I Want You... But I Don't Need You

Actually, the words go like this....

I want you in my service, but I can do without you.

Who said them? God.

Who heard them? Oswald Chambers.

He'd spent the night praying alone on a hilltop overlooking Edinburgh, Scotland. He was desperate. Doors of opportunity were slamming in his face everywhere. He had felt called to use his gifts to build the kingdom of God, and yet nothing was panning out.

Chambers indicated in his account that the voice was clear and audible. Was he hallucinating up there on that cold hill? I think not. These words sound quite authentic to my ears. I never heard a voice, but this is a lesson God has been teaching me too, these past few years. God doesn't need me either.

God doesn't need my money. All I own is his anyway, and he has plenty besides. Oh, yes. God cares deeply how I spend my money. What I buy reveals who I am and where my heart is. But God can do without my money.

God doesn't need my talents. All I have is his anyway, and he has plenty of others more talented than me at his disposal. Oh, yes. God cares deeply about how I use my gifts. For my own glory? Or for his? How I use my abilities reveals who I am and where my heart is. But God can do without my talents.

God doesn't need my life. He gave it to me and can take it back at any time. Oh, yes. God cares deeply about my life. He loves me with a passion no human words can describe. But God can do without me.

Spare me the folly, Lord, of thinking I have something you need.

As for Oswald, I am reading a biography of the man who died in relative anonymity nearly 100 years ago. But 100 years later millions upon millions of Christians know his name well.

Most of us know him as the author of My Utmost for His Highest, a devotional. I've owned a copy of the book for decades. On the inside flap my now deceased mother wrote a love note which began with these words: "Brian, May your utmost ever be for His highest...."

So why do we know this Oswald today, and read his books? Well, that's a long story! But suffice it to note here that a certain gifted artist (whose stunningly beautiful portraits and sketches adorn this biography I am reading) came down from a hilltop that night and found in the mail the next morning an invitation to attend a divinity school. He never knew who sent it to him or why, but there it was in the mail. Sensing that this was the nudging of God, Oswald Chambers left the world of art and entered theological training.

And so it came to pass, after many a twist and turn, that an artist whose talents God could do without went on to be a writer whom God could also do without. But God saw fit to make the words of this quiet man echo from sea to sea a hundred years hence. As for Oswald's ability to draw stunning charcoal sketches of Beethoven and serene seascapes?

God did well enough without it.

You Think Your Dad Was Hard?

A portion of today's gospel reading really caught my attention.

Mark 1:9-11
One day Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River. As Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens splitting apart and the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.”

Aw, shucks! Sounds great, doesn't it? What a loving Father Jesus had! Can we collectively feel the love? And is now a great time to remember that this same heavenly Father loves us too? Warm sighs all around and happy expectations.

But there's this little problem. It's called verses 12 and 13.

Mark 1:12-13
The Spirit then compelled Jesus to go into the wilderness, where he was tempted by Satan for forty days. He was out among the wild animals, and angels took care of him.

And if those words weren't bad enough, Luke reports in his gospel that Jesus ate nothing during those forty days in the desert. So... what happened to the warm fuzzies? On the face of it, one could be forgiven for questioning the benefits of an indwelling Holy Spirit! A Trojan dove! And if Jesus gets this kind of treatment after a baptism of the Holy Spirit, what kind of treatment might we expect?

Pentecostals usually seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Well and good — but how many of them are looking for that forty-day stint in the desert? Health-and-wealth gospel folk think a ticket with Jesus is a ticket to comfort. Perhaps they should take a closer look where this gravy train leads.

I have heard it said that our true character is most clearly revealed when we are in pain and/or tired. When our resources are stripped bare and we have no energy for pretense... that is when the real me goes on display for all to see. Forty days without food left Jesus stripped of all human energy — and yet his character changed not a bit. He decimated Satan's lies with scriptures and turned his back on the worst temptations Satan could throw at him. Luke records that a defeated Satan finally gave up and went away. And who did he leave behind? A triumphant Jesus.

Luke 4:14
Then Jesus returned to Galilee, filled with the Holy Spirit’s power.

The power of God. This is why a loving, doting God would send his Son into the wilderness. To grow him up and make him strong. The desert is the spiritual equivalent of bodily vitamins. It may not taste good, but it makes you strong. Eat up! Even Jesus needed his spiritual vitamins.

Hebrews 5:8
Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered.

So... health-and-wealth folk can seek prosperity. Those in it for the good feelings can pursue that next mountaintop high. St. Paul preached something else.

