by RobertCummins | Oct 20, 2015 | 42. Gathering
Gathering – Exodus 16
Only two and one half months into the exodus, the approval rating of the new administration was zero …
And the whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
The source of the grumbling, on this occasion, was their hunger. With a common voice they let their leaders know they would prefer slavery with a full stomach to freedom on an empty one.
The greater part of our passage is devoted to the manna God provided for his chosen grumblings. Very specific procedures were given as to how to gather the substance. If they were ignored the manna would become a nasty mess. Wasting manna was a concern to God.
Our passage also addresses another form of waste. This waste took place when the children of Israel blamed their unpleasant circumstances on their leaders. Moses and Aaron picked up on it immediately. They said …
And what are we, that you grumble against us?
Moses attempted to redirect their complaints …
The Lord hears your grumbling which you grumble against Him. And what are we (Aaron and I)? Your grumblings are not against us but against the Lord.
Looking to man for recourse is a huge temptation and a tragic waste. What Moses and Aaron were saying was the same thing the writer of Hebrews said; Don’t direct your complaints (or your praise, for that matter) to men because, ultimately …
It is God with whom you have to do.
In God’s economy, he endeavors to give us abundant life through Jesus – the Manna of Life. This vital nourishment will be wasted if we are not looking to him as the one with whom whom we have to do. A personal relationship with God requires that we process all of our life, through Jesus. Jesus is our life – the only one we have.
It is in our abandonment to this living encounter where we become acquainted with Jesus. Our opportunity is squandered when we blame our unhappiness on people or circumstances. God does not want to see us make a nasty, bitter mess of our lives. Wasting Manna is still a concern to God.
The divine economics of all things working together for good, implies God’s intentions are to use everything, to waste nothing that touches our lives. By continually entrusting ourselves into this divine reality, we come to know him. We come to know what it means to live and move and have our being in him. Here is how God has oriented himself to us …
He has enclosed us behind and before, and laid His hand upon us. Such knowledge is too wonderful for us; it is too high, we cannot attain to it.
How God can make tough circumstances which range in intensity from irritations to nightmares, is beyond our ability to understand. Nevertheless, for those who work through the pain, resist the temptation of bitterness, a deeper, more refined faith awaits, which has great value now and forevermore.
With whom do you have to do? Have you issued your approval ratings against your perceived sources of misery?
Here is a prayer written by Charlie Finck, an author and counselor who combats waste, one heart, one book at a time. His prayer is guaranteed to conserve Manna when it is build into a heart’s landscape …
Lord, I forgive (fill in the appropriate name). I give you permission to take the judgement and bitterness out of my heart. I don’t want this in my life. I surrender it to You and ask You to remove it – to heal me where I have been wounded, to forgive me where I have sinned. I choose not to blame or hold the actions of others against them. I herby surrender my right to be paid back for my loss by the one who has sinned against me, and in so doing, I declare my trust in You alone as my Righteous Judge. Father God, bless them in every way. In Jesus Name. Amen.
Charlie’s counsel and his book, How We Forgive Those – How to Forgive Others, Ourselves and God have set many a prisoner free. I can testify to this. He is a kingdom agent and hero.
In our travels some will come to an intersection, they will look out the window and see a landscape that looks something like this,
… where our neat theological synthesis collapse; where we are experiencing the raw paradoxes and mysteries of our faith – God’s love and wrath, our freedom of will and His sovereignty and the mystery of good and evil. Here we simply stand in awe and silence with no explanations; here we are standing face to face with God. This is not empty dogma but a description of the very core reality, and the only adequate interpretation of our deepest experience. (courtesy, Brad Long)
My point in sharing from Brad Long’s Passage Through The Wilderness is that the wilderness is not an accident, its a set up. If you are at or near this intersection, by all means get this roadmap. If you are panicky, I suggest going straight to Chapter 14: Anger With God. It might save your life and sanity, as I suspect it may have mine.
