Godgrown

Updates from January, 2011 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

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  Mark 5:18 pm on January 19, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Paying for Empty Calories 

  The food Katrina makes is so delicious, she should start a food blog, complete with photos and recipes. (Katrina, consider this your official public request! ) Last night during our house church’s gathering we gathered around the table and shared in a meal together.  Katrina made a lentil soup for the potluck, along with homemade bread straight from our oven.  Check it OUT!

  

  Wow.

  Now that’s WONDER bread.

  Bread that tasty reminds me of Isaiah 55.

  55:2 Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength?

  Why pay for food that does you no good?

  Listen to me, and you will eat what is good.

  You will enjoy the finest food.

  Putting your energy in anything other than listening to God brings you nothing but empty calories.

  

  Katrina is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Katrina 12:56 am on January 20, 2011 Permalink

    Thanks for the compliment, Mark

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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.

  
   
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  Mark 12:09 pm on January 11, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Truly Hearing God is Doing Something About It 

  Just because God speaks doesn’t mean you’ll be able to hear him.

  In reading over Isaiah 48, I was reminded that in Hebrew, there is no distinction between listening and obeying.  There is no way to simply listen to something without responding.  If you listened to someone, and didn’t do anything about what you heard, you didn’t actually hear anything.  You were deaf.  You could either obey or disagree, but you couldn’t simply brush it off without a response.

  18 Oh, that you had listened to my commands!

  Then you would have had peace flowing like a gentle river

  and righteousness rolling over you like waves in the sea.

  This echoes true in the Jews’ response to the words of God – God was speaking, but they didn’t “hear” him, meaning they didn’t do anything in response to God’s voice.

  This also rings true in the way Jesus spoke of his disciples’ relationship with Father God.  ”My disciples are those who hear my words and put them into practice…”

  This is a noticeably missing piece to the prayer of Christians in the West.  Few Christians pray…or at least, no more prayer than the occasional “Help me get through this, God, and I promise, I’ll call more often!”  And even fewer Christians listen for God’s voice in prayer – something I’m becoming more and more convinced is essential in a healthy relationships with God, and the starting point to any significant mission on earth.

  But even if you do pray, and you do listen for God’s voice, how often do you actually put what you hear into practice?  Might God’s silence in your prayers this morning be because you did not listen to what he had to say yesterday? Think about the last thing you DID hear him say, and go out and be obedient to that.  It may just get the two of you talking again…

  Hearing and doing…for the Hebrew-speaking Jews, these two ideas were inseparable.  If only we could recapture a fraction of this conviction again today…