this too shall pause

Rain, rain, go away.

Come again, some other day…

We sang that tune as children, hoping that rain wouldn’t ruin our summer plans. As adults we hope and pray our family trip to the ballpark won’t be rained out. We won’t mind if there’s a deluge on the way home, but just don’t rain on our chance to watch our favorite team play.

And so it is in the weather patterns of life. As much as we want “rain, rain go away,” we’ll gladly settle for a break in the clouds.

I have sympathy for the Gen Z-ers who’ve been dropped onto an Omaha Beach of constant extremes. The news of the day never seems to quiet for them; everything is mass hysteria and one outrage after another. For them it’s like the London blitz every day.

Winston Churchill told the people of London in 1942, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” As the nation sagged beneath the rubble left behind by German war planes, its leader comforted them with (I’ll improvise here), “We’re grieving and angry and sad, but we’re still here; we’re alive; we have today. There may be more woes to come but at least we don’t have to endure what is past anymore. We have discovered this day that we are made of better stuff than we realized.”

Bless God for pauses. They allow us to catch our breath; reassess. Sure, the forecast is bleak. Bills will again come due, your reverie will get interrupted, a recent victory will be short-lived, chances are you will get sideswiped out of nowhere. But for now, in this holy moment, hear God say, “I got you. It’s okay.”

The night is long, but the sun will shine. It may be fleeting; the afternoon may bring bad news yet again. But that sunrise means new mercies and is a reminder that God was present.

The sun comes up, it’s a new day dawning;
It’s time to sing Your song again.
Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me,
Let me be singing when the evening comes.

Paul had a friend named Onesiphorus who visited him in prison often. The apostle put the experience of having such a man in his life into a letter, describing him as “a breath of fresh air.”

The Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my [a]chains

2 Timothy 1:16

Long ago I spent some time meditating on that word “refreshed” and imagined Paul as a farmer ploughing on an oppressively hot day. As he stands in the middle of the sun-baked clay, he removes his farmer hat and wipes the glistening sweat from his farmer brow. The air is still and unbearably close. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there’s a breeze. It blows in quietly and gently wraps him in its embrace. Finally, air! He can breathe; he is instantly refreshed, if but for a moment. This was what Onesiphorus’s encouragement did for God’s man in the heat of his crucible.

Long seasons of hardship have us crying uncle, but it seems like no uncle is coming to rescue us. How many times have we felt drowned beneath the waters of oppression? We gasp, desperately needing a chance to to come up for air. Just when we right ourself enough to tread water, it drags us down, pushes us under, grabbing and holding us. Please, God, air!

This morning our pastor led in a prayer of confession and repentance and as I was quietly opening up to the Lord the warring in my soul, a kind woman walked over to me and asked if she might lay a hand on me and pray. Of course I said yes. She prayed silently, and when the pastor said amen, Rachel said amen and removed her hand. I thanked her and for the next hour I could feel where her hand rested on my back. She blessed me with hope.

A good night’s sleep, a meaningful verse, a gentle hand on your shoulder, a smile from a stranger. These are things that can aid us in moving forward, even if it’s in shuffling half-steps. I pray whatever you’re going through, it is the end of the beginning. I pray for the refreshing wind of God to wrap you for a time and give you strength to put your next foot forward. I hope the sky opens up and gives you some breathing room.

We know it’s not the end, but at least we can reckon that it’s the end of the beginning, and that’s good enough…for now. I can’t wait for the heavenly-mandated full-stop of suffering of all kinds, when every teary eye is dried, and there’s no more pain, no more curse. But for right now I give thanks for when God hits the pause button.

SPEAKING OF PAUSES…I’m not going to be posting quite as regularly for the next couple months or longer. I’m not dormant; I just completed a couple of smaller writing projects and now I’m part way through a bigger one, one that’s consuming most of my writing energy. I humbly ask for your prayers to finish well. Selah, beloved.

sing with me

Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD.

