Tag: Pasturescott

though there’s pain in the offering

Have you ever seen someone in pain who’s not handling it well? I know you have and I have too. It’s not pretty is it? They can become bitter. Sometimes they get angry and strike. For many, pain becomes their identity.

Last time I posted I shared from the life of Joseph. I’m tempted to do the same with this post because so much of his story fits inside this theme. In his stead I’ll share a brief glimpse into his father, Jacob.

There was a day in his life when a blood-soaked garment was brought to him by his sons. “He’s gone, Dad. Joseph’s dead, mauled by a lion.” Jacob was inconsolable.

Jacob knew pain. Think back to his wedding night. Recall the entire saga of Esau? Does his divinely dislocated hip ring any bells? Consider the twenty hard years of labor in Paddan-aram (interestingly, the verb associated with the place suggests this was where Jacob was ‘ransomed’; a necessary length of time for Old Jacob to meet New Jacob).

Because of these things, perhaps, Jacob had a fixation with death and trouble. He carried his pain with him into every season and well inside his old age. There’s another grievous pain he bore but I’ll get to that if time permits.

Any of those things would cause many a man or woman to go running for the hills. God won’t give you more than you can bear?

Please.

Say that to Jacob with a straight face.

The worst of times are not the last of times.

— John Piper

lament

Lament is one of those words that sounds too religious for us regular folk. But we cannot move forward without it. This is why so many get stuck in the dry docks of dismay.

Jacob lost 22 years of his life as the consequence of his sons’ great sins against Joseph, Tamar, and the men of Shechem. He is often seen sitting with his grief and unhealthy preoccupation with death.*

*Gen 37:35; 42:36; 42:38: 44:22, 27-29; 30-31; 45:28; 46:31

One of my regrets about life after my accident is that I didn’t take necessary time to grieve all that was taken from me. In the ensuing years I was often asked “Do you get bitter?” I replied, “No, never once.” And that was the truth.

Did I lament my loss? I did…eventually. TBH, I still lament. Something is wrong with this picture. My disability is not part of the new creation. Jesus wept at Lazarus’ tomb because it didn’t…belong. It stinks. It hurts. How long, O God?

I love how lament is described by an Anglican priest:

Lament is what happens when the promises of God collide with the reality of our lives, and we express that collision and call on God to harmonise the two.

— Revd Dr. Alastair McKay, St. Martin-in-the-field

The thing about lament, biblically understood, is that it always — always — leads to praise. To lament is to actively pursue God in the midst of your sorrow. It may be a long time coming but you eventually get there. Jacob spent 22 years locked inside his bereavement. Would he recover?

I’m a big fan of the minor key and the book of Job. My friends know how much I love a gloomy, overcast day. Barry Manilow’s saddest ballads were my favorite songs in high school and college. Don’t hate me, I’m still fragile about that.

I’ve been through some stuff in my life, but I don’t ever recall a time when I’ve just wanted to pack it all in and jump ship. I scrolled through my twitter feed the other day and came across this share from a pastor I found quite enlightening:

That’s good. And painfully true.

Jacob is a case study in not dealing well with your hurt. You can’t tell me that his solemnity and despair didn’t rub off on his children. I imagine Judah or Simeon wondered aloud from time to time if they’d ever be more than a painful burr in their dad’s soul. Perhaps Reuben felt the scorn of being Leah’s son and that was all he could ever bring to the table.

But then there was a famine in the land. (Pay close attention to Gen 43:14)

It changed everything.

lessons learned

There came a day when Jacob got some news: his boy was alive! I’ve imagined how awesome it would be if I woke up tomorrow morning to see Graham at the foot of our bed! To realize it had all been a very bad dream. When I read of Jacob’s exhilaration, I feel that deep in my core.

Jacob had enjoyed Joseph for seventeen years in Hebron (Gen 37:2), and now he would get to enjoy Joseph for seventeen years in Egypt (Gen 47:28).

At 130 years of age Jacob made peace with his pain. In a long blessing over Joseph he invoked the name El Shaddai at the start and finished with Elohim at the close. Happy is the life that begins and ends with God!

Long before David called God his Faithful Shepherd, Jacob beat him to it. Jacob was the first person in Scripture to say that God “has been my shepherd all my life.” That sounds like a man at peace.

“I am about to die, BUT GOD…”

“But God.”

May this be your confession by his mercy and grace.

Allow me this one final splurge. Before you click away, I’d like to share the song whose lyric inspired the title of this post. Sandy chose this song as part of worship for Graham’s funeral. Yes, I said that. Funeral worship. We’ll see him again. Maybe not here, but when our lament has finished its course.

Amen.

music to our ears

What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned about God?

Jesus told a story that is clearly about God the Father. In the story there are two villains, a younger brother and an elder. While the older brother stews in his self righteousness the younger son repents of his many reproaches and heads back with tail tucked. In the story we are surprised to find the Father running to meet him.

Imagine: God, with robe gathered, feet flying, running!

There’s another place in the sacred text where I’m caught off guard by God. We know about his communication skills but how many knew God could sing?

In Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, we find Aslan singing the world of Narnia into being:

In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing…Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once…One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leaped out – single stars, constellations, and planets, brighter and bigger than any in our world…All the time the Voice went on singing…The Voice rose and rose, till all the air was shaking with it. And just as it swelled to the mightiest and most glorious sound it had yet produced, the sun arose.

—C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew (New York: Collier), pp. 98-99.

I am in a season right now where my most challenging obstacle is not disability. I confess it’s gotten the better of me on those especially trying days, but God faithfully meets me in his Word and whispers, “I’m for you, child; stay the course. Trust that I’m up to something good here.” Those words quiet me.