Father, enlarge our hearts that we may lay hold of the mystery. Help us to not stumble over you. Give us grace to rest when we encounter mystery and paradox. May we learn to honor the economy of your kingdom. May many see, hear and believe. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Oct 19, 2015 | 42. Gathering
Gathering – John 6:1-14
What was Jesus motivation in feeding this multitude who had followed him into the country? What did the multitude want from Jesus?
That’s easy. Isn’t it? Jesus performed this miracle, and all miracles, so the multitudes would believe and their souls would be saved. Right? I wonder. Let’s set pat answer aside and look at Jesus’ audience. Many of these Jews had likely come from Jerusalem where Jesus had just told them they were were incapable of believing because they sought approval from one another. He even told these sons of Abraham they didn’t really believe Moses and they weren’t going believe in him either. Their motive for following Jesus was clearly not because they believed in him as God’s son. Even after the 5 loaves-2 fish miracle, their wildest projection was that Jesus might be Elijah. No, this crowd had gathered to see the show. They came …
because they were seeing the signs he was performing on those who were sick.
Jesus was also a part of their national agenda. The idea circulating among them was to “take him by force, to make him king.” Also, let’s not overlook their appetites. This crowd liked eating for free, preferabley for evermore. Jesus knew their hearts. He knew this extraordinary miracle was not going to convert them. What was Jesus hoping to achieve? We find our answer in realizing Jesus’ primary audience was a smaller group of people – his disciples.
Jesus was testing them. He asked them what their ideas were. This is disciple making at its best. After listening, he instructs them to have the crowd sit down. He then takes a meal for 5 and serves 5,000, with an abundance of food leftover. He then instructed his disciples …
Gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be lost.
A rigid gospel soul might accuse Jesus of caring more about saving food than people, “Why didn’t you leverage your miracle and save this multitude?” That is the point isn’t it? Jesus seems indifferent to the flames licking at the feet of these lost souls. Apparently unshaken by this notion, Jesus said …
All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me; and the one who comes to me I will surely not cast out. … No one comes to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day“.
God had come to earth to reestablish communion with his people and sadly, in this sacred moment, all they wanted was a new leader and a free lunch. They didn’t believe in him as God’s Son. Scripture tells us, not even all the disciples truly believed in him …
But there are some of you who do not believe.
Still, Jesus remains unshaken even by unbelief in his inner circle. He explains his peace …
No one can come to Me, unless it has been granted Him by the Father.
Are we looking at election here – the doctrine that says God saves and damns who he pleases?
Here, we find ourselves deep in the middle of a mystery because Peter tells us that God is …
not wishing any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
As scripture poses this apparent contradiction, I try to not sidestep it by choosing an Armenian or a Calvinist position. I simply call it a mystery – something that makes sense in heaven but not on earth. As high as heaven is above the earth and God’s ways are above mine, it seems reasonable to conclude …
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.
There is room for mystery in our beliefs. Being uncertain does not sentence us to spiritual poverty, rather it can position us for abundance. My conclusion, in the middle of mystery is, God has proclaimed great news! He has given us his life in-Christ and invited all men to partake. Those who do, have Jesus’ pledge that he will gather us. And in regard to us, we hear him say …
and nothing will be lost.
At this meal which, natural law tell us should not have been, the miracle includes a surprise – an abundance of leftovers. Jesus is showing us God’s ways, which eclipse our understanding. I predict there will be a surprise on that Last Day as well, when we see what Jesus has gathered up. I believe we will see a surprising abundance of souls he has drawn to himself in his great patience and mercy.
The questions Jesus asks us are the same ones he asked his original disciples …
What do You want?” Why are you following Me?
How do you answer these questions?
