Whirlwind of Trust

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind,
     "Gird up your loins like a man..."—Job 40.6-7a

Nearly two and one-half years have passed since my whirlwind.  A relationship that I thought had a future ran off without any explanation; understanding wouldn't come for another year or so.  Immediately after that, I found out that I had failed a final exam, which failed me in that class, which failed me right out of college.

Yeah, I had hit one hell of a whirlwind.

The rest of that story takes a while to tell, and maybe I will later.  It actually runs right up to the beginning of this blog.  For now, know that for a little over a month (could it have been 40 days?) I was listless, without a clue what future lay before me.  I felt like reading Job would help; I'm not sure why.

But I did read it, and, when I did, that line quoted at the top (also from Job 38.1) hooked me.  I couldn't get away from it.  "Whirlwind... That sounds exactly like what I've fallen into.  And God answered Job from it."

God often is depicted as something powerful, out of (human) control, or all-consuming whenever God shows up in the world (called "theophany").  Like in Jeremiah 23.19, or when God tells Moses that he cannot look on God's face without it destroying him, or the pillar of fire that led Israel from Egypt; Hebrews even chimes in with, "It is a fearful, terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

And so, God is in this whirlwind.  But, Job isn't destroyed.  God in fact replies to Job; God is moved to respond to his human servant's cry.  Granted, neither of God's replies (1 in 38-39, 2 in 40-41) seem to answer Job's questions or accusations.  I claim, however, that they give Job an encouragement to trust in God.

If you read Job's speeches throughout the book, you will see an interesting movement.  At first he responds to his suffering with "But the LORD gives and the LORD takes away; blessed be the LORD."  But then we get to 27.5: "Til I die I will not put away my integrity from me!" And then 31.6: "Let me be weighed in a just balance, and let God know my integrity!"... As if Job knows himself to be righteous, and God can't figure it out.

Job continually spirals around the drain of his own self-absorption, even to the point of annihilation when he curses the very day he was born (3.1).

Here's an interesting question:  Did Job—does anybody—even have the ability to get out of that spiral once such great grief has grasped us?

The cultures surrounding Israel in the Ancient Near East wrote stories about a suffering man being met by his god as well, so what light can they shed on the context of the biblical Job?  Kirta from Ugarit is one, and A Dialogue Between a Man and his God from Babylon is another.  Interestingly, in both of these, when the god arrives his first action is to meet the needs of the suffering one:  The god in the Babylonian story brings the Man food and clothes and healing ointment, and the Ugaritic god El offers Kirta power or wealth (although Kirta really wants a family; this makes it seem like the god El is clueless about what's going on).  The 2nd story made me think of Ron Burgandy in Anchorman saying, "If I were to give you money out of my wallet, would that help ease the pain?"

It's funny, then, for us Christians to look at our God and say, "He is so much more merciful and loving than these other gods" when God doesn't give Job anything when he arrives.  He in effect tells Job, "Put your big boy pants on."

However, I argue that this was a much more beautiful solution than either of the aforementioned parallels could comprehend.  In God's responses, we see God take very seriously Job's accusations.  God doesn't directly answer Job's questions, but God DOES use much of the language Job himself uses throughout in a direct response to the movement of Job's heart and mind.

As I said earlier, Job moves ever inward into himself and his grief.  God reverses that movement by responding to Job with the panorama of Creation:  The images of God stretching out the heavens, holding back the waters, creating pair after pair of animals all parade before Job.  .  God's response was meant to first re-orient Job's very faith in God, in God's providence, in God's power, to let God back into the central place of Job's worldview... not to scare Job speechless as it so often is claimed.

Now look at God's second response to Job—40.15: "Look at Behemoth, which I made just as I made you."  God is pointing to an animal and telling Job that God made it just as He made Job—this creature is going to be an example of how Job can relate to God.

Behemoth is powerful:  Interesting that its power is derived from its loins (v.16), the same loins God told Job to "gird up" (v.7).  Behemoth is peaceful, an herbivore.  Behemoth is provided food by the mountain, and given shade by the marsh.

And, "even if the river is turbulent, it is not frightened; it is confident though Jordan rushes against its mouth." (Job 40.23)

God exemplifies this creature, a creature just as Job is a creature, as one who is given what it needs and that responds with confidence and not fear even when the River, the Chaos (because waters and rivers commonly referred to the Chaos which God ordered at Creation—look for the word "waters" in Genesis 1.2), rushes against it.

