Afflicted, That I Might Learn

"Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord!
Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart, . . . " Psalm 119:1-2

Father, my seeking has been sporadic and even absent at times. I am weary of living like an unbeliever. I want to live like a Christian man. Give me whole-hearted seeking. (Psa. 119:10)

"It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.
The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces." (Psa. 119:71-72)

The Law of the Lord Is Perfect

I don't know how many times I will have to be reminded of this. You would think that a guy who has walked with the Lord for a while, as I have, and has been reminded repeatedly about the weakness of his own flesh, as I have, would not have any trouble remembering this thing that I repeatedly wander away from. Here it is as stated by George Mueller:

"I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man may be nourished . . . . I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it."

Instead, I go other places the first thing in the morning, filling my mind with trouble and trivia, when my soul is longing to feast on real and satisfying food. Oh, wretched man that I am! The psalmist describes the preciousness of God's Word like this:

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them,
and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the LORD is sure,
making wise the simple;
the precepts of the LORD are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the LORD is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the LORD is clean,
enduring forever;
the rules of the LORD are true,
and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
Who can discern his errors?
Declare me innocent from hidden faults.
Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins;
let them not have dominion over me!
Then I shall be blameless,
and innocent of great transgression.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
(Psalm 19 ESV)

The Valley of Vision

Here is a remarkable prayer from the book "The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions."

O Heavenly Father,

Teach me to see

that if Christ has pacified thee and

has satisfied divine justice

he can also deliver me from my sins;

that Christ does not desire me, now justified,

to live in self-confidence in my own strength,

but gives me the law of the Spirit of life

to enable me to obey thee;

that the Spirit and his power are mine

by resting on Christ's death;

that the Spirit of life within answers to

the law without;

that if I sin not I should thank thee for it;

that if I sin I should be humbled daily under it;

that I should mourn for sin more than other

men do,

for when I see I shall die because of sin,

that makes me mourn;

when I see how sin strikes at thee,

that makes me mourn;

when I see that sin caused Christ's death

that makes me mourn;

that sanctification is the evidence of reconciliation,

proving that faith has truly apprehended Christ;

Thou has taught me

that faith is nothing else than receiving thy

kindness;

that it is an adherence to Christ, a resting on him,

love clinging to him as a branch to the tree

to seek life and vigour from him.

I thank thee for showing me the vast difference

between knowing things by reason,

and knowing them by the spirit of faith.

By reason I see a thing is so;

by faith I know it as it is.

I have seen thee by reason and have not

been amazed,

I have seen thee as thou art in thy Son and have

been ravished to behold thee.

I bless thee that I am thine in my Saviour,

Jesus.

Christ is the Fulfillment of O.T. Promises

The New Testament never leads us to expect that there will be any fulfillment of the Old Testament promises other than their fulfillment in Christ. We are not encouraged, for example, to look for their fulfillment in the state of Israel and to expect a new temple to be built there. That is to expect a renewal of the model that has now been dismantled. The permanent reality is found in Christ.

-Vaughn Roberts, from his book 'God's Big Picture', page 108

Exile Ending, Finally Fullfillment

Mark identifies John the Baptist as that herald: 'And so John came, baptising in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins' (Mark 1:4). The message is clear; the waiting is over; the exile is about to end and the time of fulfillment is soon to come. And then Jesus appears, 'proclaiming the good news of God. "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" ' (Mark 1:14-15)

-Vaughn Roberts, from his book 'God's Big Picture', page 108

Read Christian Biography

"So among all the other things you do to grow in the knowledge and grace of Christ (2 Peter 3:18), follow Paul’s summons to “fix your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.”"

John Piper makes an argument for reading Christian biography here.

Holiness Is A Promise - Not A Threat

Michael Horton:

"Holiness is not an option; it is a requirement. But this is not a threat. It's a promise. What God began he will finish (Phil. 1:6). In Christ we are already holy, righteous, sanctified, reconciled (1 Corinthians 1:30). Now we are called to live what we are, not to become what we are not yet."

Quoted from his book "Christ the Lord," and taken from the What's Best Next website.