Father, thank you that you are always inviting people to yourself. Thank you for being the Bread of heaven who has become our very life. Help us to grasp what it means to have your life in us. Show us how to love those you are drawing to yourself as they cross our paths. To your glory Father – that nothing may be lost. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Oct 19, 2014 | 42. Gathering
Ezekiel 34:11-16
For thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd cares for his herd in the day when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will care for My sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them to their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the streams, and in all the inhabited places of the land. I will feed them in a good pasture, and their grazing ground will be on the mountain heights of Israel. There they will lie down on good grazing ground and feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I will feed My flock and I will lead them to rest,” declares the Lord God. “I will seek the lost, bring back the scattered, bind up the broken and strengthen the sick; but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with judgment.
Our passage is lifted from a chapter whose crosshairs are trained on the shepherds of Israel. These people (who are likely royalty and public officials) will face judgement because they have selfishly consumed resources that should have been shared with the flock at large. I could easily take this in the direction of politics but I am not looking for my salvation from that arena. Instead I will focus on shepherds who have been entrusted with eternal responsibility – the souls of men.
If you have read much in middlewithmystery you know that I have struggled within organized Christianity. My challenge has been to reconcile what I have read in the New Testament and experienced in my walk with Christ, with the practices and outcomes of our current traditions.
As I am pondering how to say what’s on my heart, Jerry Fletcher (played by Mel Gibson) comes to mind. He is the paranoid taxi driver in the movie, Conspiracy Theory who is convinced that everything is manipulated by corrupt and covert government operations. He is crazy but not completely as the plot ultimately reveals. His Conspiracy Theory news letter has 6 prescribers, about the same as middlewithmystery. (Hopefully you can distinguish between paranoia and my use of sarcasm.) Note; I’m not hammering my keypad and grinding my teeth anymore. I’m simply standing in the middle of a great divide within Christianity and trying to relationally hold on to those I love on either side of the chasm.
One of the challenges I have had within the church is pastors. In talking about this group, I risk having the crosshairs moved toward my head. (Did I mention that all the subscribers to the Conspiracy Theory Newsletter had been assassinated?) Pastors wield the bulk of religious authority within Christendom. Where in the Bible did that come from?! In fact the word pastor is not used even one time in the New Testament! The plural form is used just once.
And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ. Ephesians 4:11-12
Yet (with the exception of missionaries) pastors are the undisputed head of all things Christian. These well meaning men and women oversee the construction and maintenance of buildings and the programs that are typically funded by the tithe. Want to know how many times the tithe is mentioned in the New Testament? At most the tithe was mentioned four times. And each of those were a reference to those under the Old Covenant. The NT truth is that the OT Law became obsolete when the priesthood changed from the Levites to Jesus Christ. The package of laws that commanded tithes to be given to the Levites is obsolete.
To think of yourself as an orthodox Christian, it will be much easier for you to simply set the authority and inspiration of the New Testament aside and continue following the unchallenged, hybrid OT/NT theology that is now sacrosanct. This might not be insane if our traditions were producing the same results as were experienced by first century Christians. Whatever they were doing then turned the world upside down within a few hundred years. In light of our results it would make sense to give consideration to what it was they were doing and reforming our practices around what we discover. Currently this would be the equivalent of handing Pastor the tool and asking him to saw off the limb on which he and his staff are perched. This would be a miracle and it is one I pray that I will see.
The truth is I love pastors. They are almost always generous hearted people who have been called to shepherd the souls of God’s lambs. The sad thing is that, as they accept the traditional yoke their institution has prepared for them, they look a lot more like CEO’s than those tasked to care for souls. Many pastors are gifted expositors and regularly speak to their members. This is how they believe they are feeding and caring for their flock. If the bible truths conveyed in these messages could in fact nourish and grow sheep, given the number of sermons preached, there would not be any shortage of laborers for the harvest which we are told is ripe.