The Babylonian A Dialogue Between a Man and his God supports this, too, curiously enough.  It also uses that ever-so-interesting-yet-confounding phrase, "Gird up your loins."  In line 48 of that poem, it says, "Gird you loins, do not be dispirited."  It's not a phrase of calling one out—it's a phrase meant to encourage.  It's God grabbing Job by the shoulders, shaking him, and telling him to snap out of his self-absorption because that only leads to nothingness.  God wants to replace that nothingness with God-centered, Other-centered, Creation-centered life, and Job can trust in God's power to sustain that life.

And that, my friends, is exactly the place in which I landed when hit with my whirlwind.  It was the strangest thing, but I never panicked after the first couple of days.  I just knew I'd keep walking, I'd keep breathing, and that God would sustain me as long as I did.

And although I healed, I did so with scars.  And I still deal with relationship issues.  But I did get to finish my degree, and now I'm in grad school.  I have been given a story to tell, as Job continues to tell his.  Not to say mine is anything on par with his, but it is my story, and God is still running the show.

So I'll leave you with one biblical parallel, one that many know but did not know that it related to Job in the least.  I'll let you work out some connections, and I hope they encourage you as they have me.

May we be strong enough to trust God in the midst of Chaos, even strong enough to call God out, in whatever way need be, so that God might respond to us and pull us out of the ever-pulling vortex of our own self-absorption.  May we, when faced with tempests that seem like they'll consume us, look for the word God has for us within it.  Grace & Peace.

Isaiah 40.24-31

²⁴“Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

                  ²⁵To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One.

²⁶Lift up your eyes on high and see:  Who created these?  He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing.

                  ²⁷Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God”?

²⁸Have you not known?  Have you not heard?  The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

                  ²⁹He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.

³⁰Even youth will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;

                  ³¹but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Streams of Water

"Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel, and are in no way intimidated by your opponents." - Phil. 1.27-28

"And now Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus." - Acts 4.29-30


Shoutout to Brian Ng for throwing these my way today as encouragement.  I've needed it, as this year of study in seminary has been entirely draining, emptying my well of words and marked by the vertigo that comes with re-orienting my beliefs and assumptions and desires.

Yesterday I listened to a presentation by a prospective new faculty member in my grad school, ACU's Graduate School of Theology.  He spoke about the image of a tree depicting the disciplines of theological education (specifically, Schleiermacher's Tree).  He affirmed the wisdom of the idea that all areas of study—history, tradition, scripture, missions, etc—are organically connected and feed into each other.  But he added another element:  that tree must be planted by a stream of water if it is to survive.

"They are like trees
     planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in season,
     and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper."  -  Psalm 1.3

From this minister's point of view, the tree of theological education will dry out if it isn't planted in the Stream itself:  Ministers in training need to be planted, without fail, in the dirt and soil of the lives of the Christian community of faith and of those for whom Jesus specifically came to save (or, preserve or deliver), because that's where the Stream & Spring of Life is going to be flowing.

This fits especially with the verb in Philippians 1.27 that the NRSV translates "live your live": the root verb πολιτεύω implies living your life as a citizen of the city, partaking in politics, economics, etc.  To live in a manner worthy of the gospel, the gospel & gospel-bearers are expected to be acting out the gospel "in one spirit" in everyday dirt.

If we do that, "striving side by side" with those next to us in that dirt, we'll find that "waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water..." (Isaiah 35.6b-7a).

That's what I've found in my church Freedom Fellowship.  It is a place in which people from the mayor of the city on down to homeless men struggling to find work can come together for a meal & to sing to their God side by side.  All of this new knowledge I gain is thrown into the simple, the everyday, and often the painful at Freedom.  It has brought vitality to my old, dry bones, without doubt—but it's also brought a lot of questions and tension.  Hate of the ills that bring pain to my brothers and sisters there.

What I hope for is that our boldness in standing firm together will be met by a God who'll stretch out a hand of healing.  More on that later.

Message in a Labyrinth

"A long season of Surrender to beat Temptation; walking the Path in the Climate that is given."


The cryptic message came to me while walking the Labyrinth on ACU's campus on the morning of my first day of seminary.


A labyrinth is not a maze; you do not have to figure a way out, and you cannot get lost.  There is only one path to follow, for as long as you are willing, with one end in mind.  But you never know where you will turn.  You cannot look too far ahead without losing your place in that moment.


