Trust in the Lord

Trust in the Lord.  Reading classic children’s stories is always fun and often effective in teaching moral lessons: Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes, Aesop’s Fables, Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I remembered a Grimm story last week when the church building was inexplicably invaded by dozens of flies. As we passed the flyswatter around after church, I transported in my mind back to The Brave Little Tailor, whose miniature bravado won gigantic fame.

A brave little tailor took a break one day to munch on toast with jam. But the flies in his shop were overly interested in his sweet snack. Swatting at them with a swish of his hand, he killed seven flies with one swing. Being immensely pleased with himself, he made himself a belt with his accomplishment sewn into the leather, “Seven At One Blow,” and set out beyond his shop to seek his fortune. The slogan on the belt, which the tailor wore proudly wherever he went, was incrementally misinterpreted to represent greater and greater accomplishments by various townspeople, giants, soldiers, and then the king. But at each phase, the brave little tailor managed to survive and succeed, largely because of his dumb luck. Eventually, the king was so impressed with the brave little tailor’s feats of accomplishment that he gave him his daughter’s hand in marriage. The apparent moral of that story is: set out to seek your fortune.

These folk stories are particularly wild, and some are undeniably scary, but they share something in common: they persuade children to behave in society. Tactics have changed, but frightening children into cultural compliance is as common in the modern world as it was in the Medieval Period. Threats, however, have never been the best parenting technique! Far better than Grimm’s methodology of Behave Or Else is the Solomonic tone of the Proverbs: revere the Lord and trust him by trusting us, your parents, as the Lord’s provision for you to learn wisdom. Not everyone in life is trustworthy, therefore, trust us as you trust the Lord.

 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.

It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones (Prov. 3:5-8).

I Am the Foremost

I Am the Foremost.  Necessary though unpleasant, it is a punch in the gut every time I see my resemblance in Paul’s frequent admission that he was the foremost of sinners. He was not being dramatic; he was being honest. Paul’s honesty, however, was not based on his own understanding of self, others, God, and the universe as it had been in his years of pharisaism. It was based on Scripture and the internal witness of the Holy Spirit.

Paul’s honest, post-conversion assessment of his pre-conversion self was brutal. “And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme, and in raging fury against them I persecuted them even to foreign cities” (Acts 26:11). “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1 Cor. 15:8-9). “For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it” (Gal. 1:13). “I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life” (1 Tim. 1:12-16).

But Paul was also honest about his post-conversion tendency toward the very sins for which he was forgiven. “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Rom. 7:18-19). Taken together, Paul’s awareness of his pre-conversion self and his distrust of his post-conversion self, shows his remarkable freedom from artificially propping up his reputation before men.

Stemming from Jesus’ famous teaching, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it” (Mark 8:35), Paul might have made this appropriate application. If I maneuver to cling to my reputation, then I will lose it. But if I lose my reputation maneuvering to cling to Christ, then I will save it.

Come Over and Help Us

Come Over and Help Us.  Dr. David Livingstone, who would later in life become the famous explorer of the African Continent, on November 20, 1840, was ordained for missionary service. He was 27 years old and had just finished his studies to become a physician. Detoured from his plans for service in China because of the Opium Wars (1839-42), Livingstone agreed to serve instead in the West Indies. But every plan he had made for Asia was changed the instant he heard the esteemed Scottish physician and missionary, Dr. Robert Moffat, speak while furloughing in London from his work in South Africa.

Moffat spoke passionately "of a morning he could stand at his mission station at Kuruman and, looking to the north, see the smoke of the cook fires of a thousand villages without Christ." Livingstone nearly immediately set sail for Cape Town, South Africa, arriving on March 14, 1841. For better or worse, over the next 15 years, plus his second (1858-64) and third (1866-73) far more political and scientific expeditions intermittently lasting until his death, at great personal cost Livingstone journeyed deeper than any European into the African Interior in the attempt to reach the people who sat around the cook fires of those thousand villages without Christ that Moffat saw from his base camp so many years before.

Arguably more compelling than the unreached tribes, the Apostle Paul was redirected in his missionary attention, too, but by personal invitation. Repeatedly, Paul and his company were “forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia” (Acts 16:6, 7). Every plan he had made for Asia was changed the instant he received a vision, averting his gaze westward instead of northward. “And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us’” (Acts 16:9).

The force of a personal invitation for divine intervention remains as compelling today as ever, whenever, and wherever the Holy Spirit brings it to the attention of praying Christians: in Spain, in Goldsboro, or most recently in Monrovia and Buchanan City, Liberia. Come Over and Help Us is more than an ask for charitable donations. People ask people for hand-outs, which may be entirely appropriate sometimes, but people cry to God for help. This kind of help only God can give. Help, therefore, is a theological plea more than recruitment to a humanitarian cause. Help is a cry to God for rescue. However, God’s intervention often passes through the agency of his church.

