakably gifted to both male and female humans individually and in harmony together (Gen. 1:26-28).

This apparent slowness of God within the week of creation halts, or at least challenges the insatiable, modern demand for better, faster, stronger. God’s patience, therefore, explains Job’s misery, and not the other way around. God’s promise outlasts Abram and Sarai’s fortitude to wait twenty-five years for the son of promise. God’s goodness frames the forty years Moses tended sheep in the desert and Israel’s forty years as wandering “sheep” in the same desert. Joshua’s decades-long task of conquering the Promised Land, David’s nearly ten years on the lam, Elijah’s entire ministry without a single friend before God provided Elisha, Jeremiah’s fifty-year career with zero “fruit” (so called), and Paul’s many years “on the shelf” between preaching in Damascus and teaching in Antioch—these all demonstrate that God is never late, never early, never rushed, and never frustrated. 

The Word of Our God Will Stand Forever

Isaiah 40:1-31

 ¹ Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

 ² Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins.

 ³ A voice cries: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

 ⁴ Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.

 ⁵ And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

 ⁶ A voice says, "Cry!" And I said, "What shall I cry?" All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.

 ⁷ The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass.

 ⁸ The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

 ⁹ Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!"

 ¹⁰ Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.

 ¹¹ He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.

 ¹² Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?

 ¹³ Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD, or what man shows him his counsel?

 ¹⁴ Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?

 ¹⁵ Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.

 ¹⁶ Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.

 ¹⁷ All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

 ¹⁸ To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?

 ¹⁹ An idol! A craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains.

 ²⁰ He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move.

 ²¹ Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

 ²² It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;

 ²³ who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

 ²⁴ Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

 ²⁵ To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

 ²⁶ Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing.

 ²⁷ Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God"?

 ²⁸ Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

 ²⁹ He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.

 ³⁰ Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;

 ³¹ but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Comfort

Comfort My People. Except for a brief, historical interlude regarding the miraculous deliverance of Jerusalem from the Assyrian army under the command of King Sennacherib in chapters 36-39, the book of Isaiah divides into two halves. Chapters 1-35 (sometimes categorized as chapters 1-39) in Isaiah are filled with woe for everyone in the ancient Middle East, except a faithful remnant who, though they will suffer alongside the rest of the people in the Fertile Crescent, retain the promises of return and restoration. Chapters 40-66 in Isaiah are filled with the glory of a future Deliverer, unexpectedly named the Suffering Servant of Yahweh. His deliverance will come through his vicarious suffering for the sins of the people. He will absorb God’s wrath on their behalf and extend grace to them through the New Covenant (Isa. 54:13).

The two halves of Isaiah are so striking and distinct that many theologians, especially in the 19^th and 20^th Centuries, suppose that there must be two separate authors—the “two Isaiahs,” or the Deutero-Isaiah Theory. Of course, that theory is moot since Jesus quotes from both “halves” of the book of Isaiah yet while naming only one Isaiah. But the 40^th chapter of Isaiah nevertheless shines against the dark gloom of impending doom with the remarkable brilliance of hope. Hope is not a military or political solution; it will be spiritual in nature.

The prophetic tone in the first half of Isaiah was typified by Isaiah 34:2, “For the Lord is enraged against all the nations, and furious against all their host; he has devoted them to destruction, has given them over for slaughter.” Against that approaching drumbeat for war, Isaiah 40:1 is shockingly tender: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” For even with the bare arm of God’s judgment there is yet a hand of kindness extended. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins” (Isa. 40:2). God does not promise to cure our governments of their corruption, but to displace them with his glory.

The solution to rampant injustice, ruthless invasion, and religious idolatry is divine visitation. “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground will become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken’” (Isa. 40:3-4). Before he judges all, he offers salvation to all. One day, all will be well.

Rescue

Rescue. Many years ago, I trained and worked as a lifeguard at our neighborhood’s swimming pool. Each day between Memorial Day and Labor Day, the pool opened to a couple hundred people, mostly kids. Swimming lessons were available before general swimming times, but sometimes kids attempted to swim without ever bothering to learn how to swim. For a lifeguard, this is a problem. Every other time I sat up in the elevated guard-chair, roasting in the sun, it was easy work, mostly consisting of counting heads, enduring the endless games of “Marco Polo” below me, and twirling my whistle’s lanyard back-and-forth around my finger. But one time, the only time I had to make a rescue of a distressed swimmer, a child who had never been to a pool decided that the waterslide was the place to start the experience of swimming. His was an immersion in water, and the Lord’s name was invoked, but this was no baptism. I blew my whistle, dove in, almost lost my swim trunks due to the height of the dive, but crossed the water at record speed (for me). However, before I could save the day, or the boy, my manager—who was standing nearer than I was sitting—plucked the boy out of the deep end without even getting wet. She later chided me for diving in when it would have been faster for me to walk/run around the pool than to swim through it, as if that were common knowledge.