ACU's Labyrinth has a winding path with words like "Faith," "Light," "Sin," etc, around it.  You walk through it, stopping at any point for however long you need to do so.


I stopped at "Temptation" first.  One of my greatest temptations has been isolation, enjoying the lack of responsibility and drain of energy that comes from living on my own.  And that's exactly how much of this first semester of seminary has gone—spending hours on my own in my apartment, in the library, eating on my own.  And isolation is exactly where the Accuser brings us to draw out our greater sins.


The very next word I came to was "Surrender," and that cryptic message crystallized: "a long period of Surrender to beat Temptation."


"Surrender to what?" I ask.


I found my answer in After You Believe by N. T. Wright.


See, Surrender entails Obedience, particularly to a new Authority.  Obedience is not a one-time decision—it entails thousands of little actions over time, being formed into a new person by the Master.  Spontaneity can't do this, but Authenticity can.


What N. T. Wright calls "Eschatalogical Authenticity:" actions which become genuine through practice, and are informed and molded by one's beliefs of what is to come.  Specifically for Christians, this means actions taken in light of living within the promise that all of this world will be redeemed, resurrected, restored to God.


"I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ." - Philippians 1.6


It's been extremely difficult to do that this semester, partly because of my isolation.  Still I have no church to call home, but I feel like that is changing.  I have not had the habits of body that I need to be healthier; I have not had the habits of heart to really be sensitive to people around me; and I have not had the habits of soul to become closer to God every day.  Only some days.  And I seem to have only had strong habits of mind to learn more about the nature of my God, which I guess is to be expected in seminary.  The problem is, if I'm not really doing the healthy habits, it probably means I'm walking in unhealthy ones.


‎"Part of the problem about authenticity is that virtues aren't the only things that are habit-forming," N. T. Wright warns me.  "The more someone behaves in a way that is damaging to self or to others, the more 'natural' it will both seem and actually be."


I need to remember here I'm going, because it will tell me how to act now.  I going to a life in Christ.  And so, I look to Hamlet and The Lord of the Rings to remind me that obedience, not spontaneous action, creates the habits of Christ in me, and that if I lack one then I should act like I have it anyhow—how else can it become genuine habit?


"assume a virtue, if you have it not...
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery
That aptly is put on.
Refrain tonight;
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence; the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either curb the devil, or throw him out,
With wondrous potency." - Hamlet


"The westward road seems easiest.  Therefore it must be shunned... Now at this last we must take a hard road, a road unforeseen.  There lies our hope, if hope it be.  To walk into peril." - Elrond


"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost." - Gandalf


As we enter the winter,
Dig your roots deep in the Spring.
By strenuous road he'll make
Heart, Mind, Soul be genuine.


Grace & Peace

A Crazy Random Happenstance

Friday I drove to Dallas for my last nose check-up, then went straight to Abilene to look at some of my books for seminary.   If you ever see a Greek-English Lexicon, you'll probably never want to go to seminary.  I didn't have that feeling, though.

Sitting at Monk's Coffee Shop in Abilene as Rosten Callarman serenades me acoustically, I am met with a Crazy Random Happenstance.

First, some awesome quotes, because I'm a quote junkie.

"for, after all, any man's actions correspond to the habit of perfection attained by him."—John of the Cross

"Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation."—Oswald Chambers

And, from Scripture:  1 Timothy 1:5b-6

"You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.  And you became imitators of us and of the LORD, for you received the Word in much affliction, with the Joy of the Holy Spirit."

Wait... did the Bible just say we should be imitators, when Oswald Chambers said that imitators aren't truly sanctified, that they only "imitate" and are not genuine in their sanctification?

And does being an "imitator of the LORD" mean it's all up to us to be sanctified?  Is sanctification or perfection "attained" by us alone, or is it an "impartation"—a gift—of the Spirit?

I read all of these these when I opened the first book I got for seminary (I'm reading early, figured I might finally be a good student since I'm in grad school) called "After You Believe" by N. T. Wright.

I am only in the introduction for now, but N. T. Wright explains my questions by looking at the rich young ruler and Jesus (Matthew 19:19-30; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 18:18-30).

Here, the rich man asks Jesus what he must DO to gain eternal life (which has a very different meaning to a Jew as it does to a modern Western Christian, but I won't go into that here), and Jesus in the end doesn't give him a set of rules but gets to the man's heart.  He knew the rich man was greedy, so he told the rich man to sell all his possessions, give them to the poor, and follow Jesus.