Psalm 95:1

Back in the day I was “a singer who happened to preach.” It all started with “The Fire” followed by “Whatever It Takes.” Those were the most requested. Over 10-15 years there were so many others, plus three self-produced albums with several songs I wrote. Songs for Sandy, songs for Graham, songs about my story, but all for Jesus.

One of my favorite audiences were the disabled. They wanted to hear “Home Free.” Tears everywhere. I even got to sing it onstage with Joni a couple times.

Because of my brokenness and disability I gravitated to songs geared for the suffering. Christine Wyrtzen’s album, For Those Who Hurt, struck a chord that has stayed with me to this day.

Does Jesus Care, Tears Are A Language God Understands, Peace In The Midst Of The Storm, just so many. My college friend Kim wrote a song around the time of my accident, God Makes No Mistakes, which I’ve sung a ton of times with Sandy at the keyboard. Pow.er.ful.

Jesus Led Me All The Way. Goodness, I’m waxing nostalgic today. I’ve Never Been Out Of His Care. Oh yeah, that one too.

It wasn’t really a dream of mine to be a “singer who happened to preach” but the other way around. I love to sing but preaching is my calling. Still, I jibe with the occasional tickle to sing to the church again, especially for the wounded ones who weekly (weakly?) sit in our pews. Maybe one more shot at Home Free for my friends at Handi*Camp or Christian Overcomers. Perhaps a reunion with Joni. Or a duet of My Savior First Of All with Sandy.

I suppose what has me musing and all misty about the ministry of song today was a rabbit trail I took in Psalm 95. “Come, let us sing…” The middle verses got me humming a certain Maranatha chorus I heard long ago. You’ll know it too. The first part of the psalm is nostalgic and celebratory. The last refrain reminds us the Church gathered isn’t always a pretty sight.

The truth is we are a wilderness people and when we gather together to worship our Lord, we are worshiping him out of our desert places. Look around next Sunday. Watch the people. No one has it all together. Nobody has arrived.

Many of the people who assemble on Sundays have come through a week out in the wilderness and haven’t fared so well. Some have had seven days of Meribah. Others may have gotten testy with God or they’ve failed in the way and fallen flat on their face. Here and there are those who are losing faith in the whole process. A joyful number have manna on their breath and are just riding that high.

It’s a safe bet no one’s face will shine so brightly they’ll have to cover it. Probably not even your pastor.

Somebody will be there who feels out of place because they come from a lesser tribe, a labeled past. You’ll know them because they barely lift their eyes.

More than one will come with one foot in promise and another in Egypt. Some of those may even have a golden calf still hiding in their closet somewhere.

To your left might be a once-gifted-leader who blew it big time and is just a shell of the man he once was.

There will be a worshipper nearby who remembers all too well the leprosy of her sin. Her friends remember it too.

A great many however, will have stood on the banks of the Sea and seen God make his name famous. They will, as the first verse in the very next chapter says, “Sing to the LORD a new song.” Such are witnesses to the waters being lifted up and pushed aside, making a way for them to pass through on dry land. They can tell you about that day. Some will weep in worship, others will dance and clap. Some will just stand there shaking their head, still in disbelief.

“Come, let us bow worship and bow down…”

So sing we will, with desert sand between our toes, because Jesus came and changed the Story. To that end “A Christian should be an alleluia from head to foot,” said Augustine.

Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, acknowledging his name.

Hebrews 13:15

I want to sing. I want to sing all those songs I mentioned above, but I don’t want to sing to you; I want to sing with you. A choir, no solos. Broken saints, doubting saints, beleaguered, tired, whipped saints, happy saints, all. “Come, let us sing!” Sing with me, will you?

What shall we sing?

P. S. Here’s the song that started it all for me:

big, big house

In my Father’s house are many rooms…I am going away to make ready a place for you.

John 14:2

By the time they arrived The Dwelling would be set up.