Philippians 3:10
I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!

"Punish me that way!" Usually we joke in this manner when we want something nice that someone else got. Punish me with a winning lottery ticket. But this is different. To be completely honest, I find myself afraid God might take me up on it. Am I ready for what might come? I am finding it hard to utter these words with complete zeal. But I know I should. Can I mean it?

Punish me that way, God!

Never Mind Waldo. Where's Jesus?

Where's Waldo was a cute concept, but one book out of that series was more than enough for me. The novelty factor on that distraction had a very limited time span. In the past year, however, I have discovered a new and better game. In stark contrast, this game is one I hope to play more and more of the time for the rest of my life. It's called, Where's Jesus?

I suppose there are quite a few variations on this game, and I'd count WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) in that mix. But the very wording of WWJD almost encourages us to believe that Jesus is gone. My Where's Jesus game is predicated by the assumption that he's very much here. The game is not my own invention, however. It is tied quite closely to the practices of Brother Lawrence and Frank Laubach, who are perhaps the two people in history best known for something called Practicing the Presence.

Those who "practice the presence" essentially commit their lives to a continual conversation with God. Simply put, what we're talking about ceaseless prayer during every waking moment. The notion may seem impossible, but these two men in particular are known for having done it with great success, if not perfectly.

Though both of these men are long dead, they are still well remembered today — despite their simple lives. Brother Lawrence, for example, was nothing more than a simple dishwasher who lived some four hundred years ago in a French monastery. This is not great starting material for a blockbuster movie, but God values things which carry little weight in Hollywood.

But I digress. How do I play Where's Jesus? It comes down to this: Brother Lawrence was adept at maintaining his ongoing conversation with God, but I am not. I want to do it, but I find it difficult. If I can picture Jesus in the room, however, I find it easier to remember he is there, and to keep that conversation with Jesus going. Furthermore, with Jesus situated in the room I find it also easier to speak andbehave as if he is in the room with me.

Needless to say, Jesus is not a little mannequin I can place where I like. He is God the Son. God the Son is omnipresent! No, this game is not tied very closely to reality in that it falls short of the truth. But I am so limited and frail that, strangely enough, reducing Jesus to a spot in the room actually helps me to remember he is there at all. And it helps me to keep my conversation with Him going.

Sometimes programmers (like myself) fix code with something called a hack. It's something that falls short of the perfect solution but which nevertheless gets the job done. "It's a hack," we confess, "but it works." Where's Jesus is a hack, but I bear testimony that it does work. If I can ever dispense with it, so much the better. Until then, I have made it my goal to find a spot wherever I go and remember that Jesus is there.

Jesus is standing in the corner as I write this blog. Earlier today, he was sitting on the sofa. During lunch I forgot to play the game. At church this morning, he was sitting in an empty chair at first, and later he was sitting under the wooden cross up front. I am sure he enjoyed the sermon.

Right now I think Jesus is motioning me to finish up the blog and focus on the conversation a bit more intently! Sounds good to me.

I Fought With God -- And I Won!

I wasn't planning on posting anything today, but I laughed out loud while reading scriptures, and that was the turning point.

How preposterous an idea is that? Fighting with God and winning. Suggest to a stern Christian friend that you pulled this off and he'll likely think you won a ticket to hell for your insolence!

But it wasn't me who did it, and it was God Himself who conceded the match. The winner was Jacob, and God offers his concession speech in Genesis 32:28, where as a prize he offered Jacob his new name.

Genesis 32:24-31

This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it out of its socket. Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!”
But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
“What is your name?” the man asked.
He replied, “Jacob.”
“Your name will no longer be Jacob,” the man told him. “From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won.”
“Please tell me your name,” Jacob said.
“Why do you want to know my name?” the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there.
Jacob named the place Peniel (which means “face of God”), for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.” The sun was rising as Jacob left Peniel, and he was limping because of the injury to his hip.

As I write this, I can hear my 7-yr old daughter Abby upstairs getting ready for school. If ever there was a Jacob in the form of a girl, it is Abby. She's going to steal her older sister Rachel's birthright before it's over, and she'll pave roads with the bodies of the people who got in the way of her dreams, one of which involves having Rachel's best friend Kelli become her best friend.

There is hope for you, little Abby. God loves the Jacobs of this world. He even wrestles with them. And in moments of graciousness, he might pretend you won. Which is awfully kind of him, since at any point he can simply touch your hip and incapacitate you.