Jesus told the man he needed new character.

Not "Rules" with a capital-R.  Not a morally relative statement of "be true to yourself."

Jesus cuts to the heart of why we are here to begin with, which Wright explains can be found in gaining character by way of virtue.  

As I go on in Wright's book, and in my Graduate School of Theology work, I'll post more about this because it seems to be extremely relevant to the whole theme and reason I started this blog—to explain my Passion for Christ and His people as I work it out in a Practical manner.

Until then, I'll leave you with another quote I've learned to love recently:

"It is the man who is the missionary, it is not his words.  His character is his message."—Henry Drummond

Grace & Peace, ya'll

Kingdom of Children

"And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."
—Philippians 1:6


It's an odd thing, coincidence.  Particularly because I don't believe in it.


In reading last week, I ran across the afore-quoted verse and wrote it down, for no spectacular reason.  Days later, I get a card in the mail from Peggy Richardson, a letter of encouragement from a new friend. Phil. 1:6 is the precise verse that she gave and spoke about as an encouragement for me.


She was talking about God's work and will for me as I go to ACU for a Master of Divinity.  She's the great-aunt of my best friend, and we met somewhat randomly at dinner after one of his basketball games over spring break.  We both got placed at one end of the table, and what I feared might be an awkward dinner turned into one of the more fulfilling conversations of my life.


God surprises us like that, sometimes.  Wouldn't you agree?


From Texas, Peggy's also lived 40 years in New York (professing to be a pizza connoisseur) and loves to travel.  She is a three-time cancer survivor.  Her husband died a few years ago, and she is mere weeks removed from having a pacemaker put into her heart.

Peggy is thankful for all the good that's been given to her, and she regrets none of the pain.  She is ecstatic in the Joy that her pain brings (really, that God brings using pain as the vessel) because she knows it was all a part of God breaking her of her stubbornness, softening her heart, and bringing her to depend upon Him and not herself or something else broken.

So she reminds me: even if God has to wreck me, He will complete the work of bringing me to Him, of reconciling me.

"Come, let us return to the Lord;
For he has torn us, that He may heal us;
He has struck us, and He will bind us up...
Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
His going out is sure as the dawn;
He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth."
—Hosea 6:1 & 3


Presently, that work is humility.  I seek knowledge.  I seek truth.  I seek to be higher and deeper into Him.  And through all my seeking, I am walking along a cliff that drops off into conceit.


Even in my continual study of prayer, to know more about the act and the relationship and what it means and what it looks like, I can over-analyze and over-spiritualize every single thing about it and become inordinately focused—a truth my younger sister knows all too well.


So what does God give me, as encouragement?


Mark Driscoll, talking about the first word of the Lord's Prayer in Luke ("Father"): 
"Some of you struggle in prayer because you're too focused on prayer.  If you want to grow in prayer, don't focus on prayer—get to know the Father...  If you want to learn how to pray, don't look to religious people...   Look at children with a father who adores them."


And Jesus Christ of Nazareth:
"Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven."

Children terrify me.  I think it's because I was always the awkward, outsider nerd as a child.  Or felt that way, at least.  I feel like I don't know how to connect with them.


On the flip side, I feel like I may not know how to be a child anymore.  So then how can I really pray?


Thinking about Peggy, about her life and the journey it has been, I've been wondering much about my future.  And I came to an intriguing question.


What if, as my body gets older and older and closer to death, the goal of God's "ministry of reconciliation" in me is to make my spirit younger and younger, more like a child's that is full of life?


"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."—2 Corinthians 5:17


Because if He is to become more and more my Father, then I have to become more and more a child, His child.


And how can I be conceited about anything then, knowing my weakness and helplessness and vulnerability next to His Love and Will and Power?


I think I can become more of a child by being around children.
I think I can become more of a child by living holy, as God is holy.
I think I can become more of a child by inviting God to BE Father, then see what He does.

2 Cor. 6:16-18
as God said, "I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty."

The Painful Smile of Joy

"And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."--John 8:32

How often do you feel trapped and burdened by a lie?  Doesn't even need to be a blatant lie, just a lie of omission where you can't bear to be totally honest with someone.  I know that I always feel an oppressive weight on my shoulders every time I can't bring myself to be completely honest.

