a gentle word

I want to open with a story, but it’s not mine to tell. It is an intensely personal story for Sandy and I needed to ask her permission before sharing it. She felt it was right and agreed. I’m grateful she did.

One word from your lips will be sweeter to us and more full of music than the harps of angels.

—Charles Spurgeon—

first, a story

During a particularly hard ministry season, Sandy got in her car and drove. She knew where she needed to go but didn’t want to. He’ll just tell me how wrong I am. He’ll quote scripture at me. He’ll tell me to have more faith, she fumed.

I don’t need a Bible verse, I need God to give me a break.

Her car seemed to know where to take her. Next thing my wife knew, she was in the driveway of the very address she didn’t want to see.

Sandy got out of her car and went to the front door and rang the bell. She couldn’t believe she was doing this, but when you’re at the bottom, you’ll risk anything.

The sweet couple who greeted her could see this wasn’t a social call. Sandy bravely fought back tears but it was no use. Tears welled and glistened in her eyes.

“I didn’t want to come,” she told them. “I didn’t know what else to do. I don’t feel I had anywhere else to go.”

Her heart ruptured. Every bottled up emotion was uncorked. No stone got unturned. Nothing in her life was working* and it shamed her to say it out loud to these people.

John and Patti listened quietly. Not once did they interrupt her, but let her disgorge her soul. When it was clear that she was finished, they both reached out and held her hand. There were noticeable tears in both pairs of eyes.

Then John said words that disarmed her. Most gently and tenderly he said,

There’s nothing for you to feel ashamed about, Sandy. Everything that is wrong in your life isn’t your doing. It’s all happening to you and there isn’t a single thing you can change. You have no options. You’re trapped.

John (and Patti) is a pastor, counselor, and friend. They are safe people. Never once did they offer tired rhetoric or warmed-over platitudes. Romans 8:28 didn’t make an appearance (though no less true). Their words said to Sandy’s broken heart, “We see you. We hear you. We feel your sorrow.”

That’s why God sent her there. He had something he wanted her to hear, and the faithful couple who knows us and loves us well were the perfect pair to tell Sandy what was on God’s heart.

a gentle reminder

There are times, as with Sandy, we feel God has abandoned us even if we’re not guilty of sin (see Job). We are “hard pressed on every side” from grievous pressures that don’t care one whit about our capacity to hold our own against them.

Other times, of course, we are the cause of our own pain and need to know God still loves us.

I recently finished both letters to the Corinthians and saw something near the end I’d not noticed before, and I’m very excited to tell you what I found. It’s a very gospel thing.

The Corinthians were a flawed bunch, yes? They were a puffed-up gaggle of rebels, idolaters, and rank adulterers. One could say the city of Corinth was a sewer plant and the church fanned the fumes.

The first letter got written because Paul got word of their antics and needed to address them. There was also a “painful visit” in there. And then he penned a “severe letter” that is lost. We’ll never know what he said in that one.

So I get over to the 7th chapter and am struck dumb by Paul’s heart in spite of all the tough talk. His heart is veritably bursting when he says this:

“We are comforted (and)…refreshed by you.”

2 Corinthians 7:13

And this:

“Our boasting (of you) has proved true.”

2 Corinthians 7:14

Behold, marvel at this curiously gentle stroking:

“I am acting with great boldness toward you; I have great pride in you; I am filled with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy.”

2 Corinthians 7:4

How extraordinary! To have these emotions and encouraging words for the people at Corinth in spite of how he addressed them in the previous chapter(s) is…well, astounding!

This speaks to my heart about the love of Jesus. Yes, he sees the filth and idolatry and unwholesomeness of our souls (and bodies), and yet his heart is “wide open” to us and speaks gentle words in the middle of his (sometimes) tough love.

He doesn’t over-emphasize the bad to the neglect of the good. You are loved, never forget that.

how does Jesus feel about me?

I would like for you to hear your Savior say this to you right now:

“ I rejoice because I have complete confidence in you.”

2 Corinthians 7:16

Okay, I know that’s what Paul said to the saints in that particular church. I don’t have trouble receiving that because I know Paul was “Christ” to them. He ministered from the same heart as Jesus.

Yes, they vacillated and backslid and married wrong and worshiped wrong and treated one another wrongly. And they would fail and fall again,

but the ones who still clung to Christ, even in their weakness and maddeningly misdirected affections, were gently and warmly loved by the Christ who saved them. He never let them go. His heart remained wide open to them.

Beloved, the same gospel goes for you, too!

The Corinthian believers (though not all) repented. For all their unruliness and out-of-jointedness, still, at the end of the day, they walked in repentance.

If you’re feeling the “severe letter” in your life is justified, don’t think you’re being written off by Jesus. Look to him, not your shame. For the unrepentant he’s writing other words not meant for you. Here’s what he’s gently saying to you:

And Jesus [says] to [you], As for myself, neither do I condemn you. Be proceeding and no longer go on sinning.