God doesn’t just speak, however. Sometimes he sings. Elihu told Job of a God who “gives songs in the night.” I know of such a God. I’ve heard his night songs echoing softly in my mind when I thought I was out of my mind, lost and forgotten.

The Almighty has been singing a long time. Twenty-five centuries ago Zephaniah, great-great grandson of Hezekiah, said, while God “quiets” us by his love (‘ahava’, e.g., Song of Songs 2:4), he also anthems over us and silences the roar inside our hearts.

The LORD your God is among you;
He is mighty to save.
He will rejoice over you with gladness;
He will quiet you with His love;
He will rejoice over you with singing.

Zephaniah 3:17

The Hebrew text reads, “he exults over you with loud singing.” Great peals of thunder ring out from the bellows of God’s voice when soothing words won’t do. The NLT fashions it, “He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”

How very cool is that? When we are cowed by the dissonance of our skewed culture, our Heavenly Father starts singing, and when he sings all the noise fades into the background.

The people God sings over are so beleaguered they want to quit. They’re flat-out exhausted from battling the insufferable. All they can hear are the “slurs and taunts of Moab”; the “pure speech” of Zion’s completely drowned out. God’s whispers do them little good; they need him to SHOUT his love in their ears.

That’s the beauty of Zephaniah 3:17. The word we get isn’t “lullaby”; of course there’s a time when a lullaby is appropriate. I love when the Holy Spirit quietly sings over me, calming me with his sweet reveries.

But sometimes we need reveille! Life can get so messed up we need a victory song. We need God to ROAR with assurance that all this is under Aslan’s massive paw. That’s the idea in this text. Sometimes he quiets us with love, sometimes he rejuvenates us with a victory chorus.

God is so happy in the love he bears to his people that he breaks the eternal silence, and sun and moon and stars with astonishment hear God chanting a hymn of joy.

—Charles Spurgeon

The older I get, the quieter I get. And the quieter I am, the better I’m positioned to hear the still, small Voice, so familiar, so intimate. But there are times I need an anthem, not a sonnet. God’s playlist always seems to give me just what I need in any given moment.

How about you? Are you greatly bothered by the noise in your life? Can you hear your Father in heaven sing over you? Or is the tumult drowning out the truth you need to hear? I pray the Lord of the Dance surprises you with his playlist in coming days. May God grace you with his joyous reveille and surround you with songs of deliverance.

Selah, indeed.

the grand canyon and heaven too

Most of you know I was blessed to draw a line through a big item on my bucket list last year. There we were, Sandy and I, road trippin’ with two best friends, Alan and Kelli, across the southern U.S. Target: Grand Canyon.

I could do a huge photo dump of some of our grandest shared memories, but I’ll spare you that. Instead, I’ll leave you with two or three snapshots that practically tell the whole epic story.

I’ve been told by veteran visitors of the GC that the funnest part is to go with someone who has never been before. Then just stand back as they approach the rim and watch their expression. I was the one being watched that day and I’m pretty sure I followed the first-timer script.

But that’s enough about me. Let’s talk about this guy:

I probably took over a hundred photos during those eight or so hours at the southern rim. There are better shots than this, but this one is a sermon in itself.

This dude walked out on nature’s platform and, quite eloquently, turned it into a pulpit. He was an orator facing an Audience of One; I just so happened to be in the wings, eavesdropping.

As I watched, he stood there a few moments, hands in pockets, taking it all in. He may have sighed, I don’t know (I didn’t have my long lens with me). Keeping my finger on the trigger, I spied through the camera’s viewfinder thinking it made a pretty good photo on its own.

I snapped off a couple shots.

Then, slowly, he pulled one hand out of his pocket and raised a lone finger toward the sky. His face turned upward and looked where he was pointing. Like so:

I didn’t see him again the rest of the day. But I have to tell you, his actions out there in the cold sunshine, atop the canyon, moved me to the core. I got chills. The photo still does it to me.

It was a miracle we got to see the Grand Canyon at all. It had snowed to beat the band the day before — all day long. Visibility, zero. Wind gusts, treacherous. The roads to the canyon were impassable; it wasn’t until the very early morning hours they were reopened. This was the only day we could visit; the next day we would set out on our long return drive to Georgia.

Think of what we would’ve missed. Yes, the Grand Canyon. Of course, that. But we would’ve also missed a guy out on a ledge at the Grand Canyon experiencing God in the moment.

There was another guy at the Grand Canyon that day. He, too, was lifting a hand skyward but in his upraised hand was … a cell phone.

Dude was crazy. Far out on an outcropping of rock firing off selfies from all angles, he kept backing up, not paying attention to his six. There was a harrowing moment when I thought the Canyon might claim another life.

Guy #1 was pointing at the heavens that day, yielding worship to the Almighty Creator. Around the same time, Guy #2 was focusing on himself, playing fast and loose with gravity. There’s a sermon in there if you care to try.

Scroll back up to Guy #1 and see how small he is in the frame. He’s miniaturized by his surroundings. What is man that thou art mindful of him? indeed. Amid a selfie-obsessed generation, be Guy #1; he knows who he is and whose he is.

To that end, he permutates into an arrow, pointing away from himself, and directs his whole being heavenward. If we could see into the other realm we might witness the heavens opened and a whole host of beings ascending and descending, glorifying God and praising.

We are all starved for the glory of God, not self. No one goes to the Grand Canyon to increase self-esteem. Why do we go? Because there is greater healing for the soul in beholding splendor than there is in beholding self.

— John Piper

Here’s an idea: why not pause right now and lift a finger into the air and aim your praise at the Savior. Offer up humble thanks that he’s put you where he wants you, in frame, where you can testify to an eavesdropping world that Jesus isn’t just part of the Story, he’s the whole Point of the Story.

Selah, beloved. Oh, and here’s one final photo from that day at the canyon: