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The Musings of a Stubborn Believer

Category: lessons (page 3 of 12)

Strong to Save [When God Goes to War] Part I

July 28, 2013 / / 0 Comments

I have no tolerance for the idea that defeat must be regarded as at least occasionally inevitable. Absolutely none.

As if every third day or so the angels trade sides for an hour and evil somehow becomes omnipotent. Really?

I think it would be good if we all made it a habit to regularly review Psalm 18. To me it’s the ultimate drama of faltering servant, and faithful God. No wonder it’s one of my favorites…

But I guess you realize it requires more than the simple existence of Omnipotent God to keep me from falling… Well, herein lies that secret too. In the first four words of the chapter. The spark that heralds a storm of Divinity.–

“I will love Thee…”

I Will. My little part to play. So simple, so absolutely necessary. Whole sermon right here…
Love. Because love will move my heart, my head, and my hands. The way work won’t…
Thee. Because love is actually inevitable. You were wired for it. It’s not if, it’s who. And only this Master has life to give away…

In other words, I’m Yours. Head, heart, and whole.

And then do you see what happens?
Hear a few verses later when David bleeds out this distress of sorrows and death–

The servant cries, and the whole earth reels in the thunder from his chariot wheels.
Hills and rills run out of the way, because He is wroth.
Breath of life and creative Word come out of mouth and nose as smoke and fire.
His chariot is alive. An angel with wind for his wings.
He arrives at His war room –a secret pavilion carved out of darkness– in the midst of the earthquake.
Walks in under escort of raining fire and ice.

He stands in the midst of His council of war, utters words that cut atmospheres. More thunder…
And His speech gets the whole host moving.

Next thing you know, “his arrows,” the very best of His fighting force, they shoot out from the place, wreak havoc on the enemy.
Seemingly out of nowhere.
And when the scattering seems complete, He sends lightnings after them.

Then all at once the agenda, the fortifications, the vulnerabilities of the enemy are laid wide open.
And He calmly walks in and picks up His servant, and carries him out.

“With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful;
with the upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright;
with the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure;
and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward.” Ps. 18:25, 26

I’m not making it up. That’s what the Book says.

I have no tolerance for the idea that defeat must be regarded as at least occasionally inevitable. Absolutely none.

Perhaps I must be regarded as at least occasionally (or much more often) failing to call for help, or surrendering my arms voluntarily…
 

(to be continued…)

Anything For You

July 3, 2013 / / 1 Comment

Maybe I’m a bit naïve.
(Hey, that’s better than cynical, right?)

Maybe I find the risk of trusting lower than the cost of suspecting.
Anyway, such is certainly the case if you’re my friend...

“Hey, can you do me a favor?”

Yes I can. And if I trust you, I won’t even ask what it is first. If it lies within my power (or anywhere near it) I want to serve you.

My girls are trusted. And by reflex I almost always answer them one way when asked:
     “Hey, can you…”
            “Anything for you, dear.”

Little words so often spoken they are almost playthings.
But one morning they strike me as carrying with them two powerful implications–

I trust you not to ask of me something I can’t give.
And I love you. So what I can give, is yours.

–  –  –  –  –

You’ve probably heard it said that it is a struggle to stand. That to live is to fight…
Truth.
But I have wondered of late, if the agony of being torn between two opinions, one the violation of conscience, and the other the perceived violation of my rights to myself, isn’t a war I myself too often drag out long after it might have been won.

I wonder that when I look at the cross, see my Friend bleeding.
Hear Him whisper “Abba;” receive no reply.
I wonder because He’s the embodiment of Love. And what could be more trustworthy?

And I say I trust Him not to ask of me anything I can’t give.
And I love Him. So what I can give, is His…

So why doesn’t every morning start with
“Anything for You…”?

I don’t know. But this morning did.

–  –  –  –  –

We rein in after the eighth mile, and I’m satisfied.
Satisfied that my new pre-run stretching routine is worth more than an extra month of training.
Satisfied that if you’re going to have a good run, you need a good start.