John 8:11, Wuest Translation, slightly altered by me

If you’re feeling the crushing weight of life “just because” (as in Sandy’s case), I’m praying for a merciful end to your sorrows.

The Holy Spirit’s eloquence gets muddled through my messengering at times, but I do hope you catch the gentleness of his voice. I pray the broken-hearted hear the Savior’s “I see you. I hear you. I feel your sorrow. Don’t be ashamed. I am for you.”

Selah, beloved.

*For Sandy to drop her hands and lose the fight is against everything that is in her. In this particular season, she was bearing the crushing weight of ‘losing’ her son, being responsible to her ministries at the church, fighting for my health, supporting me in my “daily pressure of anxiety” for our church, and holding down a hard-labor, high demanding job for health insurance.

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unforeseen kiss

Y’all remember when “sloppy wet kiss” was sung in churches a good many years ago? Thank the kind Lord for Crowder’s good save with “unforeseen kiss.” It’s way more proper for the Sunday morning crowd.

In the opening act of Ephesians, Paul starts off with a love sonnet from heaven. It’s like a kiss we weren’t expecting. There’s nothing sloppy about it; it’s pure poetry.

Twelve verses. Two hundred and one words. And get this: one single sentence in the Greek New Testament! Paul lays it on pretty thick and in a way the church won’t ever forget. Dear Ephesus saints, How does he love thee? Let me tell you the ways… He obviously got carried away with his subject.

Paul takes us scuba diving into the great ocean of God’s love without equipment. Take a deep breath, he instructs. When we come up we’re gasping for air.

Paul doesn’t want us to interrupt his flow so he opens up the fire hydrant. We stand there with our tiny spoons trying to catch a sip. It’s okay, he says, you won’t get it all at first, but I just gotta get it out!

We’re meant to be astounded. God’s love is supposed to drown us. He means for us to have a hard time catching our breath. He wants us weak at the knees when he sets his affection on us. Even while we were yet sinners, he loved us.

When we were more loathsome than the beggar on the dunghill, and of so degenerate a spirit as to embrace our shame, and glory in our infamy – then was the time of love – then our Redeemer said, “I have betrothed thee to myself in righteousness, and in judgment, and in faithfulness; I have betrothed thee to myself forever.”

—Letters of Henry Venn, 1776

I’ve done my share of weddings in forty years of ministry. When “the moment” comes, the long-awaited finale, there’s usually a fun pause before I ask the couple to seal their pronounced love with a kiss. I admit to thinking on the rare occasion, They don’t look like they go together. Yet there they stand, unblushingly, in an unbreakable union.

Wait. God kissed…me?!?

In a manner of speaking he certainly did. Jesus gives credence to the idea when he spoke of an over-the-moon father who fell on his lost son’s neck and furiously kissed him (wait…is that where ‘sloppy wet kiss’ comes from???). What a gospel! He doesn’t just save me, he wants me!

Near the end of Paul’s great run-on sentence he said, “When you heard the gospel (his love song), you believed (said ‘yes’), and you were ‘sealed’ to him forever.”

The following excerpt needs little in the way of a set-up. You’ll likely see the gospel lovingly hidden inside the story before you get to the last sentence. But that last sentence is a treasure of words that could artfully say everything about How He Loves we need to know.

I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth has been severed. She will be thus from now on. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had to cut the little nerve.

Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private.

Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily?

The young woman speaks, “Will my mouth always be like this?” she asks. “Yes,” I say, “it will. It is because the nerve was cut.” She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles. “I like it,” he says, “It’s kind of cute.”

All at once I know who he is. I understand and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works.

Richard Selzer, Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery

When I got to college I wanted to try out for a choir. I didn’t want the men’s choir because I liked chicks too much. The Concert Choir sang cooler songs than the rest, but my roommate was in the ‘Weigle’ choir and got me an audition with the director. In a tiny room with just him and a piano, I sweated bullets, but made it.

The choir was named for Charles Weigle whose greatest contribution to the world of church music was the song, “No One Ever Cared For Me Like Jesus.”

All my life was full of sin when Jesus found me;

All my heart was full of misery and woe,

Jesus placed His strong and loving arms about me

And He led me in the way I ought to go.

No one ever cared for me like Jesus,

There’s no other friend so kind as He;

No one else could take the sin and darkness from me,

O how much He cared for me.

—Charles F. Weigle

File this in “Unforeseen” (as in, Didn’t see it coming).

Totally unexpected.

The Jesus of Glory and sinners like us. We’re a match made in heaven. We sure don’t look like we go together, but every morning we wake up and as angels bow to watch our full redemption played out, we can remember a very long, breathless sentence in the Bible that assures us the kiss still works.

Selah, beloved. Happy Friday.

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brighten the corner where you are

Do you seek great things for yourself?
Seek them not.