My teaching trip to Liberia (March 4-13, 2024) shares the force of a personal invitation for divine intervention. The 50 pastors there have asked God for divine help in their various ministries to “teach what accords with sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1). God has crossed my path with their plea for his divine intervention. Subsequently, I am pleading for divine intervention for the funds to travel to Liberia to pass on to them that which was mercifully delivered to me by my mentors and Bible teachers. The $3000 that this trip requires is $3000 beyond our church budget and beyond my family budget. Perhaps God will pass his help to me through the agency of your generosity. When it works, everyone gets blessed, and God gets the glory.

The Wind Blows Where It Wishes

The Wind Blows Where It Wishes.  Whatever might have been today’s devotional thought, yesterday’s windstorm blew it away entirely, as well as loose branches, recycling bins, buckets, and even some pieces of stacked firewood.

Wind is a mighty force. Humans have tried to harness, predict, and bottle-up the wind for millennia but it always eludes domestication. It is little wonder that ancient people created myths about storm-gods such as Thor, Zeus, and Baal, including horrible non-mythical attempts to appease the fury of these capricious demons in their wild guesses of libations, pledges, and sacrifices. But on the lighter side, children often assume that the clouds push the wind, though it is the wind that pushes the clouds. Observable patterns in the wind exist, but pinning the wind to those patterns is ultimately futile—just ask Charlie Brown whenever he tries to fly his kite.

In 1492, when Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue proposing that there was a “river of wind” that could drive the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria east across the Atlantic, he was largely dismissed as a dreamer. But of course, he was right. The Jet Stream above and the Gulf Stream below the ocean’s surface still rush in a navigable pattern, though the Atlantic Ocean is never tame.

Jesus spoke of the mystery of the wind when sparring with Nicodemus, the Pharisee. Nicodemus had a question—presumably “Where do you come from?”—but he never got to ask it because Jesus beat him to the punch. Poor Nicodemus was fighting above his weight class and didn’t know it. Jesus was kind yet skillful in exposing Nicodemus’ inability to grasp Jesus’ concept of salvation: “You must be born again” (John 3:7). Jesus cornered the so-called expert back to elemental truths, which Nicodemus should have known. “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). “Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’” (John 3:9). Jesus gently rebuked his ignorance of basic principles. “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? . . . If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” (John 3:10, 12).

This encounter with Jesus was a windstorm that frankly was not in Nicodemus’ forecast; he was thoroughly unprepared. Staying several steps ahead, Jesus gave Nicodemus the answer to the question underneath his question. “No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man” (John 3:13). The question Nicodemus didn’t even know to ask answers all other questions about Jesus’ point of origin. Jesus is the heavenly man, the Son of Man (e.g., God the Son) in Daniel 7:13 who was divine and human yet distinct from the Ancient of Days (e.g., God the Father), who was “coming in the clouds.” Nicodemus, and all the world’s experts along with him, was blown away: a technical knock-out. “Whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:15). 

Get Wisdom

Get Wisdom.  Happy New Year! ‘Twas the season to be jolly in December. ‘Tis the season to be mindful in January … of goals, objectives, and purpose for 2024. Last year, our goal was straightforward: “More Bible.” In other words, we sought to increase in the crucial area of our biblical literacy: knowing its characters, themes, and overarching narratives. Some of us read the whole Bible. Others of us memorized more verses. A few of us ingested “More Bible” by stepping-up into temporary roles of teaching. While “More Bible” is never fully achieved, it was measurably increased last year, which fit our goal’s parameters. In our various ways and at our various settings, we added quantity and quality to our reservoir of biblical content. Hooray, and gold stars all around!

In our new year, the desirable movement is not necessarily to expand wider but deliberately to plunge deeper into the biblical content that we already have: “More Depth.” In other words, we will seek to decrease our speed forward in order to increase our insight underneath the layers and below the surface of “More Bible.” Solomon, perhaps, said it best: “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight” (Prov. 4:7, ESV). He phrased it repetitively and poetically, for the sake of emphasis, using forms of the same word (qanah: to buy, acquire, get, possess) three times in one verse.

Many of the other English translations, like the English Standard Version, grapple with translating the word play that Solomon composed. “Get wisdom. Though it costs all you have, get understanding” (New International Version). “Acquire wisdom; And with all your acquiring, get understanding” (New American Standard Bible). “Wisdom is the principal thing; Therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding” (New King James Version). “Getting wisdom is the wisest thing you can do” (New Living Translation).

Solomon’s advice, “Get wisdom,” sounds very much like the principal activity of the main characters in two of Jesus’ parables. In the parables of the treasure hidden in a field and the pearl of great value, the action of selling all in order to secure the best is primarily financial. “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Matt. 13:44-46). To Solomon who was skilled in both finances and wise sayings, and to Jesus who was called “greater than Solomon” (Matt. 12:42), it was the wisest investment and happiest advice to leverage everything one has to possess that which God evaluates as best. Of all the things we might do, we must do this: get wisdom!

He Came to His Own

He Came to His Own.  Even the municipal water treatment pond can be beautiful in the frosty mist at sunrise. The blue heron searches for breakfast under the surface of the water unconcerned of the invisible reactions happening in the water’s chemistry. The cattails bend in the breeze unaware of the source of their nutrients. The warming sun causes a fog to rise from there just as intricate as any fog anywhere, whether it floats above cathedrals or cemeteries.