But of course the secret for Abby, and for Jacob, is in learning that God can fight our battles for us. He wants to. Jacob learned this the hard way, which is the story told in chapters 29 through 32. Throughout Jacob's account we see that God was fighting for him. I wonder how many chapters Abby will have to endure before she learns this precious lesson.

What about me? Have I learned it? I think not. Whenever I feel my gut tighten, and I begin to compose my verbal onslaught for those who oppose me or wrong me... I have forgotten that God will fight for me. I do not have to worry.

But this is the meaning of Jacob's new name. Israel. It means "God fights." And, as a note to self, I think a good takeaway from this passage is this reminder: If I'd stop fighting with God, he'd have more hands free to fight for me.

The Judah Substitution

While following a rabbit trail today I found myself reading Genesis 44. This passage takes place within the wider narrative of Joseph, of course, but here it is Judah who captivates me. He pleads with an Egyptian official to set his brother Benjamin free:

"Your servant my father said to us, '...If you take this one from me too and harm comes to him, you will bring my gray head down to the grave in misery.'
"So now, if the boy is not with us when I go back to your servant my father and if my father, whose life is closely bound up with the boy's life, sees that the boy isn't there, he will die. Your servants will bring the gray head of our father down to the grave in sorrow. Your servant guaranteed the boy's safety to my father. I said, 'If I do not bring him back to you, I will bear the blame before you, my father, all my life!'
"Now then, please let your servant remain here as my lord's slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers. How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? No! Do not let me see the misery that would come upon my father."

The Egyptian official of course turns out to be Joseph in disguise, and Joseph again recaptures main stage in the verses which follow. Out of fifty chapters in Genesis, nearly ten of them are devoted to the story of Joseph. By way of comparison, Judah has up to this point gotten very little coverage.

What do we know about Judah so far? Well, let's see. We know that Judah came up with the bright idea of selling his own brother Joseph as a slave to some traders heading to Egypt (Genesis 37:26-27). Very nice. What else? We also know that that Judah first rudely neglected, and then passionately impregnated, his own daughter-in-law (Genesis 38). But here Judah did have a very good excuse for having gotten her pregnant — he had mistakenly believed her to be a local prostitute. So that's all fine.

Reality TV cannot beat this kind of sludge, though not for lack of trying. But we obviously have not seen the whole of Judah yet, and here is a reminder for people like me who too easily judge a man's life by two massive moral failures. In this passage, Judah rises above his past. Are we ready to let him?

And what a rise it is. Because he cannot bear the thought of what the loss of Benjamin would mean to their father Israel, Judah offers his own life as a substitute. In doing so Judah shows true colors forged in a furnace we know nothing about. Judah's father Israel does know of Judah's true character, however, and he speaks to it when prophesying blessings and curses on each of his sons.

Genesis 49:8-12
“Judah, your brothers will praise you.
You will grasp your enemies by the neck.
All your relatives will bow before you.
Judah, my son, is a young lion
that has finished eating its prey.
Like a lion he crouches and lies down;
like a lioness—who dares to rouse him?
The scepter will not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from his descendants,
until the coming of the one to whom it belongs,
the one whom all nations will honor.
He ties his foal to a grapevine,
the colt of his donkey to a choice vine.
He washes his clothes in wine,
his robes in the blood of grapes.
His eyes are darker than wine,
and his teeth are whiter than milk."

A few verses later Israel declares Joseph to be a prince among his brothers — but it is Judah whom Israel names king. This prophecy is fulfilled partially when Judah's descendant David assumes the throne of Israel. The final and perfect fulfillment, however, is in Jesus Christ, a descendant of both David and Judah. It is Jesus who rules forever and it is Jesus who will forever be honored by all nations.

The fact that Jesus completes the kingly line of Judah is no secret. The authors of Hebrews and Revelation make this connection clear. Substitutionary theology is likewise anything but new. What is new for me is this substitutionary link between Jesus and his ancestor Judah.

I recently reflected on how God's testing of Abraham (with the sacrifice of Isaac) richly foreshadowed the sacrifice of Jesus, God's own son, for all of humanity. Isaac walked free, but Jesus, God's son, was indeed sacrificed. I see here a similar parallel here with the story of Judah and Benjamin. Judah also walked free, but the substitutionary offer Jesus made was accepted. Jesus completed the unfinished sacrifice of his ancestor Isaac and the unfinished substitution of his ancestor Judah.