Clearly, I didn’t get the employee award that day, but I learned some things about rescue. (1) A rescuer must be outside the distress to help those in distress. (2) A rescuer must be capable, available, willing, and qualified. (3) A rescuer draws upon previous training or experience before the distress begins. (4) A rescuer should tie his swim trunks tightly before he climbs into the guard-chair. And, although I never experienced it personally, (5) a rescuer should not attempt to rescue someone who doesn’t want to be rescued, or who is in a panic. In those cases, both the one in distress and the rescuer could—and often do—go under together. It is better to wait until the distressed swimmer is too exhausted to resist.

The Apostle Paul, at the end of his life, was clearly meditating upon rescue. He repeated the word twice in the last paragraph he would ever write. ”At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed, and all the Gentiles might hear it. So, I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen” (2 Tim. 4:16-18). Effectively and poetically, Paul likely lumped together all the occasions that the Lord rescued him as “from the lion’s mouth.” Although knowing Paul, he might literally have been thrown to the lions in the gladiator arena, too. But Paul’s insight on rescue includes two more lessons that went far beyond my Basic Lifesaving & Lifeguarding course ever could. (+1) Even if the Lord decides not, he is always able to rescue. (+2) While it is a scriptural guarantee that the Lord will rescue his people “from every evil deed,” that does not mean such will happen on earth. Sometimes, his rescue is death because through death Jesus brings us “safely into his heavenly kingdom.”

You Are God's Field

You Are God’s Field.  Were it not for the waves of pollen, May might be the crown of the whole year. Simply because of May’s allergies, October probably moves up to top billing, even though October has allergens of its own. The evenings in May are cool. The days are warm. The flowers are out. The days of sunblock are still ahead.

I dug up a live oak sapling in the uncultivated wild near my house. Its predecessor was impressive, wide, and verdant but the sapling is struggling where I transplanted it. It probably won’t endure many more days. Perhaps I have watered it too much, or not enough. Perhaps it has too much sun, or too little. Perhaps the soil at the house is too sandy, too nitrogen deficient, too acidic. Perhaps it has separation anxiety from its mother and sibling group. I don’t know. Then again, why would I know? It wasn’t from my field. Truth be told, my field didn’t begin with me. It is not my possession; I am merely leasing it from the generation to come. No matter what the records show down at the courthouse, all our fields are merely entrusted to us for a little while. We are stewards. The Lord is the owner. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein” (Psa. 24:1).

Every acorn, every worm in every acorn, every deer that feeds on every acorn in every field—it is all the Lord’s. Even we who harvest the deer that eat the acorns that grow in the field are the Lord’s possessions. Though we prefer to think of ourselves as autonomous and self-reliant, we are completely dependent upon our host-owner-God.

God, among his many titles, takes the title Farmer, too! He is the Worker for those who wait upon him, the Cultivator of the garden, the Shepherd of the flock, the Vinedresser of the true vine, the Sower of good seed, and the Rancher of the cattle on a thousand hills. It is, therefore, not a stretch to say that God gets his hands dirty. He seems to like it! Yet, the crop that he is primarily growing is us. “You are God’s field” (1 Cor. 3:9b).

If you are one of the redeemed, then God transplanted you from the wild into his own very garden. He is growing you not as a commodity, but as a worshiper, companion, and friend. “You are God’s field” but you are not the end of the line. God is looking ahead to the spiritual generations that he will make through you. Disciples making disciples, making disciples, making disciples. “You are God’s field” and God’s “fellow workers” (1 Cor. 3:9a). He is simultaneously growing us and including us in his work to cause others to grow. Although it is exclusively his work, his power, and his good pleasure to “give the growth” (1 Cor. 3:7), he nevertheless grants us an invitation to get our hands dirty alongside him, in his field, during that day that he has created. So, whether it is May or October, or even February or August, “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!” (Psa. 118:24).