Clarity in the Fog and Darkness

Some celebrity said or tweeted an attack on Christians and their prayers yesterday as the bodies of the church shooting victims were barely cold. I would like to point out, beyond the non-surprising, obvious bigotry on the “star’s” part, that looking at the flaming open sewer that is Hollywood, I wonder where he is getting his credibility.

You can’t beat something with nothing. Hollywood has nothing to speak into the growing darkness in America. They ARE the darkness and confusion – the merchants of it to every home that will let them in. The ever-new, laser clarity of Psalm 1 says all that is needed, as we see moral anarchy worsening almost weekly. However discouraged we become, this is eternal light and truth for our path, for the few who want it:

Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.
The ungodly are not so,
But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.
Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the ungodly shall perish.

Psalm 1

Counterfeits are everywhere, and the danger is especially acute in Christianity. But we know this – the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly will perish. This passage from Malachi is so beautiful:

“Then those who feared the LORD talked with each other, and the LORD listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the LORD and honored his name.

“On the day when I act,” says the LORD Almighty, “they will be my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him.

“And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.

“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the LORD Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them.

But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays…”

~ verses from Malachi 3-4

The Greatest Fear

“The greatest fear in the world is the opinion of others, and the moment you are unafraid of the crowd, you are no longer a sheep. You become a lion. A great roar arises in your heart. The roar of freedom.”

A friend who is older than I am told me a few months ago that one of the advantages of growing older as a woman was a loss of the crippling fear of the opinion of others. “I don’t know exactly why it is,” she said, “But I used to walk into a room of people and worry about whether they liked me. Now, I ask myself if I like them, and why I am in the room in the first place!”

It’s true. Fundamentalist Christian culture, in a very special way, is infected with the disease of image consciousness. There is no gossip heaven like the “born-agains” (mocking the frauds here, not the real deal.)  A few hairs out of place, baby, and you’ve just earned a place on a black list somewhere! Some even read this blog out of some ungodly need to stalk me and find something that can be used as dirt. I am laughing as I type. (Onward, Christian soldiers, Marching as to war. With our latest targets, bleeding on the floor!)

I saw this meme today, and it nails the problem down.

Those who form negative opinions about our lives, lives that don’t have anything to do with theirs in any way whatsoever, are sad people without adequate productive work to busy themselves. As someone who once was terrorized at the thought of people having false impressions or forming bad opinions of me based on lies, it now has the whiff of comedy about it. Dark comedy, but worthy of a laugh track. Who are these people who have never had the slightest love or concern for me or my family or ever had a personal interaction with us? Who cares what they think?! They are less than nobody to me and my dear loved ones.

What a freeing thing it is when you get out of a closed environment and breathe clean air, and with the clean air, find a surge of strength to speak the truth on your heart. What a freeing thing it is to shut the door on those who taught you how to judge others ruthlessly, to see things with narrow, loveless little eyes. It is true freedom to walk away from those who devalued and discarded you when you were no longer useful to their cause. It is a good thing to see this clearly and understand the cold, hard truth, and then proceed all the wiser.

Some Good News

Everybody has seen the horror on TV of wildfires that clear out entire forests, destroying everything in their path. After the fires are put out, there is a short period of time where all looks wiped out. Completely burned over and dead. But beneath the ruined forest there is life. It takes time, but slowly and surely, nature replaces the dead and the burned over with new life, ironically, fostered in the rich soil created by the fire. This article puts it this way:

But ecologically, fire has its place, and it’s not one of complete destruction. In fact, in ecosystems, fires initiate a process of growth. They destroy and they leave a space, a space that is soon filled with new growth. After the fires, the forest reawakens.

In Colorado Springs, there’s an ecological flip side to the fire. The forests were full of White and Douglas Fir, Ponderosa Pine, and Aspen trees.  This ecology is adapted to the changes that fire brings. It knows what to do.

After a fire, aspen trees grow. Even if the tree itself has been decimated by fire, this fast-growing tree can easily sprout from the roots that have been left behind. The sunny spaces left behind by the fire give life to the new aspen trees. In turn, the trees’ roots hold the soil in place, and their leaves slow down the rainfall, reducing the danger of flash floods.