Jesus' words in context from John 8 most certainly meant primarily that Jesus, the Truth, was here to set all men free of sin.  Yet I think it is a fact of all truths—they all can be a release of a burden weighing you down.

Even lies that we have believed about ourselves, once we know them to be lies, show a truth about us that allows us to grow in God's wisdom.  For instance, I have always been arrogant, but because of constant depression and the lies it told me, I never saw the pride in my heart.  But once I saw the depression, it became a truth--the truth that depression is a struggle for me--that set me free from it. Now I can fight it.  Because how can I fight what I don't see?  Then later I could see the arrogance in my core, and battle that as well.

That's why the first step to recovery is to admit; and to admit something, we have to see it.  The truth of the recognition sets us free from the burden and bonds, and God can take control of that part of us—when we give it to Him.

I should caution: honesty is the best way, but context matters here.  Without a relationship with someone, or without maturity on their side, and they probably can't take even well-meaning and caring honesty.  Let's be honest: we live in a world still permeated by fear and distrust.  But as we live together, work together, fellowship together, we create a trust that allows such honesty with grace that it truly frees us.

Yet that freedom does not mean that there is no longer a struggle.  Every wound that heals leaves a scar, whether on the body or mind or heart or soul.

Because we are still sinners.  We, even in good intention, continue to misunderstand each other.  We continue to be held by fear of what we do not know.

We continue to hold our hand on our wounds instead of uncovering it to Christ, or to each other (James 5:16), so that the Great Physician can heal it.

Lord God, Great Savior, break down the walls of our shame.
Shatter the bars of our fear.
Let us run free.
To You, Lord.
Let us smile again.

Part of that freedom comes through forgiveness: 1) by God forgiving us; 2) by us forgiving others; and 3) by realizing that, as we forgive others, we free ourselves from the bitterness and guilt of holding onto whatever pain they caused.  Maybe I'll break that down another day; for now, just know that I get those distinctions from the Paternoster ("Our Father" Matt. 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4) when Jesus says, "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."  It's a command, and a requirement for our forgiveness, leading to deliverance from evil.

There is deliverance in honesty, too.

"Whoever gives an honest answer kisses the lips."--Proverbs 24:26

Honesty implies that we give up the fear of rejection or hurt or the unknown, and we jump out of the boat like Peter did (see Matthew 14:28:29 & John 21:7) because we trust Jesus Christ, the Great Redeemer, to make whole whatever broken attempts I make to serve another.

I see honesty like that in Charles and Glenda Tipps, from my church.  Everytime I ask Charles how he is doing, he tells me that he is in pain, and that God takes care of him.  Yet he smiles, and you can see both the pain and his joy in his eyes.  When I ask them what I can pray for, they say, "Strength;" they are 85 and 84 years old.

The painful truth, spoken through a joyful smile, presents a paradox in which I can only assume divine strength makes it possible.

When I tell them it warms my heart to see them still holding hands out to their car after church, Glenda honestly replies, "Well after 62 years, we have to help each other stand up!"

And I'm sure they do; on the outside they look frail.  But anyone with eyes can see that helping each other stand physically is only a by-product of the fact that these two souls continue to find Joy in the freedom that comes from leaning into each other more and more as they both run to God at life's finish line.

And that is our Joy: to run until we get to Him in all of His Glory.  To C. S. Lewis, Joy manifests itself to us the way sunlight breaks through clouds.  We can't take the full force of God's glory now, but His rays penetrate our lives and cause us to follow the Son-beam back to the Son in adoration.  And it makes us thirsty for more of Him.

"It is that unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction," says Lewis.  "Anyone who has experienced it will want it again.  Apart from that, and considered only in its quality, it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief."

"But then it is the kind we want."

Meaning, that Joy of encountering God's glory is itself a desire that cannot be satisfied until we are with Him until eternity.  So sometimes, if not most times, being in the presence of God can bring pain.

Remember Isaiah 6, when the angel touched his lips with a burning coal?  Yeah, doesn't sound enjoyable.  But it did set him free from his "unclean lips" that lied and slandered and gossiped.

And, for now, those islands of Joy that God provides in the stormy seas of our lives must direct us to Him as we hope in His glory.  That knowledge must be the fuel of our faith, because His glory means our salvation.

"It (faith) will be counted to us (as righteousness) who believe in Him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.  Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
--Romans 4:24b-5:5

Because of the freedom found in the "knowing"--the truth--that Jesus brings us, "we rejoice in our sufferings."