The more I stare at Old Testament stories like these, the more I see (along with the author of Hebrews) that they were dim previews of good things to come.

Hebrews 10
The old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves. The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship....

...For it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. That is why, when Christ came into the world, he said to God,

“You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings.
But you have given me a body to offer.
You were not pleased with burnt offerings
or other offerings for sin.
Then I said, ‘Look, I have come to do your will, O God —
as is written about me in the Scriptures.’”

Hospitality: It Doesn't Means What We Think It Means

That word... I do not think it means what you think it means.

Aficionados of the movie The Princess Bride will of course recognize this turn of phrase. In the movie, a man repeatedly exclaims, "Inconceivable!" It's his response to each new, unlikely, undesired and conceivable event which takes place. After hearing the word shouted out for maybe the fifth time, another character in the film throws out the aforementioned reflection...

That word... I do not think it means what you think it means.

The same goes for us Christians when we use the word hospitality. We know the word, but we have utterly forgotten its meaning. I am reading a great book right now (titled Making Room) which makes this point rather convincingly.

The book cannot be done justice in a short blog, but the author begins with a close review of a pivotal scene from the Old Testament: Genesis 18. In this passage Abraham entertains three strangers, only to discover that he is providing hospitality to God himself, along with two angels.

To reduce a 200-page book to a few sentences, the author proceeds to show convincingly that hospitality is tucked aware at the core of both Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Caring for the aliens and outsiders is core to the nature of who we are.

Or who we should be, anyway.

Romans 12:13
When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality.

Hebrews 13:2
Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!

Hospitality does not exclude extending care to people we know. But as the passage from Hebrews reminds us, hospitality reaches its fullest expression when we extend it to people we don't know. Strangers.

Hospitality... this word.... it does not mean what we think it means.

We don't know anything about true hospitality. When we think about hospitality, about 99.99% of the time we are thinking about opening our home to friends and family. How many Christians in America have opened their homes to strangers any time in the last year? Ten years? Ever? The concept is so novel and freakishly bizarre, people gather to watch movies about it when it happens. (I have not seen The Blind Side but I hear it's great... a rare recorded moment of true hospitality in America.)

OK, it's really awkward to say this, but count me in that mix of people who have perhaps never done the real deal where hospitality is concerned. Our home is more open than most, but I cannot think of a single stranger we have housed for the night.

I noted earlier that in Genesis 18, Abraham extended hospitality to three utter strangers. Two of Abraham's guests move on to visit another city. Genesis 19 picks up the story...

Genesis 19
That evening the two angels came to the entrance of the city of Sodom. Lot was sitting there, and when he saw them, he stood up to meet them. Then he welcomed them and bowed with his face to the ground. “My lords,” he said, “come to my home to wash your feet, and be my guests for the night. You may then get up early in the morning and be on your way again.”
“Oh no,” they replied. “We’ll just spend the night out here in the city square.”
But Lot insisted, so at last they went home with him.

In case we didn't get it the first time around, both Lot and Abraham opened their homes to utter strangers. And this was perfectly normal back then. We don't like to think about it, but it's supposed to be perfectly normal now too. Christians have always been called to this outward posture toward the world.

Ah, but times have changed. We have a thousand reasons (or were they excuses) for our failure to practice true hospitality. When examined, however, these excuses boil down to nothing more than our basic desire for comfort and safety.

Comfort and safety: two of the great idols of our age. Idols? Yes, idols. It's always easy to mock the idols of another era or culture. How could anyone be so stupid as to worship a wood or stone figurine? But their idols made sense to them.

And our idols make sense to us. It's always been that way with idols. People may or may not be blind to the fact that they do worship idols but they are always blind to the fact that they shouldn't worship idols. We are never more blind than when confronted with our own idols. It always seems normal and good.

"Well then," we say, "The world isn't as safe as it used to be! I guess hospitality is just not practically possible anymore in America!"

But all we have proven is that we are not willing to sacrifice comfort and safety in order to entertain strangers. Instead, we sacrifice the care of strangers in order to worship comfort and safety.

In fact, most of us don't even live near unsafe people. In our search for comfort and safety, we move into rich ghettos so as to avoid living anywhere near really poor and needy people. Those kinds of people can be dangerous.

"Well then," we say, "None of my neighbors needs much help! So I guess hospitality is just not practically possible anymore in America!"

But all we have proven is that we have removed ourselves from any physical proximity to people in real need. There is no better place to worship comfort and safety than in a safe and comfortable place.