Beauty, like faith, hope, and love, as well as all things virtuous, descends from above; it does not ascend from below. Just as God is the source of goodness because he is infinitely good, so also God is the source of beauty because he is infinitely beautiful. In that sense, beauty is not found in the eye of the beholder, but in the character of the Creator. Beauty is God’s reflection. As such, beauty must retain a virtuous quality since God is the origin, the destiny, the center, the object, and the subject of all beauty. All beauty therefore derives from him. That doesn’t mean that all beauty must be religious in nature, which was the thought in the Middle-Ages. It only means that beauty’s job, in any sector, is to lift our gaze to our beautiful God who has made all things and is remaking all things beautiful. The opposite must also be true, if God is not seen or seeable, then any potential beauty that might have been present has been hijacked, commandeered, and steered by unworthy pilots to an unwholesome harbor.

Creation, then, is merely a repeater, an echo, a herald. Though shattered at the Fall, the creation still reflects the Creator in its razor-sharp shards. One of those million shards of a broken world is the water treatment pond on a December morning. By lifting the attention of passers-by to the Creator, then it is still doing its job, so to speak. If it can still do its job, so must we, reflecting the Creator and representing his character on earth, as it is in heaven.

When Christ came to earth at the first Christmas, the Apostle John makes an interesting observation. “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (John 1:11). Grammar is important here—he came to his own things/places (neuter), and his own people did not receive him. The stars knew him. The animals knew him. The manger knew him. The trees of the field knew him. Dare we say that even the latrines and trash pits of the world knew him. These are examples of “his own things/places” (neuter), but “his own people did not receive him.” Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that while the inn at Bethlehem recognized him, the innkeeper did not welcome him. The beauty of the Incarnation did not direct the gaze of the little town of Bethlehem toward heaven (except for Mary, Joseph, some shepherds, and an uncountable multitude of angels). It could and should have. But the inhospitable people did not expect, did not see, and did not receive Messiah. Though they didn’t back then, we can today see the beauty of the long-ago moment, and glimpse the beautiful One who is reflected, even though he must be seen through the shards.

Always Winter But Never Christmas

Always Winter But Never Christmas.  In the imaginative world of Narnia from the mind of author, C.S. Lewis, came one of the best lines about Christmas that has nothing to do with Christmas technically. It rather has to do with the long shadow cast if Christmas were absent.

In Lewis’ masterwork of fiction, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950), the eight-year-old heroine, Lucy Pevensie, knew nothing of Narnia when she punched through the back of the commonest wardrobe in England to the uncommonest, magical land called Narnia. But the Narnia that Lucy found lay under a two-fold curse: (1) the White Witch ruled as usurper, and (2) Aslan the Lion, the rightful ruler of Narnia, had not been seen in Narnia for many years. Doubly cursed, Narnia was plunged into an unnaturally prolonged winter, which was succinctly summarized by a citizen of Narnia, Mr. Tumnus, to his eight-year-old visitor, Lucy: “It is winter in Narnia . . . always winter, but never Christmas.”

To children (and many adults!), Christmas is what makes winter wonderful. Without it, the cold is interminable, the dark days are intolerable, and one’s socks never really dry out from sloshing through the partially melted snow made gritty and dirty by traffic. Without Christmas, winter is punishment.

To humans, a Christmas-less reality is far worse than a Christmas-less winter. Worse still, if Christ’s birth does not link directly to his resurrection, or if his resurrection does not guarantee our resurrection through faith in him, then, as the Apostle Paul wrote, “we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19). In Narnia and on Earth, winter is the intruder. But the eternal day has dawned. “The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned” (Matt. 4:16).

In Narnia, when Christmas broke through winter, the surprising appearance of Father Christmas in Narnia marked the beginning of the end of the curse of the White Witch (chapter 10). "I've come at last. She has kept me out for a long time, but I have got in at last. Aslan is on the move. The Witch's magic is weakening." Alas, Father Christmas delivered serious gifts to Lucy and her siblings, for there was an unavoidable battle ahead. Lewis’ allegory leaps easily across the thin divide between fiction and non-fiction, between a story with a moral and a moral with a story. Like in Narnia, our world’s Christmas is the beginning of the end of the curse; the rightful King Jesus has arrived.

The fact of the biblical Christmas allows for and fits together in a cohesive unit all the other facets of Christ. Of course, Christ lived a sinless life, died an innocent death, rose bodily in the resurrection, ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of Majesty on high, and saves everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord in faith. All those later works and words of Christ follow his Incarnation, and not merely chronologically, but essentially! Theologian, J.I. Packer, said that the Incarnation is the “supreme mystery.”

 

It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. “The Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14); God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. And there was no illusion or deception in this: the babyhood of the Son of God was a reality. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the Incarnation (J.I. Packer, Knowing God [1973], 53).

 

Later, at the conclusion of Narnia lore, Christmas took a curtain call, of sorts. A portal opened from Narnia to Aslan’s Country through an ordinary-looking stable, hidden in plain sight. “Its inside is bigger than its outside.” “Yes,” said Queen Lucy. “In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world” (The Last Battle, p. 103).