Since the early church did not have tithes how could they create a budget? Without a budget how could they finance a building? Without either real estate of money how could they hire a professionally trained clergyman and their staff? How could they oversee programs, choirs and pageants? These questions seem absurd or baffling only if we insist in measuring ourselves by ourselves and our traditions. If we measure ourselves against NT values and practices which yielded such dramatic results two millennium ago perhaps we would start asking the right questions. Then perhaps from the answers we get, we can fashion a new vision of Christianity – a new vision of the kingdom of God. We may grow some big 501(c)(3)’s but until we measure ourselves from a biblical plumb line it is not likely we will ever experience NT, kingdom-quality outcomes. But…let’s not give up, let’s dream together in light of scripture.
As I look at the New Testament Church I see is a highly decentralized organization that looks more like Al Qaida than our traditional models. Listen to one academics understanding of al Qaeda….
The al Qaeda network is adaptive, complex, and resilient. Today, it has a formal organizational structure, with the core group at its head providing overall direction. Informal relationships and human networks create an underlying latticed structure that bridges the formal structure of the network. The decentralization of the al Qaeda network has not made it weaker. On the contrary, affiliate-to-affiliate relationships may have increased the overall network’s resiliency. These relationships may also ensure al Qaeda’s survival even if the core group is defeated completely.
Someone is no doubt thinking (….perhaps I am a little paranoid), “How dare you even remotely try and compare the Church of Jesus Christ to al Quada!!” Bear with me please. As the al Queda cells independently wage a hate-driven jihad against non-believers, just imagine communities (or cells) comprised of informal relationships of saints who are independently waging a love-driven war against darkness by taking ownership of the relational and geographic space God has entrusted them with – not just by referring needs to the right pastor or committee head, but by activating our own networks of giving. This can be a doable first step in breaking stride with the paradigm of church attendance and dependency and moving toward simply being the Church. Ultimately people cast their vote with their time and their dollars.
Instead of the annihilation of unbelievers, the members of these transformational-missional communities are intentionally loving those who do not believe like them. Instead of the salt all being dumped out weekly by a few people (pastors mostly), in a few place (local churches mostly) why not re-envision the church (which includes every believer) as the salt that is to be distributed more broadly into the world via our existing informal networks? These networks are already in place. In other words, the army has been strategically placed! All we need is to be broken of the idea that attending church and tithing is the fulfillment of our religious obligation – a notion that was unavailable to the first century Christians. Wouldn’t this likely get us closer to what Paul was trying to say to the Ephesians?
And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ. Ephesians 4:11-12
And just as al Quada lives on (and even thrives) after its core leaders are taken out, so to will the Church whose resiliency is guaranteed by the affiliate-to-affiliate relationships native to the Body of Christ. The human networks will create an underlying latticed structure that will bridge the formal structure of the network. When Paul and that generation of leaders passed away they had achieved this by way of practicing 2 Timothy 2:2. Note; The underlying, informal, relational-lattice structure will be essential when our value system becomes illegal, our gatherings are outlawed and our tax deductions are disallowed. If you think this is paranoid thinking or an impossible outcome, please reread church history and the daily headlines.
The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
I see the leaders (call them what you want) of the Church that Jesus sacrificed himself for being those men and women who can somehow faithfully serve as catalysts to these love-driven, informal and interactive cells and groups of cells (aka; communities). They will be those who can provide a biblical kingdom-value system that lives eternally and independent of man but can also be internalized by him. That can and will happen only when the living Word which is Jesus Christ is discovered as our life, our theology and our first love.
This Church will not decline in membership. It will never have a shortage of resources. It will never be constrained by physical space. Like al Quada it will inspire its members to lay their lives down for their cause. For the saints this cause will be infinitely more than organized Christianity. It will be Jesus Christ Himself, the Word of God, the One who first loved us and laid his life down for us. Exploring further…..
There is a documented exodus of mature believers from traditional churches. One of the reasons this is occurring is that there is an impasse between pastors and maturing members. Only those leaders in denial are unaware of this. Why is this? Could it be in part that those leaving, intuitively understand something that the pastor and staff simply cannot (or will not) see? Perhaps the remaining leadership intuitively know that they have much vested in the traditions (which includes the writing of their paychecks out the tithe-based income).
