Wilderness Training

Before Christmas I heard a couple sermons that made references to the wilderness in Scripture, and those thoughts have continued to stick with me. There are several times when individuals or groups go through wilderness experiences in the Bible. Interestingly, many of these refer to the same general region in the Middle East. Contrary to our perceptions, the wilderness is not necessarily a bad place. Consider these experiences:

• Hagar goes out into the wilderness after Sarai casts her out of the house (Genesis 16). In the wilderness, God speaks to her, reassures her of His presence, and promises that her offspring will be multiplied. Her response is “You are a God of seeing. Truly here I have seen Him who looks after me.”
• Moses spends 40 years in the wilderness in training (Exodus 3). He encounters a burning bush and is commissioned to free the Israelites from Egypt. He has an extended conversation with God and he is reminded that God will work out all the details. All Moses has to do is obey.
• The Israelites spend 40 years in the wilderness as a result of their sin and failure to believe God (Numbers 14). While it was bad news for the generation that died in the wilderness, the next generation grew up learning to trust God to provide for them and to obey Him. They were in training both physically and spiritually during that time.
• David escapes into the wilderness when King Saul is seeking to kill him (1 Samuel 20). Though David starts out alone, it isn’t long before he has gathered a group of faithful men around him. While they waited for the day when David would be crowned king, they lived, worked, and worshiped together. Many of David’s psalms were written in the wilderness and they reflect his trust in God’s steadfast love.
• Elijah fled to the wilderness in fear of Jezebel (1 Kings 19). Elijah was ready to give up and die, but God has other plans for him. God provides food and drink for him, and then he gets to experience the presence of the Lord. God tells him there is work yet to be done, and reassures him that he is not alone. Elisha will soon be appointed to replace Elijah.
• John the Baptist was “a voice of one calling in the wilderness” (Matthew 3). John was a prophet in his own right, but he knew that his role was to point people to Jesus. Though crowds came out to see him, he did not become proud or lose his focus. I wonder if perhaps he experienced the “wilderness” more when he was thrown in prison? It was there that he began to doubt and Jesus sent word to remind him of the truth of who He was.
• Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for 40 days of prayer and fasting (Matthew 4). In the midst of His time in the wilderness, the devil came to tempt Jesus to abandon God’s plan by doing things a different way. But Jesus was single-minded in His purpose to obey God. Jesus successful in resisting every temptation so that He would be the perfect substitute for us on the cross. It was for the joy set before Him that He could endure.
• Paul also spent time in the wilderness before embarking on his teaching mission (Galatians 1). Though we don’t know exactly what Paul did in the wilderness or how long he was there, it seems likely that he was learning to listen to God. He was already learned in the Scriptures, but he had to change his thinking when he found out that Jesus was the Messiah. It was probably wise for him to step out of the spotlight as a killer of Christians before suddenly preaching the very word he had hated. He caused enough dissension as it was.

Wilderness experiences can be valuable times in our lives—times of physical training, talking to God, listening to God’s plans, being reassured of God’s presence and provision, learning obedience, and learning the truths of Scripture. The wilderness may look different for each of us—in the desert, in prison, in our homes, in sorrow and loss, in times of persecution or conflict, in times of hardship, etc. Sometimes we may not even realize we’re in the wilderness at first.

Our temptation is to get out of the wilderness as quickly as possible. We don’t want to endure difficult circumstances. The wilderness seems like a barren, unproductive place to dwell. We may tend to picture it as the Sahara desert, when in reality there are all kinds of provisions available to us. We may not see it, but we are never alone in our wilderness. Not only is God present and watching over us, but He has provided a community in the form of the Body of Christ.

This may be a good time to meditate on the wilderness experiences in the Bible. If we can remember what others have learned in the wilderness, we can be encouraged to seek God when we come to our own wilderness. Instead of looking for a way out, look for what God has to teach you. As usual, I’m preaching at myself here. Perhaps I’m a slow learner, but at least I haven’t been in the same place for 40 years yet!

Free to Be Loved

One of the old books I found on my bookshelves is Unconditional Love, by John Powell. He describes his “life principle” of unconditional love and what that would look like in reality (pages 70-73). As I read his comments, I began to hear much of it as God’s words to me. He writes:

“My decision is to love you and my commitment is to your true and lasting happiness. I am dedicated to your growth and fulfillment as a person... The gift of my love means this: I want to share with you whatever I have that is good. You did not win a contest or prove yourself worthy of this gift. It is not a question of deserving my love... The point is that I have chosen to give you my gift of love and you have chosen to love me...