Jeremiah 45:5

Jeremiah’s sidekick, Baruch, is plotting his next move.

He’s stood faithfully beside Judah’s wildly unsuccessful prophet, but now he’s tiring of unpopular ministry. Compounding his misery, he’s got a brother playing for the other side, faring well among the ruling class. That brother, also a scribe, hitched his wagon to a star, but Baruch, to a whipping post.

It’s not hard to imagine Baruch eyeballing the other side of the fence to contemplate a change. An upgrade, perhaps. Maybe his brother will give him a palace gig.

So God said,

“What’s bothering you, Baruch? Are you tired of living righteous in an unrighteous world? Are you envious of the other side? Don’t be. The other side is marked for destruction. Seek Me, not worldly greatness. I am enough. Stay faithful and you will live.”

Baruch was the scribal secretary to the saddest and loneliest man in Judah. His boss was a pariah prophet, a truth-teller to a culture of therapeutic deists. Jeremiah refused to play the game so he got himself banned from the temple.

But the Word of God will not be chained!

God told Jeremiah to dictate his entire catalogue of sermons (23 years’ worth!) to get to Jehoiakim. The puppet-king didn’t take too kindly to the prophet’s hot takes. He proceeded to hack the scroll into ribbons and tossed them into the fire.

This was a bridge too far for Jehoiakim. Insurrection! Treason! Sedition! If Jeremiah won’t shut up, he’ll just have to shut him up — permanently — both he and his errand boy.

It was about then Baruch started weighing his options.

I read about a woman who was planning for ministry among the Chautauqua tribe of Native Americans. This was her surrender, the ache in her soul, her single-minded passion.

Ina Mae Ogdon never realized her dream because she was called back home to nurse her ailing father. Did she resent her father? Even worse, did she resent God?

Some years later Ina Mae, already a prolific writer of hymns and poems, looked back on that unexpected detour in the words of a song, “Brighten The Corner Where You Are.” It’s clear she made peace with the path God chose for her.

Could you be content in being a foot instead of a hand? Would you submit to being a footnote instead of a headline? Might you light a candle in a closet when you would prefer a spot on the dais?

Who’s to say greatness is measured by whether or not you are a published author? Are you a failure if your church can’t break fifty…or a hundred? Are you a success if you boast 100,000 followers on social media? Or if your home is a magazine ad?

Hear me out … What if greatness is measured in eternity by “humble and sacrificial servanthood, and not in any pursuit promising a rise to power, position, or prestige…”? (Every Moment Holy, Vol. 1, 206) Could you sign on to that?

Vance Havner said, “Too many of us aren’t big enough to be little enough to be used of God.”

Recently, before I met with God, I read aloud from the prayer book, “Every Moment Holy, Vol. 1” That day’s entry struck oil in the tender soil of my heart:

At a pastor’s retreat one of the ministers noticed how a woman joyfully cleaned each of the rooms every day. On the final day of the weeklong retreat he found her in the bathroom and made a point to ask her the question he’d been wanting to ask since the second morning.

There she was, on her knees, scrubbing the bathroom floor, humming a familiar tune.

“How do you do such degrading work so happily?” he asked.

“Its not degrading to me,” she replied with a noticeable brightness. “I just remind myself I don’t have to do this, I get to do this!”

That dear woman sought only one thing in her life: to shine in whatever corner Jesus put her, no questions asked. She turned a bathroom floor into a cathedral of worship.

Sandy recently volunteered for the children’s ministry at our church. She explained to the director how she felt drawn to the nursery. In her words she said, “I want to whisper ‘Jesus loves you’ to those babies in a way they’ll never forget it.” Instead, she was assigned a K-2nd grade class.

I met her after the service and was greeted with her warm smile. That’s my Sandy. Her heart is an abiding ‘amen’ to Jesus.

While she’d prefer holding newborns (since she’ll never hold her own grandchild), she brightened her corner. She didn’t fuss or complain. She just shined where Jesus needed her.

All that matters in the end is,

“Were you faithful?”

“Did you love people or use people?”

“Did you crave the spotlight or did you make Jesus big?”

“Did you brighten your corner?”

I’m fairly certain Baruch got the smallest chapter in Jeremiah because “seeking great things for yourself” is the petty desire of small people.

Don’t live for this world’s applause. Brennan Manning said, “Do the Truth quietly without display.”

The word to Baruch was, “A great shaking is coming and those who are living on flow’ry beds of ease now will die in their luxury. But if you can praise me from your corner I will bless you with abundant life, far greater than you can possibly imagine.”

We don’t really know what happened to Baruch. I’d like to think he chose life. I choose that too. If you’re reading this, I pray you will also.

May we brighten the corner where we are until the great and glorious day when Christ says, “It’s time to move. I have prepared a new place for you. Come and see.” It’ll be worth every corner, detour, sideline, back seat, bathroom floor, hidden place, and anonymous season we’ve ever known.

Selah, beloved.

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