Withholding

"He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty." - Job 6:14

I have this game I play with the kids where I tap my head with my fingers and say "Think, tink, tink, tink... I KNOW! I KNOW! I KNOOOOW! Ve should go eat purple butterflies!" I think that potentially, they love this game so much, that we could actually do it for 2 full hours. (That's a long time when you're 3 or 5 and have the attention span of a twitchy rabbit.) I come up with ridiculous things, and the kids laugh, snort and yell "Again!"

Something like this is going on this morning as I write. "Tink, tink, tink..." My brain doesn't seem to be firing. And the dangers of just writing down vapid (I love this word), meaningless, blah blah poo-poo, is a real danger. And when I write, it must be profound! Just kidding...

But this verse above, set in chapter 6 of Job, where he's being forced to stick up for himself, jumped out at me this morning (probably because I'd highlighted it). I've written over and over again about how being an always happy, cheerful, manic Christian is not really a help to anyone. So I'm not sure I want to go into my issue with "Happy Christianity" again.

What I do want to take a look at is why we shoot our wounded. Why we withhold kindness from our brothers and sisters. For example: Have you ever asked someone how they're doing, and had them respond with "I'm doing terrible"? When this happens to me I wish I could leave my body and take my soul and all the real essence of me somewhere else. I guess there are appropriate ways and places to share our hurts, and perhaps casual greetings is not one of those.

But I know I withhold kindness a lot. My kids want to continue wrestling, and I come up with some lame reason like, I need to get to work, or have my devotions, meditate, brush my teeth, wax my eye-brows, etc. Melissa has something she's really struggling with and brings it to me at the end of the day when I'm trying to escape my troubles (for crying out loud) by reading fiction, perhaps living fiction. Hey I don't want to talk. I withhold.

My car was dead this morning. I was riding my bike near a school where parents were dropping their kids off. I had no jumper cables so I stopped a few cars to ask if they'd give me a jump, and after about four "Sorry, I don't have cables." I was beginning to suspect that kindness was being withheld.

Real kindness is hard. I found it in the list of love in 2 Cor. 13. I don't think it means drawing little jelly Mickey Mouses on our kids sandwiches. Just like gentleness doesn't mean having really floppy wrists and a very soft voice.

I seem to be good at mimicking kindness and gentleness, but the real thing, now that's difficult. Why? Because it's inconvenient. But it's not as inconvenient as not fearing God.

Self and selfishness are hard to escape from, but I believe that fear of the Almighty is the key. For when I fear God, I'm more likely to make sacrifices, for he's a sacrificial guy (plus he could blast me into oblivion if he wanted). When I'm close to God obedience becomes less begrudging but a delight. "Jump a car? No prob!"

I'm learning really, really, really... one more really, slowly that obedience does not mean asking God to make me feel good about doing something good, but doing what's right when everything in me wants to do something else.

It's pretty obvious that this is fearing the Lord. Trust and obey kind of stuff. The kind of stuff I learned with flannel grams at Sunday School, but hey, when you're trying to "Think, tink, tink" of something worthwhile to write about, getting back to the basics is a good idea.

Love God and love man. Trust and obey, and don't shoot your wounded friends - or poor Job. He's been through enough already.

Waaaaaaaaaaaa!

"Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Surely a man goes about as a shadow! Surely for nothing they are in turmoil; man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather! And now O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you... hold not your peace at my tears... Look away from me, that I may smile again, before I depart and am no more!" - David in Psalm 39.

I thought I'd write another cheerful entry. You're welcome! Let's talk about how futile life is. It's coming straight from the lips of David, so I'm in good company.

David has this amazing ability to both state, very matter-of-factly, that his hope is in the Lord AND he also wants the Lord to leave him alone. Confusing? David's talks with God are a constant riddle for me with my simplistic models for relating to God. But maybe they shouldn't be such a riddle.

Riddling as they are, I'm so grateful for David's words. They're God approved and they express way more than I'm often willing to express. They're pretty fearless. Who of us, in our struggles will ask God to "depart from us". And at the same time they are full of God-fear. David knows that God is his hope. God is his only rescuer.

Does holy fear characterise me? Do I recognize the futility of world-life and world-fear that makes me qualify my prayers. Do I recognize that this means that I have to be really honest with God? Or am I so caught up in "Dear Lords" and "Dear Heavenly Fathers" (as if I'm composing a letter) that I forget to just scream out in desperation.

I think it's something that the biggest book of prayer in scripture is written in poetry. (Of course it doesn't rhyme, has no meter and we really have not much idea of how it works. Maybe they had a special ancient Hebrew beatnyk style for it. I can see them with their huge scraggledy beards and pipes, or whatever they smoked back then, popping their heads to a rythm while chanting the verses. I have no idea what I'm writing about. Can you even pop your head to a rythm? What does that even mean?) But doesn't poetry go beyond words. I think it does, and that's why I rarely read or write it. I like hiding behind the safe words - the words I can understand anyways. Modern poetry kind of makes me mad for its fancy-panciness.