And the best start is falling on my face before sunrise, telling Him in no uncertain terms:

I don’t know what You’ll ask of me today. 
What You’ll ask me to surrender. 
What You’ll ask me to make right. 

But whatever it is, the answer is yes.





When Words Save Lives

March 26, 2013 / / 8 Comments

I settle into the airway seat while we wail down the interstate. Mental checklists line up like a rabble of elementary boarding scholars waiting for roll call. All set. Light blue latex waits on my lap. (Medium please.)

The radio crackles; they’ve called the bird. We almost always do on a rollover.

At long last we cross the median to join a parade of flashing lights.
The secondary beat us there by three minutes, but this is our territory.
It’s mayhem. The kind of mayhem an overloaded pickup truck leaves on the road when it tumbles.
And it looks like the Army, Navy, Marines, and National Guard are all on scene too. (figuratively.)

We elbow in.

Patient looks remarkably good considering. Ugliness on his hand and shoulder and sticky swelling questionableness on his head, but awake and talking. Just one thing:

“Does anybody speak spanish??”

I’ve got the head. We load him just in time to escape rotor wash. The bird hot drops a crew and takes off again.

“I kinda do.”

Medics from three crews on one rig. And FD and LE orbiting around the outside, circling for turns at the open door, to fire more questions in.

I lean down to hear him. Me, the link between him and the guys that know way more than I do.
I’ve got the chart too. And I ask him questions, and I ask them for procedures and numbers and assessments. And I put everybody’s answers on paper.

Then after ten minutes start to finish, I’m back in the airway seat with my feet up, headed for base.
He’ll fly, we’ll go back to listening to the radio.

It’s in the peace of a quite firehouse that it hits me.

Language.

Love it. Spend almost an hour a day, every day, learning a new one.

But how many times has Heaven come to my rescue, sent down it’s agents, stopped an interstate to land the bird,
and been almost entirely unable to give me any real aid at all, because I didn’t know the language.

Because I’d never taken time to learn it.

To hear the voice of God is one thing. To understand it is another.

Better Part of Town [Distance between Virtue and Vice]

March 23, 2013 / / 4 Comments

I hate to tell you this.
Or maybe I don’t…

Have you ever noticed that the most despairing realities all have this flip side that makes them cradles for hope when Grace steps in? When you shift enough to give them a look from the other side?

I walk down main street and my American sensibilities are shattered by the irony of this Southeast Asian reality.
Mansion, shack, mansion, shack, shack, mansion. What?

I meander down almost ancient streets in Latin America, find myself striding with purpose (and maybe a twinge of fear?) past one doorway, strolling past the next with perfect calm.

I guess that’s how they do it here. The distance between the good part of town and the bad is the thickness of a brick wall.
Seems so barbaric. Here, you know, we insulate ourselves. Our neighborhoods are zoned. And so we can rest easy on our sprawling front lawns knowing that all our neighbors are at least average citizens, and crime of any kind is at least 62 blocks away.

Whatever.

Do you know what has been pressed home to me this week?
Pressed home by the wanderings and returnings of my own heart, and photos of lands I love?

There is only one difference between the greatest bastion of virtue, and the “strongest bulwark of vice.”
You know what it is?

“One sin fostered.”

They’re built on the same street. In fact, they share the same address.

I don’t know about you, but that scares me more than a little.
And makes me run to Grace.

Jesus, forgive us.

The distance between the good part of town and the bad is far less than the thickness of a brick wall.

“The strongest bulwark of vice in our world is not the iniquitous life of the abandoned sinner or the degraded outcast; it is that life which otherwise appears virtuous, honorable, and noble, but in which one sin is fostered, one vice indulged. 

 To the soul that is struggling in secret against some giant temptation. . . such an example is one of the most powerful enticements to sin.”

It doesn’t take long to turn from light to darkness.

But then, it doesn’t take Grace long to turn one from darkness into light…
Glory be.

Bound to the Altar

March 15, 2013 / / 3 Comments
See how his hand trembles, this giant of a man. 