Don't Waste Your Layoff, Part 1

Note: I freely and gladly acknowledge that the 'Don't Waste Your (fill-in-the-blank)' moniker is not original with me and joyfully credit John Piper and Desiring God Ministries as having created it. Piper's article 'Don't Waste Your Cancer' can be found here.

Thursday (March 31) my job ended. The company is going to get the work done with a server and a scanner. I am disappointed and I felt more emotion that I expected when I left the building for the last time, but I am trusting God Who knows and sees.

There are a lot of ways to begin I suppose, but the only way that makes any sense to me is to begin with God.

You will waste your layoff if you do not believe it is designed for you by God. God, Who is Sovereign has brought this into my life - He allowed it, therefore He planned it and so it has purpose. God does not act willy-nilly. He knew about it and could have prevented it, yet He did not. It is His Will for me. The choice before me is to either bless Him or curse Him.

After having experienced the sudden and complete loss of property and family, Mr. and Mrs. Job had this exchange: "Then (Job's) wife said to him, 'Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.' But he said to her, 'You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?' In all this Job did not sin with his lips." Job 2:9-10

Cursing God for calamity is sin. Attributing the calamity to something other than the hand of God is sin. God directs all human affairs and we honor Him by saying so.

From the Psalms today:

In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. (Psalm 4:8)

I sought the Lord, and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears.

Those who look to Him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.

This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.

The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. (Psalm 34:4-7)

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!

Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear Him have no lack!

The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. (Psalm 34:8-10)

I will not waste my layoff if I grow in the fear of God.

Down Time

Tonight I was reminded why I gave up on Sudoku games. I fired one up on the computer because I've been burning the candle at both ends of late and felt the need for just a bit of "down time".

Just writing that makes my mind start to churn with other possibilities for "down time". Could I have done something refreshing and relaxing and restorative that ALSO edified? In other words, something that wasn't a total time-waster? Undoubtedly. But I didn't think of that question then. I thought of it now. And so it goes.

Back to my point, such as it is - Sudoku. I had a book of these puzzles a few years ago and worked through it and discovered something. They are not hard. Nor are they especially mysterious. They are simply fill-in-the-blank tests with clues. The only thing we don't know is how long it will take to solve it.

And it will get solved. This is why they are less than puzzles; less than mysteries. We know the answers, it's just a matter of time. And I finally decided I don't want to spend a half an hour finding 9 sets of numbers that run 1 through 9.

So, how do you spend "down time"?

Taste and See

My lovely bride and I were reading a selection from John Piper's Taste and See the other day. One portion was especially good for my soul and I'd like to share it. It's a quote from John Owen.

"The revelation of Christ deserves the severest of our thoughts, the best of our meditations and our utmost diligence in them . . . "

There was more, of course, but this was enough to spur my heart and prick my conscience.

Make Plans, Not Resolutions

I don't know where you are at, of course, but for me, this was timely:

“First, God is central to plans and motives. God is not first on a priority list, but rather central to all areas of life.”

Said another way, God is not first among equals (the rest of the list), but the star around which all things move, their orbit ordered by that star.

The article from The Resurgence.

Trivializing Life and Death

Fair warning - this will be a long post. I have a lot on my mind and I am going to dump it here, all in one spot, in the hope that there will be some thread running through the jumble, some fiber that gives cohesion to the lump. So, if you've no stomach for a long ramble, you may wish to move on.

Thursday was a day that many will remember for a while because two famous people died. Here in the USA, when famous people die, we all get into the act as if we were somehow personally affected by the life and times and demise of the deceased celebrity. This is balderdash of course, but that doesn't stop us from searching for a roller coaster that our emotions can ride, while we lament the passing of someone we have no actual emotional connection to.

Why do we do this? If there is no connection to the deceased, why do we pine and stare? Have we so conditioned ourselves to not feel much of anything (or not allowed ourselves time to feel something) that we will turn on the tube for a little vicarious grieving because it might be nice to just feel a little something right now? I don't know.

But the passing of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson were merely a link in a chain of events for me, only the tip of the iceberg and, as the metaphor implies, there's a whole lot more going on under the surface so, let's get to it, shall we? And I'll warn you again, this will be long. I really haven't even started yet. You may be excused, if you wish. Put your dishes in the sink.

I suppose the chain of events began over last weekend when South Carolina's governor, a guy named Sanford, went AWOL. As the days unfolded, we learned he was in Argentina with his mistress, but we only found this out after a couple of days of lies.

