Godgrown

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  Mark 8:17 am on January 25, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Kicked Out for Good Reason 

  Sometimes going on a mission trip feels more like you’re just getting kicked out of the house.

  The writer in Isaiah 61 is depicting a nation of exiles, with some who have returned back to Jerusalem, and most others who have decided they will stay spread across the lands.  The writer is grappling with the changing definitions of what it means to be “God’s people” and it is slowly becoming more inevitable that we are never going back to “those old glory days where everyone is home in Zion” ever again.

  We long for what we had – we seem to only appreciate something or someone once they are gone.  And yet, the 5th Century prophet in this chapter is careful not to exclude the Diaspora Jews from the grand narrative God is weaving.  He seems to have an assurance that they still have a vital role to play.  The prophet is reminded of a promise God made to an ancient ancestor…”back in the glory days”… when he spoke to Abraham in Genesis, he made it explicitly clear that Abraham would be blessed, and that through Abraham all the nations of the earth would be blessed.

  This was spinning through the prophet’s mind as he wrote Isaiah 61.  In trying to reorient  his faith to the changing circumstances, in lamenting the hundreds of thousands of Jews that could not or chose not to return, what was to become of God’s people?  God’s promise to Abraham?

  Maybe this was exactly what God wanted.

  This “exile” – this humiliation and defeat – was exactly what God needed to propel the Jews out into every town and village and empire on earth. Like blowing on the head of a dandelion, the exile kicked the Jews out of the house, and put them unknowingly on a mission trip!

  How did that mission go?  Well – with no Temple to worship at, Jews began meeting in their homes for prayer and began studying the Torah as households.  Soon, they began setting aside parts of their house and then whole houses for prayer – they called these synagogues (Hebrew for “gathering together”).  They were public discussion forums on fearing God, and living a holy life.

  A few hundred years later, their Messiah came – but he came to the local region of Judea, and not all the exiled Jews had a chance to learn about the new age of grace – so more Jews, now committed to Jesus the Messiah, hit the Roman roads and traveled across the globe to tell Jews…and the rest of us… about this new Messiah King.  We are still on that project today!

  In the middle of what seemed like defeat, the writer of Isaiah 61 understood that there was a needed reorientation of his faith to understand God’s next chapter.

  —— ///

  Could you do the same? Is your faith strong enough in God’s promises that even a disaster would not shake them?  Would you fight to get things back to the way they were, or would you reinterpret what God’s promises really meant in light of the latest circumstance?

  If this prophet had demanded a hard line drawn between the remnant who returned home and those who remained abroad, we may not have had the infrastructure of prayer homes and synagogues ready for a the Gospel message to be shared across the Roman Empire.

  Keep your thoughts on the promises of God, not on “the glory days” which are always slipping away.  You’ll find his promises stick.

  
   

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  Mark 8:27 am on January 13, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  God in the Dark 

  I have a favorite memory of heading out to the south Texas badlands – near Big Bend National Park for a little bit of camping.  This place is like a moonscape – it is desolate and dry.  Scrags and shrubbery are all that can survive out there…well, if you don’t count the wildlife.

  After an amazing day in our new ecosystem, we watched the sun set on the Texas horizon, then lit a little campfire and watched the long shadows dance along the ground.  The ground was dry and flat where we were stationed, so we decided to ditch the tents and sleep under the stars.

  …Ahhh… I stretch out and lay on top of my sleeping bag.  Totally exposed to the elements – and I won’t say it didn’t bother me that we had to take out a few scorpions before settling in for the night.

  What we didn’t count on was all the animal sounds we’d hear throughout the night.  Even before the fire had gone out, we began to hear twigs breaking, rustling near the trees to the south of us, howls in the distance.

  Maybe you’ve had the experience.  All of a sudden you sense your campfire has become like a billboard for a butcher shop, “Fresh meat!”  It also traps you – your eyes are not adjusted and able to see out into the darkness – but oh, the darkness can see you just fine.

  There are two ways to walk through life:

  1. Walk in the dark, but trusting and relying on God who will save you.
  2. Light your own fires, seeking out whatever you can on your own.

  God’s eyes are adjusted to the dark.  He can see things we’ll have no chance at seeing, and has a strength we’ll never have to keep us safe from harm.  But many of us want to do it our way; we want the warmth and comfort to come from something of ourselves – we build ourselves a fire.  In our pursuit of light and warmth we announce to the darkness “Fresh meat!” giving away our location.  The pursuit of life, wisdom, or meaning without God leading the way invites Pride, Contempt, and ultimately Destruction.