I pray God will gather his true shepherds together to prayerfully consider the future of the Kingdom and the Church which is integral to its fulfillment. Surely the Lord would be pleased with informal gatherings centered around pioneering a kingdom church. Whether our passage has anything to do with pastors today, I do not know. I suspect it might…. but I also may have just abused it as a convenient segue to something that is on my heart. If that is the case, I am answerable to the Lord. At the same time, the Church is surely ready for God….
to search for His scattered sheep and seek them out and deliver them from all the places to which they have been scattered; to bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them to their own land; and feed them in a good pasture. There they will lie down on good grazing ground and feed in rich pastures. He will feed His flock and lead them to rest.” He will seek the lost, bring back the scattered, bind up the broken and strengthen the sick.
To get a new (and I believe clearer biblical) view of the pastor and the local church read The Pastor Has No Clothes by John Zens. If your traditions are working just fine, don’t even go near this book (unless you are just adding it to your shelf of contemporary heretical writings – aka; the things you disagree with)
For the record, the only conspiracy I subscribe to is the try-lateral conspiracy between the world the flesh and the devil. His Word and His Spirit affirm in me that this conspiracy is no mere theory. And…. I too may be a little crazy just not completely. We shall just have to see how His- story ultimately unfolds.
Father, we are your Church and the Bride you are endeavoring to make ready. While we are cleansed from our sins, we are still being refined in our vision and our character. Succeed wildly Lord in this hour with this transformation whereby both You and Your Bride will be highly honored in all places at all times.
by RobertCummins | Oct 18, 2014 | 42. Gathering
Isaiah 40:6-11
A voice says, “Call out.” then he answered, “What shall I call out?” All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Get yourself up on a high mountain, O Zion, bearer of good news, lift up your voice mightily, O Jerusalem, bearer of good news; lift it up, do not fear. say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” Behold, the Lord God will come with might, with His arm ruling for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him and His recompense before Him. Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, in His arm He will gather the lambs and carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes.
In just six verses Isaiah uses two metaphors to make his point. In the balance of the chapter itself he uses at least five more. And what is his point? It is that God is supremely great. And us? Well… let’s explore together….
All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.
Get yourself up on a high mountain, O Zion, bearer of good news, lift up your voice mightily, O Jerusalem, bearer of good news; lift it up, do not fear. Say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” Behold, the Lord God will come with might, with His arm ruling for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him and His recompense before Him.
How are we to motivate ourselves to announce good news from high places? What’s to announce when our transience has just been likened to a withering plant? If Isaiah would have left us uninformed as to a particular aspect of God’s nature, it would make more sense for us to cower as we anticipate our rewards and recompense. But he hasn’t and I am referring to God’s compassion.
Comfort, O comfort My people,” says your God. Speak kindly to Jerusalem; and call out to her, that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity has been removed.
Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, in His arm He will gather the lambs And carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes.
In God’s compassion he makes provision of strength (out of his own strength) to those who are weary, tired and stumbling;
The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.
Isaiah has clearly established that like the grass we will wither and like the flower we shall fade. Even collectively we are nothing more than a drop in a bucket or a speck of dust on the scales. As this earth’s inhabitants we are like grasshoppers. It is true that when He blows on us we are carried away like stubble. God has made his point and asks;
To whom then will you liken MeLift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, not one of them is missing.
Just as God can account for every star, how much more will he account for every son and daughter he has called into His family. It is true in one sense, that compared to God we are nothing. And yet in another, we can see that man is the object of this compassion which Isaiah has revealed to us. And we who have been favored as partakers of a New Covenant further discover that we are even the objects of his affection!
God’s greatness which is inscrutable is not meant to crush us or cause us to cower. It should however fuel our awe and wonder and gratitude to have been elevated to such dizzying heights. Truly the sons and daughters of the kingdom shall be …..
those who wait for the Lord and gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.