See how it fumbles with soft leather strap, almost inept.
Hear broken sobs, from the given heart.
Watch him blink away tears so he can see what he’s doing–
See to bind his son. His promised son.

By some reflex my head turns in real life, eyes squinted shut. As if to say “I don’t want to watch this happen.”

Amazing love.
But you know what I find almost more amazing?
See how his hand takes those straps, steady and strong.
See how he binds himself, soothes the broken, himself blinking away tears.
This strong son. The promised one.

Amazing love.

–  –  –  –  –

I pull out a second card. Because sometimes on sister’s birthday one card won’t say it all.

Four words– This morning I pondered with tears what it must take to stand like a rock, on a breaker out in the tide while the waves crash over. Like lighthouses do… 

Because you, I, we… We’re out there, and the sandy shore from whence we’ve come is washing out, getting ever more distant. Carried away by churning foam while the water around gets deeper. 

I mean, there’s the clinging, the scratching, the white-kunckled hold. But anemones and starfish have many more hands than we do. And none of them are permanent fixtures. 

So it must be, that to stand rock-like, we need nothing less than to be bound to that rock by a power outside of our own. Greater than our own. Bound so firmly that neither fear nor fatigue can ever make us ask for release of reprieve.  

Because it’s in the midst of the worst storms that the world most needs lighthouses…
Prisoner on the rock. …to the Rock. 

Bind yourself there. 

               Love you forever.

Live By It [Motto #142]

March 13, 2013 / / 2 Comments

I already have a motto.

But I write new ones constantly anyway.
Because I live best by truth thus synthesized. And because they come back when I need them when I do.

Seek nothing until you have sought God;
            Seek nothing you cannot seek for God.

Because if what you are after can’t be pursued for the sake of Jesus Christ,
it isn’t worth pursuing.



This is No Mystery [Born to Fly Free]

February 4, 2013 / / 18 Comments

What if I told you that every time I’ve ever found myself spinning my mental wheels in spiritual mud;
every time I’ve found myself wondering where my happiness disappeared to;
every time I’ve flown in my dreams only to wake up in the morning and find myself once again mercilessly tied to reality;
every time I’ve found myself confused;
every time I’ve been afraid to try, because I knew I’d fail;
every time I’ve gone ahead and tried, and, sure enough, failed;
and every time my confidence has been replaced with questions…

Every. time.–
It’s always been for the same, simple reason.

What if I told you that?
Would you believe me?

And what if I followed that sweeping statement up with this one:

One, single, highly uncomplicated little word has always brought me back to joy.

Would you, could you believe?

Well, [giggles]
guess what?…

–  –  –  –  –

I’m more than a bit ashamed to tell you this. But it’s the truth, and I’m going to tell you because every time dreams come true and I fly again (even while I’m awake) I find myself gripped with this desire to pass the gift of free flight to you. And this is the only way I know how…

So, I walk. Duck under and around, pick through muddy patches on the forest floor just undressed from it’s cloak of fluffy whiteness. I stop by one secret sacred spot, then turn to visit another. I’d rather walk than sit today, restless as I am. 
I tussle with this emptiness. This emptiness I hate, especially since I know what it is to be full. And the gnawing drives me soon beyond words, and rather than ask, I simply listen. And quieter than a whisper on the wind, this God Whose voice I’m learning to recognize better and better, He marshals silent words and they press into my mind one at a time–
“There is. no. substitute. for obedience.”
Uh. What to do when God “quotes” you?
I sigh. He speaks only truth. 
I don’t argue. But I am silent for a long, long time. 
“But…
but it cross-grains my personality, 
and my values, 
and my family culture, 
and my preferences, 
and my conventions.” 

“And your convictions?”

Silence again.
“Can’t I just…just…”

“Few things in the world are more dangerous than a soldier with a mind of his own.
And I know it crosses you. But I still ask it of you.”
How petty are the things we cling to, when compared with the joy of flying free.

I stop my pacing, straighten up to my full 5 feet 6, look steady at the open sky and with a twinge of fierceness born of resolution re-born, and answer:

“Yes. Yes.”