Hospitality is one of the first victims we sacrifice in the fire before the two great American idols of comfort and safety.

Count me guilty too.

God Told Me To Kill My Son

Well, actually, he didn't.

If I meant what I said, however, the police, mental health officials, and a host of media hounds would converge on my house — hopefully before I accomplished the deed.

And yet this is our account from Abraham, the father of three faiths. Genesis 22 records the whole incident. God told Abraham to kill his son.

Those inclined to treat such scriptures as proof that they are not holy... well, they can do and say as they like. I, however, must grapple with why a holy God would put any man to a test like this, because I take these scriptures as holy.

One of the reasons I put so much trust in the Bible as God's story revealed among men is that the men are revealed so clearly to be.... men. Broken, ordinary humans. With rare exceptions, most everyone in the Bible is shown to be weak and frail, burdened with sin. Abraham. Isaac. Noah. Jacob. The twelve disciples. King David. Solomon. These are no whitewashed stories! These people screw up big time! David kills a man so as to cover up his adultery with the man's wife. The author of our Psalms?? Yes.

As for Abraham? He lies. He throws his wife under a bus. Serially. He abdicates responsibility. He is called the father of faith, but some of the accounts in Genesis show him very much lacking in faith. He doubts God repeatedly, as revealed in both words and deeds. But Abraham shows trust beyond measure at the moment of true reckoning. When God tells him to kill Isaac, he obeys.

Why did God ask him to do that? If the story had only to do with Abraham, I think the answer would be incomplete. By more than half. I'm out on my own limb here, with only my gut to justify this claim, but I think this incident has far more to do with Jesus than it has to do with either Abraham or Isaac. God was using this story to foreshadow the most glorious event in human history: the moment God did not withhold his son as a sacrifice for us.

God makes the foreshadowing painfully obvious. For starters, note this telling phrase, from the moment the boy Isaac and his father Abraham head up the mountain...

So Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac’s shoulders...

Jesus carried his wooden cross on his own shoulders too, and possibly up the same exact mountain. The two stories take place in close physical proximity. A few thousand years separate these stories, but not a whole lot of distance.

Returning to this Genesis account, we note that Isaac of course gets a bit perplexed.

“We have the fire and the wood,” the boy said, “but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”

Abraham answers with perhaps the most heart-wrenching words a man can force from his mouth...

“God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham answered. And they both walked on together.

I have tears in my eyes as I read that second sentence. I think of my own son Andrew and imagine such a walk with him. That would be the darkest day of my life. Times ten.

The walk comes to an end however, and Abraham takes his son Isaac and ties him up. He raises the knife...

And God steps in.

“Don’t lay a hand on the boy!” the angel said. “Do not hurt him in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld from me even your son, your only son.”
Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son. Abraham named the place Yahweh-Yireh (which means “the Lord will provide”). To this day, people still use that name as a proverb: “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

And yes, on the mountain God provided a sheep indeed. A ram for Abraham, and Jesus for us. As we wander back and forth between the two mountains, the two sons carrying wood, the two sacrifices... it seems quite clear that God was, through Abraham, giving the entire world a sneak preview of the most glorious event in human history which was yet to come.

As much as we feel for Abraham, let's stop for a moment and think about what his experience tells us about God and his sacrifice.

We grieve with Abraham that he should have to think for only a few days that his son would be taken from him. But God knew from eternity past that his son, Jesus, would be taken from him, brutalized, and killed.

We grieve for Isaac that he lay, panic stricken, bound on an altar, waiting for the knife to fall. But Jesus, the perfect son, went willingly. And Jesus knew the knife would not be held back, because (unlike Isaac) Jesus knew all along that he was the sheep. John the Baptist knew it too.

John 1:29
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

Jesus knew all along that he was to be the lamb. And he went through with it.

The atheist sneers that only a sick religion would tell such stories. A simple google search of the words Dawkins Abraham and Isaac will show this to be true.

That brings us to the rub. Either God is not here, and our suffering is meaningless.... or God is here, and we are allowed to suffer for reasons which will eventually make sense. Richard Dawkins can have the former. I choose the latter.

Abraham surely never had a really good idea why God put him to such a test. In the glorious afterglow of Jesus' death and resurrection, I have a much better idea. But we'll all know better one day when the whole story of God is revealed.

Until then, I trust God with my rough days, my seemingly meaningless and pointless sorrows. All will make sense one day. God's story always makes sense, but as with every good book, some chapters end on a rough note.

1 Corinthians 13:12
Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.