Father, thank you that you have not come to us in anger but as a gentle Shepherd escorting each of us to safety in you. Thank you that, wrapped in your strong arms, not one of us will be lost. Thank you that we can live our lives out of your strength. As the One who has become our life, express Your life through us for your name’s sake. So be it.
by RobertCummins | Oct 17, 2014 | 42. Gathering
Deuteronomy 30:1-10
Much has changed since these ancient words were written and yet nothing has changed; heart disease is the leading cause of death among human beings. I’m not speaking of the heart – that blood pumping muscle of our physical bodies but the heart – that potential spring of spiritual life within us.
In our passage Moses is speaking of Israel’s heart condition as a qualifier to inherit their promised land and the blessings contained in it. When they get their hearts right, the Lord will then gather them and set them up in a place of abundance and prosperity. This sounds good until we see the word “all”, the most dominant word in this passage.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.
All is an impossibly high bar to clear. It would require a miraculously true heart to pull this off and obey all the commands. The good news embedded in Moses sermon is the future promise of this new heart. He calls it a circumcised heart and from it shall flow love and life (and abundant material prosperity?)
Then the Lord your God will prosper you abundantly in all the work of your hand, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your cattle and in the produce of your ground.
If we were to truly see what God has offered men with the New Covenant, thoughts of material prosperity would not come up because it pails so in contrast to the true treasure that we are offered.
I believe that being in Christ and Christ being our life is facilitated by the Holy Spirit taking up residence in our spirits. It is the Holy Spirit’s presence in our hearts that begats new creatures. That we become sons and daughters of God means so much more than getting our souls saved and going to heaven. It means living life now as God’s children and processing everything through that new reality. This to me is abundant prosperity. This is living with the new heart God foretold so long ago. This enables us to live this all-in life.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.
For a variety of reasons though, we still have heart problems. We fail to see the abundance of what we have by virtue of what we have become. Our being in Christ is super abundance beyond our comprehension. Even a new heart is not immune from deception and most of us find ways to miss the central point of life – Jesus Christ. This man, our elder brother, the first born of a new race of men, the second Adam is our life independent of our doing.
When doing precedes being, the train is moving backwards. The deception lay in that we think it is taking us to higher ground . In truth, the believer who is resting in God’s amazing love is the son or daughter who is living by faith – the only way to please God. This saint is connected rightly to the engine and is traveling in lofty kingdom realms each day of his life.
Father, only you know how to raise up children in the Truth. Let us abandon ourselves to the reality of your fatherhood. Teach us to live from our new heart which is Jesus himself, the only hope for life. May this tribe of saints arise and with their lives being liberated one lie at a time reveal the transformational intentions of the new covenant. Let the world see that Jesus Christ reigning in individual hearts transforms us into the image of Christ – that one thing that all men must have in order to truly live. Expose the cheap imitations and the places our hearts are unwisely invested. Draw us back to simplicity of devotion to Christ and reveal your abundance. For your name’s sake.
by RobertCummins | Oct 16, 2014 | 42. Gathering
Jeremiah 31:1-14
“He who scattered…will gather..”.
While meditating on our passage, I was drawn to this verse;
Oh, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgements and unfathomable His ways! (Romans 11:33)
It is beyond our natural understanding or perhaps even our willingness to understand, that He who gathers is also He who scatters, that He who tears also mends, that He who drives away also draws us back. At least this has been so for me. How many times have I come to this place where I must say, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high I cannot attain to it.“? (Ps 139:6) Interestingly, I have come to this place at times in bitterness and at other times, more recently, in peace.
Some of the greatest stumbling I have caused in my walk with God and undermining thing I have done to my faith has been demanding understanding of unsearchable things and attempting to fathom unfathomable things. Let me try and explain. That God is ever-present, all-powerful and all-knowing, places Him at the scene of every incident. In each case, If He knew about it and could have prevented it, could He not, at least, an accessory with questionable motives?