And I feel myself take flight again…

–  –  –  –  –

This is not rocket science. There is no mystery.

I spent the latter half of my prayer walk plotting against my enemies.
Namely, the three that are one, that make my dreams impossible. That limit my reach to that which is earthly. That confuse, confound, and cause to fear and to fail…

They are simply, Conditional Yes, Deferred Yes, & Incomplete Yes.

And all three of them are just fancy names for no.

I have learned that to negotiate, (that is, to plead for a compromise or conditions) to hesitate, (that is, to wait even three seconds before actuating obedience) or just plain letting the discussion trail off, robs me of life and joy.
It robs me of communion, and confidence.
It robs me of my wings.

And failing to answer yes to the seemingly insignificant blinds me to the realities of the significant…
And vice versa.

One word. Would you believe? It always takes me back to joy; makes God’s dreams come true.
One word.

“Yes.”

My Word of Honor

January 27, 2013 / / 6 Comments

Sometimes my most lucid moments emerge from the calm of profound exhaustion. Not sure why.

Happy tired. Listening from the back seat to the cheerful chatter of people I just love, my head against the window…
“Ketchup please.”
“Lime or strawberry?”
“Did you get your fifth?” 
Rubber purrs on pavement and we whistle along. Ski slopes behind, home before. Backdrop of sunset and rolling hills covered with a fir coat of pine.
“What page were we on?”
The book opens and the story goes on. An old fashioned tale of a century ago, alive with meaning and simple joy. I listen, but only with half of my head. Because forthwith I’m snagged by this old-fashioned story, and an old-fashioned concept that shouldn’t be remarkable, but is.

His word of honor. 
Used to be, a fellow was slow to make a promise, because a promise meant something. 
Mhm, mhm, yes. Doesn’t it still?
I don’t know. You tell me. 
When I say a thing, can the world set their clocks by it, and keep good time?
When I say I’ll ____, do I actually deliver, or do I just try?
  I’ll pray for you. 
     I’ll be there at 6.
        I’ll remember.
           Sure mum, can do.
              I will. 
                 I won’t.
                    I promise. 
Really?
Really?

Darkness gathers over the high country. I pulse this resolve.
To treat every “Sure, I’ll…” like an old-fashioned promise.
My word of honor.

Determined Nation

January 8, 2013 / / 2 Comments

di-ˌtər-mə-ˈnā-shən: firm or fixed intention to achieve a desired end…

Around the tree he goes. All business.
I stop to watch with mild amusement; my mind on other things.

Whether or not I can sense it, (I can’t) something was there. And his sense is strong enough that he won’t be easily put off. So he leaps and claws, and sniffs with this furious intensity, so excited he’s almost blind to his own opportunity…

I smell nothing, but I can see what he cannot.

“Listen, son.”

I have his attention.
“You might be able to actually get up there. But you’d have to start from here. See?”

I point to a new spot on the ground, then tap anchor points up the tree to well above my eye level.

“Then here, here, and here.”

I frankly don’t expect him to try. But I underestimate his determination.
He runs to where my finger started; whirls around. He doesn’t even pause to assess the viability of my suggestion.

He makes this scrambling charge, and he climbs.

He climbs to the point of no return, and just when I am thinking I should have thought this through better before making the suggestion, he flies out of the tree, squirrel-like.
And then he does it again. The whole thing. Nose working overtime.

He does it four times. Until his own nose and I finally convince him that what was there isn’t any more.
Crazy dog.
Or is he?

We turn to go. He, on to the next conquest.
I, to my thoughts in the quiet woods.

“Determination: firm or fixed intention to achieve a desired end…”

Intention fueled by the recognition of a reality the rest of the world totally missed.

What if we were like that?
I mean, the holy nation. The peculiar people…
Fueled by a recognition of a reality the rest of the world totally missed…

Who says the impossible is… impossible?
Dogs can climb trees. Especially if someone points out the way.
I can prove it.



Believe

December 20, 2012 / / 2 Comments
Every sin is first a lack of confidence in God’s benevolence. 
Every sin. 
We need more faith.

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