But poetry is evocative and in it we hear David expressing what we all feal but so rarely say. I'm glad he does it so I don't have to. Imagine with me what it'd be like if people prayed like this today: A pastor gets up and yells, "Lord have mercy! I have nowhere to go and you are torturing me! But I'm still hoping in you! And I'm hoping you won't use thum-screws again! Help me not to totally blow it this morning. Amen." Or a friend offers to pray for you over something that's been bothering you: "Oh Lord, the one who's made everything, we know that life is so short that we're basically a dust-mist, but while Philip is hear, this tiny speck of dust, give him your presence, lest he blow away forever, out into the cosmos, never to be heard of again. Amen."

Some of you may be thinking that I'm just focusing on the plaintive Psalms, and I am, but I'll let you imagine how crazy the Psalms of praise would be, not to mention the depracatory Psalms - the ones asking God to SMITE! Fun!

I say all of this this morning, because I need David's voice in my life. It validates my feeling that we shouldn't rehearse all our prayers, or trivialize the relationship of prayer. We're to pour out our hearts in prayer. That's why my favorite prayer these days is "Waaaaaaaaaaaaa! Amen"

Note on picture: for some reason I picture Clint Eastwood doing a good job of Ancient Hebrew Beatnik. It's a stretch I know, but I really, really like this picture, and it seems to fit in a weird way.

Deep Fear

Today I'm going to share with you my deepest fear. No, I'm not afraid of rabid albino rodents, as most of you are thinking. I actually owned one for awhile and I miss Pablo's sweet red eyes.

No, my deep fear, the one that bubbles up from the depths in the middle of dark nights, is for my children. I fear for them in so many ways. It's part of being a parent. But my deepest fears is that they'll be taken from me, or taken from God.

I can't guarantee that my children will walk with God. That I'll be with them forever. And for me, this reality haunts even my waking waking world.

All I know is that the God I know wants me to call him father. Perhaps he knows my ache.

A couple of nights a go I woke up to David screaming "Dadda! DAAAAADDAAAA!" For a few minutes I sat up in bed, rubbing my eyes and hoping he'd just go back to sleep. But I was also confused, why was he calling for me? He always calls for Mom.

But tonight he was calling out for me. Finally, when it looked like he was awake for good, I went in to him picked him up and asked him what was wrong. Like usual he spluttered something to me totally incoherent in the inexplicable New York accent of his. (We hear the accent most clearly when he says, "Hey you, yous get out of here-ya!")

Eventually I was able to untangle what he was saying: "The cars were taking me away and I was all alone!" Poor guy! I'm familiar with that terror. The terror of truely being alone.

So I took him to our bed, layed him down and boy did he snuggle close. He was intent on our heads being pressed together and he asked me hold his hand "really tight". I did so for about half an hour, lulling around in that half-sleep dream world that characterizes these times.

Finally, I thought he was out and I gently released my hand, and a stern David told me to "hold tight". His dream must have been something.

For the next hour or so he managed to head-but, slap and perhaps kick me in the face. I characterize him as not so much a restless sleeper, but as a highly trained martial artist sleeper. Who knows what demons he was beating, and why he thought they were on my face.

I've been reading someone who deeply loves his children. In one part of his book he says, "I would go to hell for them." I believe I would to. There's a bond there that runs deeper than even I know.

So there you go. That's my deepest fear. God who made each and every one of us calls us his children, his creation. He went to hell for us. He loves us like a Dad. And when my deep fear hits, not to be too simplistic, but I've got to just ask this great Daddy to hold my hand, and hold it tight.

Hating God

Am I allowed to say I hate God? Is that something a Christian is allowed to say? I believe it is, and it is often the reality of my soul's cry. I typically smother such thinking and expression with fearful (not Godly fear) of what people think and what God thinks. (It's sort of like the way I smother my emotions to sing "praise songs". Sometimes I really hate "praise songs"!)

I believe this stiffling and smothering of our hatred is wrong and worse than the hating of God. For the God we know, serves us. The God we know loves us indescribably. The God we know is our father, friend, confidant and advocate. He loves me even while I hate.

My hatred toward God literally poured out of me last night. I wept and wept. When I begin to cry in earnest there are waterfalls. I sat on the edge of the bed and tried not to go into "rocking and self-pity mode" while Melissa prayed for my pain.

I actively hate God every time I reject his guidance and go my own way. This past week was full of running down my own little rabit trails (don't rabits make holes though?). But God gifted me with the crash that comes after all the selfish running and independant boot-strap tugging, with a taste, just a taste, of depression.

For me depression is a big topic and one that I can't even begin to delve into here. But what depression does for me is it rips the rug out of my self-reliance. God knows how I loath this. I scramble harder and harder to get that damn rug back under my feet, but the more I struggle the deeper I go into darkness.

So last night I said into the darkness, "I hate God." It was scary. Perhaps, if my theology was better I should have said it directly with "I hate you God."

But with the words finally out, I told Melissa the laundry list of reasons that I hate God. Finally I was being honest. Not simple emotional honesty, not simple "authenticity" but expressing the reality of my hatred that I had stored up for a week or more and perhaps for a lifetime of a hatred for my maker.

