The Blessed God

The Blessed God.  Life is not truly cyclical, as in the philosophy of reincarnation, but we can nevertheless observe loops in life despite its linear trajectory. As physical energy is never lost, but only transferred into another phase, in big and small ways the run of our life’s story proceeds from God and recedes back to God in a grand loop. One of those loops is blessing.

Blessing comes from God; he originates all blessings everywhere because he is, in his very essence, “the Blessed God” (1 Tim. 1:11). He emits blessing just as he shines the light of his love—it is who he is. When his blessing finds us, when we redistribute his blessing to others, when we return blessing back to God in the form of praise, this loop is completed. Everywhere, everything that is God’s and everyone who is God’s finds its, his, or her resting place in God. This is our most blessed God’s blessed loop of blessing. “I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates” (Rev. 22:13-14).

A large cluster of “blessing” verses in the Bible uses two different words, stretching across the Old Testament’s Hebrew and the New Testament’s Greek. Most of the time, “bless” is some form of the verb: eulogizo. This action means to pronounce the good (eu-) word (-logos) upon, over, or toward someone else. Three times this kind of blessing (eulogizo) appears in one verse. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Eph. 1:3).

Yet a few times, the word for “bless” means happy (makarios). It is slightly alarming, but should not be, to read that Christ is “the blessed (makarios) and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Tim. 6:15). Quite literally, Christ is the Happy One, and the only Potentate! He is eternally happy who uses his happiness to make the entire creation and all his new creatures, by way of salvation, happy in himself. In our state of alienation from God, we often thought of Christ and the idea of being with him forever as the ultimate killjoy, that the cost of heaven is unhappiness on earth. However, Christ is exactly opposite of our natural suspicions; he is the source and destiny of all happiness. His kingdom, therefore, is constantly misunderstood on earth: “Blessed (makarios: happy) are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). The kingdom of heaven is so counterintuitively happy that spiritual bankruptcy sort of stands as its prerequisite, much like the imputation of spiritual sight sort of requires the confession of spiritual blindness (John 9:41).

 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow;

Praise him, ye creatures here below.

Praise him above, ye heav’nly hosts.

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! Amen.

The Day of Small Things

The Day of Small Things. Regularly, it is helpful to review our history, taking special notice of God’s hand of kindness. Israel did so. America does it, too, especially around the fourth Thursday every November, when we remember God’s preservation of the pilgrims through their first, harsh winter (1620), the next year’s bountiful harvest (1621), and their peaceful alliance with the Wampanoag tribe. In line with Zechariah 4:10—“For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice”—it is America’s story time again!

The story of Tisquantum (Squanto) of the Patuxet Tribe is evidence of God’s providence. Undoubtedly shocking, Squanto greeted the arriving pilgrims in 1620 in fluent English! He was God’s gift of unlooked-for help at Plymouth Rock, “a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation” (William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth Colony). But Squanto’s journey to arrive at the beginning of the pilgrims’ great step of faith was long, unfair to him, yet amazing to the pilgrims.

In approximately 1585, Squanto was born to the Patuxet Tribe that populated the land hugging the coasts of what is now called North America. When he was 20 years old (1605), he and three other Native American males were abducted by Englishmen, under the command of Captain George Weymouth, who had been commissioned by Sir Ferdinando Gorges of the Plymouth Trading Company to explore the coastlands (Maine to Massachusetts) of the New World. Weymouth carted Squanto and three of his tribesmen back to England to show his financiers examples of indigenous inhabitants. As undeniably cruel as the slave trade was, it was arguably fortunate in an entirely misfortunate situation that Squanto was then acquired by Gorges, who taught him English for sending him as a guide on future expeditions.

In 1614, Squanto returned to the New World with Captain John Smith (of Jamestown fame) as a guide, only to be kidnapped again, this time by Smith’s associate, Thomas Hunt. However, Hunt sold Squanto in the Spanish slave market for profit. Squanto escaped from that unthinkably awful life before long and found refuge among some Franciscan Friars in Spain, who taught Squanto both Spanish and the doctrines of the Christian faith. Squanto then voyaged back to the New World in 1619 only to discover upon arrival that his entire tribe had been eradicated by disease contracted from English traders. He was the only Patuxet left alive, inadvertently saved by his slavers. But God had another mission for Squanto.

Alone in the world, Squanto took refuge among the nearby Wampanoag people. A few months later, another English ship dropped anchor at a site they called Plymouth Rock. Instead of interpreting more Englishmen as a threat to be eliminated, which would have been justifiable within Squanto’s story, Squanto offered them his friendship when he greeted them in English. He taught them survival skills, how to grow maize corn, where to fish and collect edible nuts and berries, and techniques for storing their food supplies through the long winter. Squanto mediated an alliance between the pilgrims and his adopted Wampanoag tribe. Chief Massasoit of the Wampanoag and ninety tribesmen celebrated with the pilgrims and Squanto the first Thanksgiving in 1621. Squanto’s help reminds America of God’s care.

Left-of-Center

Left-of-Center.  Besides being an awesome name for a potential garage band, Left-of-Center can uniquely alert one’s senses to hyper-awareness. It happened far too rapidly to react, a work truck drifted more than halfway across the double yellow lines into the on-coming lane of morning commuters. Kapow! My driver’s side mirror never had a chance; its plastic and glass remain scattered across Arrington Bridge Rd near the bend at Casey Mill Rd. It was a near-miss, a few inches from a head-on collision at 55 mph. No other damage occurred than the lost mirror, which was estimated as “not enough damage to meet your deductible.”