“You can be whoever you are, express all your thoughts and feelings with absolute confidence. You do not have to be fearful that love will be taken away. You will not be punished for your openness or honesty. There is no admission price to my love, no rental fees, or installment payments to be made... I will not go back on my word to you. So feel free to be yourself, to tell me of your negative and positive reactions, of your warm and cold feelings... I will not reject you! I am committed to your growth and happiness. I will always love you.”

At times I have thought that perhaps God gets tired of hearing the same things from me over and over, just as I fear that people don’t want to hear the same old story. But as Powell points out, unconditional love accepts complete honesty. If we are holding back some part of ourselves out of fear, then we can never know that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). If it is true that “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18), then we must not believe that we are truly loved if we are still living in fear. That’s true both in relationship with God and with others.

I suppose we’ve all read books or seen programs in which someone is keeping a secret from the person they love the most (such as this week’s episode of Downton Abbey). We’d like to step in and advise them to tell the truth. But we do the same things ourselves. It seems kinder, safer, or more loving to keep a painful secret when perhaps we would be better off being honest with those who do love us. I’m certainly not one to advise on that subject. In any case, God can handle the truth. He already knows our thoughts, so why should we try to hide them from Him? Nothing we can say or do will turn Him away from us.

The other point the Powell makes in the above quote is that unconditional love is committed to the good of the other person. God is committed to the growth and fulfillment of His children, and He wants to give us good things. But sometimes growth comes through hard times. We can’t understand the depths of God’s love if life is always easy and we never have to wrestle with trusting Him. Sometimes we’re like little children testing the boundaries of their parents’ love and patience. But unlike fallible humans, God’s love has no limits. He welcomes the prodigal, the wounded, the abused, the weak, and the doubting. And only God has the power to make “all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).

In the words of Annie Johnson Flint (public domain):

He giveth more grace as our burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength as our labors increase;
To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials He multiples peace.

Chorus:
His love has no limits, He grace has no measure,
His power has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
Our Father’s full giving is only begun.

Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision,
Our God ever yearns His resources to share;
Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing;
The Father both thee and thy load will upbear.

Father, Forgive

It happened again—two unrelated books mentioned a related idea that got me thinking. One was The Great House of God, by Max Lucado, and the other was Her Mother’s Hope, by Francine Rivers. The phrases that triggered my brain were “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,” and “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

It’s hard enough to forgive someone who recognizes their sin and asks for forgiveness. But it can be even harder to forgive someone who either doesn’t realize they’ve hurt us or else refuses to confess the wrong. When Jesus was on the cross, He forgave those who enabled the crucifixion, those who nailed Him to the cross, the mockers, those who gambled for His clothes—all kinds of people who had no idea what they had done. Whether they were following the crowd, following orders, or following manmade laws, Jesus forgave them unilaterally. We could learn from His example.

We do all kinds of hurtful things out of habit, learned from poor examples, trying to protect our own wounds, or just because we’re too busy and distracted to consider others’ needs. When that coworker says something abusive yet again, perhaps he’s afraid of losing another job to a competitor. When someone cuts us off in traffic, perhaps she’s late to a doctor’s appointment. When your parent disparages you in public, perhaps that’s how they were treated themselves. Can you give them a little grace and extend forgiveness even though they don’t ask for it or think they need it?

This is more than just making excuses for someone. There are times when confrontation is appropriate and necessary. If we don’t realize we’ve hurt someone, how can we learn to change our behavior in the future? But at the same time, we can’t go around confronting everyone who acts without thinking. Some Christians are great at keeping records. They may say, “Well, that’s just Sally being Sally.” They aren’t really forgiving, but are just adding it to their list of grievances.

I like Lucado’s illustration—if we refuse to forgive someone, we are the ones left guarding the jail cell while they may not even know we’ve imprisoned them within our hearts. Forgiving others frees us to get on with our lives. The greater the wounds we’ve received, the harder it is to forgive, but also more necessary. Lewis Smedes wrote in Forgive and Forget, “When you release the wrongdoer from the wrong, you cut a malignant tumor out of your inner life. You set a prisoner free, but you discover that the real prisoner was yourself.”

Charles Stanley wrote in Landmines in the Path of the Believer, “We are to forgive so that we may enjoy God’s goodness without feeling the weight of anger burning deep within our hearts. Forgiveness does not mean we recant the fact that what happened to us was wrong. Instead, we roll our burdens onto the Lord and allow Him to carry them for us.”

It’s been my experience that forgiveness is both a one-time event and an ongoing process. We can make a single choice to forgive a person, but learning to let go of the hurt can take a lifetime. When the pain comes back or Satan tries to goad us with it, we have to remind ourselves that we have indeed forgiven the person and handed that burden over to God. The same can be true of learning to forgive ourselves as God has forgiven us. Even when the wounds are healed, there are often scars that will remain. Those scars can either remind us of the pain or remind us of the goodness and faithfulness of God.

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:12-13 ESV).

God Is...

One of the books I got for Christmas was Max Lucado’s The Great House of God, and chapter 3 talks about some of the names of God. That made me think about how I have understood God in recent months. What names have I known Him by? 

The ten names of Jehovah in the Old Testament are:

·        Jehovah-ropheka- God that heals you
·         Jehovah-meqaddeshkem- God who sanctifies you
·         Jehovah-tsabaoth- God of hosts
·         Jehovah-elyon- God most high
·         Jehovah-roi- God my shepherd
·         Jehovah-jireh- God will provide
·         Jehovah-nissi- God is my banner
·         Jehovah-shalom- God is peace
·         Jehovah-shammah- God is there
·         Jehovah-tsidkenu- God is our righteousness 

I can identify God with many of these names. He has been at work sanctifying me, while at the same time declaring me righteous in Christ. He has reminded me of His presence and peace in difficult times. He has provided for my needs even before I know what they are. He has led me in His paths when I am inclined to go my own way. He has brought healing spiritually, if not in other ways. 

God has also revealed Himself to me by other names, also found in Scripture. He is my Comforter in suffering. He is my Counselor when life is confusing. He is my Friend when I feel alone and abandoned in the world. He is my Father, who disciplines those He loves. He is my Advocate when I have sinned. He is my Strength when I am weak. He is the Truth when the enemy tries to convince me of lies. He is the Prince of Peace when the world is filled with war. He is my Light when I’m walking in darkness. And He is my Life now and forever. 

This has been an interesting and encouraging exercise in remembering who God is and how He has been at work in the past year or so. It’s easy to go through day after day or year after year and not really think about these things. In doing so, we neglect to give proper praise and glory to the One who is with us through it all. Perhaps we should all take time on a regular basis for focused remembering, meditating on the goodness of the Lord. 

Psalm 77:11-14 (ESV)

I will remember the deeds of the LORD;
Yes, I will remember Your wonders of old.
I will ponder all Your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds.
Your way, O God, is holy.
What god is great like our God?
You are the God who works wonders;
You have made known Your might among the peoples.

Rethinking Resolutions

Though I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, I thought I’d take a different approach this year. A few Scriptures came to mind last night with exhortations that I need to dwell on:

• “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 ESV). 
• “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer” (Romans 12:12). 
• “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:6-8). 

These are admonitions we all need to practice more. But the reason I won’t call these resolutions is that I know I don’t have the resolve to carry them out. I expect to fail completely, probably every day. However, that doesn’t mean I’ll give up on them. If I were to resolve to eat better, I’d give up as soon as I looked at the stack of snacks in my kitchen. If I were to resolve to run a 10K this year, I’d give up when my endurance and motivation lagged.

On the other hand, if I find myself neglecting these exhortations, I have greater motivation to return to them. Who wouldn’t want to think about good things, or to trust God more fully with all the cares and concerns of life? There is no downside to practicing these “resolutions.” Unlike dieting, there’s no need to give up something enjoyable, unless of course you enjoy worry and fear.

I expect it will require an exercise of the will in order to train the brain to think in new ways. It’s easy to fall into the old habits of worrying, grumbling, and dwelling on the negative. And I know there are times when I won’t feel like rejoicing or giving thanks, but Paul didn’t say “Rejoice when you feel like it.” Sometimes feelings follow actions, and sometimes giving thanks is primarily an act of obedience. One thing I have tried to do in recent months is to include at least one expression of thanks or praise in my daily journal. If nothing else, I can be thankful for who God is.

There are plenty of other admonitions in Scripture that could be pursued as well. Looking back over the past year, I’d have to say the main focus of the year was Romans 6:12-14:

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”

That wasn’t exactly my intention when I started the year, but that’s where God brought me out by His grace and mercy. I suppose that’s how the best resolutions work—not a mental decision to exercise self-control, but a covenant by grace to yield to God’s control and let Him do whatever He wants in your life. Not that there’s anything wrong with trying to be a better steward of your body, money, and possessions, but we know how quickly most resolutions fall by the wayside. And as Paul reminded Timothy, “Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:7-8).

So here’s how I’ll put it: This year, by the grace of God, I will more frequently rejoice, give thanks, pray, and dwell on the good things of life and eternity.

Let There Be Light

Last night I was reading Psalm 4 and noticed verse 6b: “Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord!” (ESV). That led me to think of Isaiah 9:2: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.” From there I jumped to John 1:5: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” And then on to John 8:12: “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’”

We often hear about Jesus being the Light of the world as these verses describe. But the next verse that came to mind surprised me. In Matthew 5:14 Jesus says, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” I had never thought of this verse in conjunction with His statement in John. He is the Light of the world, but He calls us to carry the same light ourselves. We are not unlike candle holders, bearing His light for others to see. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes of this verse:

“So not only have we received light, we have been made light. We become transmitters of light. In other words, it is this extraordinary teaching of the mystical union between the believer and his Lord. His nature enters into us so that we become, in a sense, what He Himself is. It is essential that we bear in mind both aspects of this matter. As those who believe the gospel we have received light and knowledge and instruction. But, in addition, it has become part of us. It has become our life, so that we thus become reflectors of it. The remarkable thing, therefore, of which we are reminded here is our intimate relationship with Him. The Christian is a man who has received and has become a partaker of the divine nature.”

Light reveals reality: by it we can see what is around us in this dark world we live in. Light exposes the dirt and sin in our lives and in the lives of others that needs to be cleaned up. It also shows the cleanness of lives that have been made as white as snow. Light illumines the path ahead, so we are not stumbling around like those living in darkness.

I wonder how well we are carrying the light sometimes. Are we living in the light of confession and repentance, or are we trying to keep some parts of our lives hidden from view? Are we helping others to see their need for the light of truth, or are we overlooking them for the sake of niceness? Are we revealing the path to the One who is Light, or are we helping them remain in darkness? Are we letting our light shine in the darkness, or are we hoping someone else will do the job for us?

As we have celebrated the coming of the Light into the world this Christmas, may we allow that light to shine into our lives and reveal any darkness we need to deal with. And as we move into the New Year, may we let God’s light shine in us and through us to a world walking in darkness.

“In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

Waiting for Joy

In this third week of Advent the theme is joy. Joy is one of those terms that is hard to define very well. We’ve been told that it is supposed to be different from happiness, which is based in circumstances (related to Old English happenstance, hap, luck). It should be more deeply rooted and therefore more enduring than happiness. The first definition listed on Dictionary.com is “the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation.” That clears things up, right? If we can’t clearly define what we mean by joy, how do we know if we have it?

Bible translations differ, and where some translations use the word “happy” others substitute “blessed.” This is one reason that happiness is often tied to having favorable circumstances. However, the Greek and Hebrew words for “joy” are used fairly consistently across translations.

I find it interesting that the Bible never seems to indicate that joy is unchangeable. Paul wrote that he was “overflowing with joy” (2 Corinthians 7:4), and longing to “be filled with joy” (2 Timothy 1:4). David prayed “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation” (Psalm 51:12). James warned “Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom” (James 4:9). Solomon stated, “Even in laughter the heart may ache, and the end of joy may be grief” (Proverbs 14:13).

To be honest, I find it a bit of a relief to know that a lack of joy does not necessarily indicate a lack of faith. Yes, joy is part of the Fruit of the Spirit and hopefully will increase over time. But that also means it is up to the Holy Spirit to produce joy, not me. We can do things to nurture joy, but we can’t make it grow. I came across this verse a few days ago, and I have great appreciation for Paul’s prayer here: “May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy” (Colossians 1:11). Sometimes we have to wait for the joy to come, and faith is our lifeline while we wait.

May we learn to wait, to trust, and to bow to the One who is in control.

(Check out Bow the Knee, words and music by Christopher Machen & Michael Harland)