I began to think about the mess Sanford was (is) in and how it is a mess of his own making. He cheated and lied and abused the trust placed in him by a spouse, by sons, and by citizen voters. And I wondered how sick it would feel to be to be in his shoes, presenting a facade of faithfulness by lying.

The next link in the chain was the shooting death of a football coach in Iowa. Here, unlike our celebrities, is a man that hardly anyone outside of a few counties in Iowa knew of. We heard of his death only because of the brutal, criminal way in which it occurred. The one consolation was that we learned that Coach Thomas had trusted Christ for salvation. We thank God for that.

Hard on the heels of this event was a personal upheaval in my home. I had overlooked a credit card bill. And this is not the first time. And I was going to have to own up to my fault by talking to my bride about it because the bill was in her name. I went through hours of anxiety over this, wishing there was a way to not have to confess my wrong. My integrity was on the line.

What came next was a blog post at Desiring God. Pastor John Piper, a man of integrity, wrote about an experience when he was not so gracious in answering a question and then he proceeded to explain what his answer should have been. And, Oh! What a statement!

He was responding to a question about why he doesn't watch a lot of movies and doesn't own a TV. Here is part of what he said: "I think relevance in preaching hangs very little on watching movies, and I think that much exposure to sensuality, banality, and God-absent entertainment does more to deaden our capacities for joy in Jesus than it does to make us spiritually powerful in the lives of the living dead. Sources of spiritual power—which are what we desperately need—are not in the cinema."

And some more: "But leave sex aside (as if that were possible for fifteen minutes on TV). It’s the unremitting triviality that makes television so deadly. What we desperately need is help to enlarge our capacities to be moved by the immeasurable glories of Christ. Television takes us almost constantly in the opposite direction, lowering, shrinking, and deadening our capacities for worshiping Christ."

I think this is what is at the heart of my experience this week. Some very real and serious things happened this week, but it was the trivia that was emphasised.

Thursday afternoon, we had a book study at work and the topic of integrity came up. Sound familiar? It did to me.

Then on the drive home from work I got the first word on Michael Jackson and at home the confirmation (from the TV!) that he died. Later I read these words from Justin Taylor's blog, quoting Andrew Sullivan: "There are two things to say about him. He was a musical genius; and he was an abused child. By abuse, I do not mean sexual abuse; I mean he was used brutally and callously for money, and clearly imprisoned by a tyrannical father. He had no real childhood and spent much of his later life struggling to get one. He was spiritually and psychologically raped at a very early age - and never recovered. Watching him change his race, his age, and almost his gender, you saw a tortured soul seeking what the rest of us take for granted: a normal life. But he had no compass to find one; no real friends to support and advise him; and money and fame imprisoned him in the delusions of narcissism and self-indulgence. Of course, he bears responsibility for his bizarre life. But the damage done to him by his own family and then by all those motivated more by money and power than by faith and love was irreparable in the end. He died a while ago. He remained for so long a walking human shell."

And: "I grieve for him; but I also grieve for the culture that created and destroyed him. That culture is ours' and it is a lethal and brutal one: with fame and celebrity as its core values, with money as its sole motive, it chewed this child up and spat him out."

As I suggested earlier, I think Piper came close to nailing what has been going on in my heart this past week and the news events served to draw it to the surface so I could see it. The recurring theme? Real stuff versus trivia, I think.

Governor Sanford threw away the real and vital for an affair; Coach Thomas, brutally slain, knew Christ and impacted the lives of the boys he coached; I had to 'man up' and own my irresponsible act; Piper called me to not deaden my soul, but to nourish it; an entire nation went on hold because two people they didn't really know died; and Sullivan's comments on Jackson, who lived an unreal life because the real was denied him.

All of this piled together left me desiring real things and not temporary trivial things. I do not want my capacity for joy in Jesus to be deadened because if it is, then I am reduced to finding joy elsewhere, like on TV.

I hope this is not a lesson that fades soon.

Better Than Gold, Fathers

Good for the souls of Fathers, and Mothers, on this day, or any other.

7 The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;
8 the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes;
9 the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever;
the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.

Psalm 19:7-11, ESV