My stumbling heart asked; “Why was this permitted?” Did this happen because, in His capacity as Judge, He is exacting payment for someones’s sin? Is God incompetent? Indifferent? Did the devil just overpower heaven and successfully steal something right out from His (or an angel’s) supposed care? Are there just so many lives that He cannot really spare the time to get too personally involved? Yes, I was stumbling but in Christ I was stumbling toward a unique encounter with God even in my errant line of thought.
I discovered there was something insistent within me that demanded an explanation as to “why”. “WHY do bad things happen”? If you have shopped in the theological marketplace you have probably discovered that many vendors are hawking their particular dogma as to why God does this or allows that. There is great demand for dogma because it contributes to the myth that we can manage our lives with knowledge – we can control what we understand. Not knowing on the other hand, forces us to have faith which initially feels out of control.
When you encounter such a vendor, who without tears and with great confidence makes his confident assertions regarding unsearchable things; may I suggest that you politely, yet quickly, just move on to the next shop. Knowledge and understanding are not without value but they can also be a hedge against the simple childlike faith God is trying to form in us. Trust and faith are the things that connect us today to eternity. Knowledge may be helpful but faith is absolutely essential.
A question. Could God gather us if we were not scattered? Could He mend us if we were not torn? Could we appreciate His drawing if we had not been driven? Would we appreciate His presence if we had not tasted of His absence?
Our hearts can become paralyzed in their capacity to believe by the mountain of apparent evidence we collect and file away that raise questions about God’s motivations. We are left in our inquiry with the notion that there is something in the outcome that is incompatible with His love, care and power. Even though we usually do not quite make a formal indictment against Him, our hearts can nurse deep questions about God’s love and/or His competence. I suspect many a busy, noisy life has been crafted, both consciously and sub-consciously, to keep these kinds of thoughts at bay. This is why slowing down, retreating and opening up to God is so essential in our spiritual formation.
With weeping they shall come, and by supplication I will lead them; I will make them walk by streams of water, on a straight path in which they shall not stumble; for I am a Father
From experience I recommend weeping and supplication as opposed to taking refuge in the certainty of some readily available and popular religious dogma. As to “why” we have been scattered, torn or driven I cannot say for sure. I believe for the sake of our faith, which is of eternal worth, He spares us from explanations. When I stand before God, I do not want a file-search to reveal I have file after open file of incidents where God is still a suspect with questionable motives. I want Him to find a file called “Mysteries” that is rarely opened, where I have filed away my questions regarding the unsearchable and the unfathomable. I want Him to see all the files that are open where I am actively collecting evidence – persuading my heart all the more of his goodness; of His wonderful nature and character.
While God’s ways and judgements may be unsearchable, His nature is discoverable. We can come to know Him experientially. Case by case, face to face, we can gain adequate assurance for our hearts that all His dealings with us are motivated by an incomprehensibly strong love. It is His heart, that He desires each of us to progressively love and to trust. It may require some tearing. It may involve some lonely desserts, but if we will only acknowledge His nearness, we will discover that we have somehow been drawn, even in our pain and disorientation, into His great heart. We will discover a “Father filter” has been installed in our hearts that will aid us in how we process and file away our experiences. We will stumble far less when we are resting in His love. This is where we will discover the songs, the shouts and the praises that are so becoming and native to His sons and daughters.
Father, we do not understand pain. It is disorienting and incomprehensible to us. Grant us hearts that will hold You harmless. Grant that we would not stumble over Jesus as some rock of offense; that we would not be offended at His eternally focused, love-driven dealings with our hearts. Amen.
Suggestion; Read the passage again. Try, in God’s presence to ask yourself about your files and filing system. Try praying with David and all those who have become satisfied with God’s goodness, “Search me Oh God and know my heart, try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.