Aren't we all there sometimes? If we aren't there sometimes, are we really living with God? If we're being honest, when God brings difficult things into our lives, we don't scratch our heads and say "Oh I wonder what his sovereign and good plan is in all of this." (We aren't just brains stuck on emotionless sticks. We're humans who hurt and sometimes resent and even hate.) No, I think we shake our fists and say that we hate God, even if we're too scared to verbalize it, by the lives we live and by the sin we turn to.

But here's what's so amazing about God's grace for me and for us. He knows my hatred and he still loves and accepts me. He is pleased with and rejoices over me. His greatest concern is my true well-being: my soul-being.

He knows that his circumstances can bring great pain into our lives. He knows that the choices we make bring us great pain as well. But he is the grand physician, ever loving and binding up our broken and raging hearts. This is why it's OK to admit that you hate God. God doesn't hate you. And his chest is big enough to beat on.

Scary God

"I will bring you to a dreadful end, and you shall be no more. Though you be sought for, you will never be found again, declares the Lord GOD." - Ezekial.

I read these encouraging words this morning and it got me thinking that I definitely don't want to cross God. In fact I don't even want to make him slightly angry. It also reminded me of how so much of what we worry about - politics, corruption and violence - is being watched over by a just God who definitely will deal justice.

So on the one hand I'm really glad that I don't have to face God's wrath because Christ's obedient life and death covers me, and on the other I'm really relieved that God's in control. Maybe it's why I don't pay much attention to politics. Heck, I don't even read the newspaper. (For all of you out there that are aghast at my lack of cultural engagement, I listen to NPR. That should trump all.)

A lot of people struggle with God's judgement oracles in the OT. I do as well. How could a merciful and loving God be so judgemental? He kind of seems mean doesn't he. But the finger our hearts (do hearts have fingers?) point at God when we read these oracles need to be pointed back on us. We brought evil into the world and we deserve infinitely more wrath than God deals.

These oracles remind me to fear God. To give him honor as the one who can build a nation up and tear it down. He can give a king a crown or make him sit on a really pointy one. God is in control. God is to be honored.

And if you are frightened of God, that may not be such a bad thing. I really want to qualify this though. It's qualified by the God of the Cross. The God who gave up everything to be with you and me. The God who could have smited us from the cosmos, delighted in us enough to pay the ultimate price and more for our freedom.

Don't be frightened of God because he's a jerk like your father or something. Be frightened of God because he is Good and we are Bad. The good news is that we are way worse than we think, and way more loved than we dare imagine (thank you Tim Keller I think). Cling to you righteousness in Christ and rejoice!

"The Lord is merciful and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love."

Terrible Joy

"All hands are feeble, and all knees will turn to water." - Ezekial

I'm always wondering about how much I actually revere God. What would it be like if I met him now, while I'm sitting in Starbucks, typing away and reading the Bible, sipping my coffee all nice and comfy-like.

I know my socks would be blown off. In fact they would probably desinigrate. If God was feeling merciful, I would join my socks in becoming a pile of dust. To live long in God's immediate presence is torture for an unclean human. It's why Isaiah says, "Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips!"

"Woe" is sort of a "King Jamesy" word, so it doesn't translate real well to today. I think I might use the expression I often used as a teen: "Oh shit, I'm dead meat!" (Pardon my French).

But even that doesn't quite get it. I know I've said, "Oh shit," a in a few particularly danger-riddled situations, although I've repressed a few of them.

My love of nature and adventure has back-fired quite a bit in my life. Like the time I was going fly-fishing in "Beautiful Brittish Columbia" and was hiking down a very steep slope to get to a spot. Yup, I slipped and found myself sliding and eventually falling over a 10 foot drop onto boulders. "Oh shit!" Or the time I was mountain biking and I accidently squeezed my back brake off of a 5 foot drop, which pitched me headfirst into, you guessed it, another stack of boulders. You can guess my words of delight. Needless to say, my love of boulders has waned.

Perhaps, barely being able to get whichever words we personally prefer out before having our head smashed by rocks is closer to "Woe is me". One of my personal favorites, was what my friend's mom yelled when we were almost in a car accident. She yelled at the top of her lungs, "Oh sweet Jesus save us!" just like a Southern Baptist preacher. To which my friend responded with, "Mom you just scared the pee out of me!" Oh the good times I had in carpool.

Fear of immenent death and destruction, always accompanies humans' experiences of God's presence in Scripture. So how can I take him so casually?

It's really pretty disturbing that my perspective of reality can be so clouded. But at the same time it's a grace.

I pray that I'll begin to find a little of the holy fear that should permeate the life of a believer. I pray that even the knowledge of my atonement and right standing would highten my fear, not lesson it. And here I've moved from the definition of fear as shear terror to fear as terror and joy.

The terrible joy that is the believers is that we serve, or are children of, the Living God. Nothing stands in his way, no human power, no institution and nothing in all creation, even Donald Trump. Nothing, nothing, nothing is bigger and more deserving of our terror than God. It's a good thing he's compassionate.