Numbers 10:21

Its a big big house
With lots and lots of room

“Big House,” Audio Adrenaline

No doubt we are all familiar with the revelation of Jesus in John’s gospel, “In my Father’s house there are many rooms…” Your Bible might read ‘mansions’ or ‘dwelling places.’ Those exciting words conjure up all sorts of images and get us giddy for glory. Big ole mansions for everybody. Streets of gold. Gates of pearl. Pity the person who settles for “a cabin in the corner of glory land.”

I recall in my youth how I stumbled over the translation “rooms” and got sad because I didn’t want another version of my bedroom in heaven. I wanted a big ole house with a big ole yard all to myself!

At 62-years old I think I’m starting to mature. Yours truly was reading from the book of Numbers recently and caught a really cool shadow of our future ingathering to Glory. I camped awhile in chapter ten as the glory-cloud hovered over the text.

And the Kohathites set out, carrying the articles for the sanctuary; the tabernacle was to be set up before they arrived.

Numbers 10:21

Let the reader understand. The Kohathites were responsible for the most holy objects in the tabernacle: ark, altar, veil, table, lampstand, etc. Whenever the Israelites camped, before any tents were pitched, the tabernacle was the first thing set up. In went the Koathites, carrying the Sacred Objects.

When Israel decamped, it all happened in reverse, with the tabernacle dissembled and the Sacred Objects carried out first. First in, first out. God was always out in front. Always. It’s a beautiful picture: before any of the tribes arrived, God was in place, waiting for them.

In those days the tabernacle was always moving, always mobile, mile after mile, battle after battle, set up, break down, backward, forward, another day, another long night of the soul, another leg of the journey… starting to sound familiar, fellow temples?

But one beautiful day a permanent house — with rooms (1 Kings 6:2-8; 1 Chron. 9:33; Ezek. 40:5-36) — was built. It suddenly dawned: when Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you,” and in his house are “many rooms” this is the picture of that.

We get caught up in the idea of heavenly “dwelling places” and romanticize about our having “mansions” in gated communities but that is not the picture Jesus was painting. He’s showing us his house is a Temple in which he is its Center. And there we will ABIDE with him, and he will ABIDE with us. Forever.

Soon and very soon the trumpet will sound and every nation, tongue, tribe, and ethnicity, Jew and Gentile, saved in Christ will, in their turn – the dead in Christ first – leave the wilderness behind, enter the wide open gates, and find our home ready.

Come, ye Judah!
Come, ye Issachar!
Come, ye Levites!
Come, Manasseh!
Come, Zebulun!
Reuben and Simeon and Ephraim, Come!
Come along, Benjamin and Asher and Gad!
You too, Dan!
And Naphtali!
Come, Egypt!
And you, Rahab and Babylon, Come!
Philistia and Tyre, yes you!
Come with us, Hobab!

Time out. Who? Hobab? Read on in Numbers 10 and we’re introduced to Moses’s brother-in-law. When Israel was breaking camp after a year-long stay at Sinai, Hobab was going to opt out. Moses wasn’t having it.

“Come with us, brother!” Moses pleaded.

“Nah, I think I’ll just meander back to my people,” Hobab replied.

“Nonsense,” protested Moses. “We need you! We’re your people! There’s room!”

One of my favorite kingdom parables is the story of the Great Banquet. Invitations were sent out to all the Host’s family and friends. From the jump everyone’s intention was to go; it would be the social event of the year! But as the date for the banquet drew near, every last one bailed. Excuses, excuses.

Long story short, the Master of the House was not happy. He instructed the servants to go up and down the alleyways, into the red light district, through Shantytown and all over creation, and “compel them to come.” He stipulated that he wanted his Big House filled.

Come with us, Hobab. We’re going to see the King!

“I want my house teeming with children,” the Lord of the Feast says.

It’s a big house, with lots and lots of room. Rooms galore. Ample space.

Roomy…with a view of Jesus.

Selah, my friend.