As for me I subscribe to the teachings of Luther and Kierkegaard.  As for Kierkegaard, he believes that God, who creates everything out of nothing, must first reduce us to nothing if He is to use us.
"God cannot use a man until He hurts him deeply."--Martin Luther

I don't mind what pain comes my way.  I know talking about it makes people feel irksome; "What is he, emo?  Talking about feelings like that?"

But I am free to talk about my pains, as Charles Tipps is, because I have already given it to Christ.  He heals it and brings it back to me as wisdom and faith and Joy, because He has already borne it all Himself.

"Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
He has put him to grief...
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied."
—Isaiah 53: 10, 11

And so, we in Christ can unashamedly bear the painful smile of Joy.

More Than Watchmen...

Isaiah 62:6-7a
"On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give Him no rest until He establishes Jerusalem..."
Micah 7:4b-7
"The day of your watchmen, of your punishment, has come; now their confusion is at hand. Put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a mans enemies are the men of his own house. But as for me, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me..."
Psalm 130:5-6
"I will wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His Word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning."

I think my fingers are gaining a permanent layer of sticky.  The last couple of weeks at Hope Pregnancy I have seen no guy partners, so I and the other volunteers stuffed and stuck addresses on hundreds of envelopes.  Busy time for the center, just not for me.  Which isn't all bad.

One of the other volunteers said that sometimes we just need a break from the heavy work we do at Hope, and these mindless days are a way to keep us from feeling weighed down by the wonderfully challenging counsels we give.  And I can always enjoy a day of the simple.

More than that, on these days it feels that I am able only to pray for clients.  Instead of serving them by listening, telling the Good News, and offering information and services for them, I just pray--and I love it.  How?

Because I know that I am a watchman, like those in the verses above.  Because I love the power I find in prayer.

Don't believe in the "power of prayer"?  Well I can't say that belief is easy on this topic, not at all.  Which I think makes it worth the struggle.  Part of prayer is for us individually, to look to God in good and bad and strength and failure and hardship, then to see our own limitations; He doesn't want to humiliate, He just wants us to see the truth that we must depend on Him.  In truth, if we believe the Scriptures then we know that "faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ"--as a gift, so no one can boast (Romans 10:17).

Even if we have received this gift, it is like all other gifts from God in that it must grow if you want to see God's power in it.  You have to exercise it, or it will atrophy; you have to eat the food that will sustain it's growth, the Word of God, or it will starve to death.

So we start simple and small with what we can lift for now, then we keep asking God for more faith because we will not be complete until the New Heaven and New Earth.  We will always need more.  I know, some of us are too proud to ask for these things, especially if we feel like we've already received much from someone.  "I've gotten so much more than this person, I'll be fine on my own.  I can use what I have to fix my own problems."

Sorry, but even the Greeks knew that man only fixed a problem by creating a bigger one.  Why do you think there hasn't yet been a master political plan to fix everything that all people love?  Why do you think, with all of the good that even one person can do like Greg Mortenson in the book Three Cups of Tea, do we still have millions of people still enslaved (there are more now than ever before, I believe) and entire governments willing to slaughter their people to stay in power?

Can't fix it ourselves, guys, so God gives us prayer as a way to take part essentially in His Creation.  Think about it--if God is outside of time, then He heard and answered our prayers at the same moment that He created everything.  Sometimes it seems He maneuvers world events to answers those prayers, and sometimes it's Him actively intervening in our time.  He does answer prayers, even through scientific breakthroughs that some use to debunk the idea of God, and those answered prayers change the world.

And if we're weak prayers, know this: God has placed watchmen in the walls, in positions to defend people and be open to outsiders and see what comes from the horizon, to pray night and day for us.  More than that, He sends us His Spirit to cry out to Him for us! God is praying for us to God!

And I feel called by that Spirit within me to be like a watchman.  My Myers-Briggs Personality Type is the Counselor (INFJ), which is described as one who engages people deeply to share their burdens and help them grow.  God tells watchmen to basically pester Himself with prayers for His children.  So I pray night and day, waiting with absolute assurance of God who will shine through brighter than any morning sun cutting through the clouds and reflecting off snow-covered mountains.  And I couldn't love it more.

**by the way, read that book Three Cups of Tea. It will challenge your perspective on global politics, on Pakistan & Afghanistan, and on the influence that even one person without any seeming resources can "randomly" have on thousands of lives.