With the return of the aspen, comes the revival of the slower-growing Ponderosa Pine. This tree loves the sunshine. Its thick bark can protect the tree from small fires, allowing it to thrive in the more open ecology after a fire moves through. If the tree did not survive, new trees will grow in amongst the baby aspens, rebuilding the local ecology from the ground up. (Read more here.)

What is true of forest fires can also be true for people. The consuming fires in our lives seem to destroy everything worthwhile. But God, in his mercy, often allows the fires to remove what needs removing from our lives that something new and healthy can grow. It’s not all destruction. What’s been consumed is what needed consuming. A lot of what we considered good, is sometimes very bad for us, including some people who have harmed us terribly. The beautiful regrowth of things begins, and you realize that much dead wood, much that was unhealthy is now gone. That’s a beautiful thing for those who can see it.

If you’re seeing the flames at the moment, hang on. If you’re patient and don’t give up, God will show you new growth soon, and it will be something new and healthy and vibrant. Don’t give up!

Standing Steadfast and Bringing God Glory

It isn’t what the enemies of Christ out in the secular world are doing that is the biggest part of the discouragement in these times. The greatest disillusionment, the greatest shock and devastation comes with watching those who professed Christ give up, walk away, and then repudiate all they once believed.

Just in a matter of a few weeks’ time, there has been another rash of this among people and ministries we have known. It’s a deeply depressing time.

In Matthew, Chapter 24, Jesus Christ foretold of a time that directly describes the days in which we live. A significant verse is this one, “And because sin will grow worse and worse, the love of many will grow cold.”

In the middle of moral and spiritual anarchy, and I’m talking about the church now, the profaning of holy things, and the rejecting of the eternal verities, it is not difficult to understand why many bewildered Christians are wondering what it is all about. So much senseless, gratuitous ugliness and brokenness among Christians, in spite of so many claims of Christ’s great power. So little power is seen. At least the kind that comes from above. It can be embittering.

I read this quote today from one of my favorite teachers of the last century, T. Austin Sparks. He describes the right response to darkness around us and in our own lives which is sometimes so inexplicable and so difficult to deal with, day after day.

The glory of God is manifested by every victory won, by every standing steadfast, by every refusing to give up; the Name is saved from dishonor, and the Lord Himself, the Christ of God who bears that Name is vindicated before angels and before demons. There are elements of mystery about it, why it should be necessary, but there it is.” T. Austin Sparks, from his sermon, “The House, the Name and the Glory”

Even in these very difficult days, we can continue to bring glory to God by not moving, not giving in to depression and discouragement, and by setting our eyes on the Savior. This life is brief. Eternity is forever. We can bring glory to God here and then rejoice in His presence for all eternity. This is our Christian calling. Each day, we can make the decision to either give in to our discouragement or to stand steadfast and glorify God before other people, before angels and those spirits below. Will we glorify God today with our lives?

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.~ I Corinthians 15:58

Come, All Who Are Thirsty

WATERS OF CONTENTMENT

Isaiah 55*

THE refreshing waters are offered to “everyone” that is thirsty. The evangel is like some clear bugle peal, sounded on some commanding upland, and which is heard alike in palace and cottage, in school and at the mill, by the child of plenty and by the child of want. “Ho, everyone!” The appeal is to the common heart, whether the setting be squalor or splendour, whether the soul faints in the glare of the prosperous noon, or under the chill of the burdensome night. “Ho, everyone that thirsteth!”

And the waters may be ours “without money and without price.” We have not to earn them by the sweat of body, mind, or soul. We have not to make a toilsome pilgrimage, on bleeding feet, to some distant Lourdes, where the sacred healer abides. No, we are asked to pay nothing, and for the simple reason that we “have nothing wherewith to pay.” The reviving grace is given to us “freely,” and all that we have to present is our thirst.

And yet we spend and spend, we labour and labour, but we buy no bread of contentment, and the waters of satisfaction are far away. The satisfying bread cannot be bought; it can only be begged. The water of life cannot be taken from a cistern; it must be drunk at the spring.

J H Jowett

*The devotional had published the wrong reference which is now corrected.