  I’m asking you to learn as much as you can in this life, but do it while knowing the first and most basic thing of life – that you are created, you are loved, you are built for something important.  Starting from any other place is like setting off fireworks in guerrilla warfare.

  10 Who among you fears the Lord

  and obeys his servant?

  If you are walking in darkness,

  without a ray of light,

  trust in the Lord

  and rely on your God.

  11 But watch out, you who live in your own light

  and warm yourselves by your own fires.

  This is the reward you will receive from me:

  You will soon fall down in great torment.

  
   
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  Mark 3:06 pm on January 12, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  As Easy as the Arrow’s Job in Archery 

  In the work that really matters, in the work of restoring people to wholeness, in developing communities of reconciliation, in pointing people back to their Creator, the work can get pretty dismal.  It can seem as if your life is useless – that nothing meaningful is happening.  I can resonate with such a life – somewhere deep down you know that all this running about is worth something, but you have no idea how much of it is worth a pile of hay, and how much of it is gold.

  This doubt is common to the workers of God in the world.  There is a deep resonance that something you’re doing matters, but in the moment as a servant of God, you can feel pretty useless.

  Isaiah is again writing under the pseudonym of the nation of Israel.  While Isaiah hopes we will see into the heart of a listless, disillusioned nation in exile; take a moment and consider Isaiah’s lot in life – as a forgotten, dismissed prophet of the LORD…and then consider you own life as a worker in God’s mission:

  1 Listen to me, all you in distant lands!

  Pay attention, you who are far away!

  The Lord called me before my birth;

  from within the womb he called me by name.

  The speaker (the Servant of God) knows that he has been called.  He’s not on this mission alone, he has been sent – and he wants the world to know about it.  When he is at his lowest moment, when his heart has been captured by the Enemy and taken off into exile, he is still confident that he has been called to be a servant of God, and a light to all nations.  This is a call that happened even before his birth – so this is not a call he himself has earned with good behavior, and its something that can never be taken away from him because of external circumstances.  The LORD himself has pre-ordained the servant’s mission – and it will be carried out!

  2 He made my words of judgment as sharp as a sword.

  He has hidden me in the shadow of his hand.

  I am like a sharp arrow in his quiver.

  3 He said to me, “You are my servant, Israel,

  and you will bring me glory.”

  These images are so powerful and convicting to me! My words often feel so blunt and fall on deaf ears; and I can only imagine Isaiah’s prophetic muteness must have driven him to despair.  But Isaiah, speaking through his character, “the servant,” reassures himself, and the rest of us, that our words are sharp – because God is the one who made them that way.  We are hidden in the hollow of God’s hand.  Where could we be more safe that in the very palm of God?

  And while we are safe in his hand, we are also nearby when God needs to put us to use – we are like an arrow waiting patiently in the hands of God.  Ahh, to be an arrow – to know exactly what you are for, and to simply wait for the appropriate time, and then – “fffflot!” – you are sprung to life, in a flash of light, your archer pulls you out of his quiver and delicately places you in his bow – and fires you off on a mission.  You simply let yourself be used by God – and he does the rest.

  We will bring him glory.  Amazing.

  And yet, it often doesn’t feel like we’re flying through the air – on a mission with God.  It feels as if we’ve somehow fallen out of the quiver and we’re just laying limp on the ground:

  4 I replied, “But my work seems so useless!

  I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose.

  Yet I leave it all in the Lord’s hand;

  I will trust God for my reward.”

  Yet, if this is God’s war – if he is waging it against the forces of Evil and darkness, then maybe he knows what he’s doing.  Maybe there will be a time when I can look back and see the purpose behind my work.  If I can leave it all in God’s hand, and trust God for my reward/satisfaction… then maybe I won’t go running around quite as much looking for approval for others, or significant mission on my own.  I’ll be content to be the arrow of God – sent soaring through the air, chasing after my cause- my reason for living.

  God had given a purpose to Isaiah, just as he gave one to me, and to you.  Isaiah got to see a part of why God made him the way he did, but we today, 2700 years later, can see Isaiah from another perspective – and wow, how God used that man!  If only you could see why God made you the way he did.  You would find trusting him for your rewards in life to be as easy and effortless as an arrow flying through the air.