I saw the whole thing play out, plus a whole lot more. In addition to watching the dude speed away without even tapping his brakes, I saw my life pass before my eyes: wife, kids, work, half-finished projects around the house. My typical hit-by-a-bus scenario perhaps ought to change its central metaphor to a left-of-center white Ford F150 pickup. Either way, whichever metaphor applies, a brush with death has a strange way of affirming life.

The sense that remains, after my adrenaline-soaked senses returned to their default settings, is that there is still work to be done, much more than on my never-ending garage-to-apartment renovation. The gospel has prepared me for my inescapable death by the promise of resurrection, for sure, but there is still work to be done in the ministry sense. Disciples of Jesus are half-made. Disciple-makers of future disciples of Jesus are half-launched at home and around the world. My left-of-center experience has forced and focused an unplanned evaluation of my life, values, and relationships.

“For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). I’d never considered how personal that statement was to Paul himself when he languished in prison irons. Not everyone can speak such a sentence and mean it, especially after the left-of-center moments when everything involuntarily snaps to attention. But Paul could. He was not teaching at that point as much as testifying. Paul did not signify a death-wish but concluded that important ministry remained still unfinished. “If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again” (Phil. 1:22-26). Paul retained purpose in life.

Frankly, retaining purpose in life is worth more than a side mirror, or the $106 it will cost for the generic replacement part. There is still work to be done. Dust off and carry on.

Begin Again

Begin Again.  The math may be straightforward, but the journey is a winding road: get back up more than you fall down. “The righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity” (Pro. 24:16). The distance between seven and eight is greater than the distance between one to seven combined; a gap too great to measure in inches. Getting up the eighth time must be measured by grit, determination, humility, and faith.

Begin again, the Spirit whispers, though it sometimes seems like common sense to stay down on the canvas and accept the knock-out. However, if it is worth it, then begin again. Even if it is not worth it, begin again but in a different way. Or, as one mentor put it, which at first seemed like fingernails on a chalkboard, “If it is worth doing, then it is worth doing poorly.” Translation: it’s too easy to say, “If it is worth doing, then it is worth doing well.” Of course, an obviously worthy task deserves excellence! But if a thing is truly assessed as worthy, then it, itself, is more significant than failing seven times than leaving the worthy thing undone, untried, unfulfilled. Righteousness overrides failure. No one else is speaking out, but I have not written a script. Okay, here goes nothing. No one else is showing up, but I can spare an hour a week on it for the remainder of this year. Okay, mark it down as the old college try. No one else is stretching beyond minimum effort, but I can limber up and give it a go … or two, or eight. Okay, this is worth more than any potential dinging to my reputation.

Worth is not measured in the seven inadequate attempts by the subject, but in the worthiness of the object that requires, emboldens, and fuels an eighth attempt. Faith bounces back, floats to the top, dusts off, and begins again. In this way, it is the weak ones who know experientially more about worth than the strong ones, who never fail mostly because they never try anything that is beyond their reasonable capacity to win. The weak ones who fall regularly know a different reason for rising again an eighth time. For them, it is more than a determination to win, but an inclination to value the best stuff. Raw strength is brittle. Resilience is refined strength, malleable and adaptable. Getting up eight times is packed into an unlikely term: meekness, which could be translated as pliability, the characteristic under pressure to begin again. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5).

Could Not Contain

Could Not Contain.  It is immensely satisfying to run through a pen’s ink, which I did about once a week when I was in student-mode. If I could cap that feat by also hitting the trash can with the empty Paper-Mate® on a fade-away jump shot, then that would be even better!

Learning is a gift. May our literal and metaphorical ink pens be steadily running dry from jotting down notes, like gemstones from our Teacher. Most of the world’s pastors, however, have never had even one theological credit hour from even one formally trained mentor. Granted, those pastors throughout the world are not in a state of deficit since they have the Holy Spirit and at least some portion of the Bible in a language that they sort of know how to speak. Furthermore, we who have been well-trained (and every Christian in every pew in every church throughout America has, at the very least, had access to excellent spiritual instruction) are not better-off than our Majority World brothers and sisters. In many ways, we need them to teach us: about the cost of discipleship, about suffering, about contentment with godliness, about priorities. We have information, but they have wisdom.

It is a staggering sight to look at all the filled composition notebooks that I have filled with ink over the years from so many excellent teachers, mentors, and pastors. That is opulent wealth—unlimited access to learning. However, at the end of the day, we don’t need more and more data contained in a shelf of notebooks; we need Jesus Christ proclaimed in life, illuminated by light, and demonstrated through love.

The Apostle John gave an incredible, albeit parenthetical, word picture illustrating the same concept. He wrote his epistles, his gospel account, and his book of Revelation after all the other biblical writers were dead and gone. The others had said so much, Peter and Paul and the rest, but the Spirit pressed upon John to tie things off in terms of the special revelation of God given to humankind. While he was tying things off, he dropped a bombshell commentary about his own task of putting ink to parchment. “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book” (John 20:30). Many other signs? Wait a second! While the Bible is complete and completely true, it is not comprehensive—there is vastly more that could be written on the subject of Jesus! “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25).

Could we with ink the ocean fill, / And were the skies of parchment made,

Were every stalk on earth a quill, / And every man a scribe by trade,

To write the love of God above, / Would drain the ocean dry.

Nor could the scroll contain the whole, / Though stretched from sky to sky.

—"The Love of God” (Frederick Lehman, 1917)