JOY ON THE WAY

By the time this is published, the clumps of early-spring grape hyacinth by my front walk will be limp, their stalks shriveled to threads. But they'll be back again next year, shooting up as the weather whispers the coming of spring. Their resiliency amazes me, as some of the rock salt thrown on the icy walk next to them during winter surely contaminates their soil. But they still return, offering their brilliant purple “beads” as a springtime delight.

For whatever reason, while reading Colossians 2:7—a wonderful admonition and benediction—those little plants came to mind:

Just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

The analogy isn't perfect; grape hyacinth have a very short blooming cycle. But they're true to their nature, responding in God's amazing plant growth cycle to push from their dormant roots with delicate, lovely blooms.

If grape hyacinth could talk, I wonder if they'd complain a bit about their long dormant season. I'm reminded of David's woe-is-me Psalm 13 as he kept running and hiding from those who opposed him. Psalm 13 starts out with almost a whining tone:

How long, O LORD, will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have horror in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

David is definitely down in the dumps. He's wondering if his foes might succeed in taking his life. But he ends on a note of hope against hope, of trusting the trustworthiness of God:

But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me. (vv. 5-6)

The Hebrew word translated “unfailing love” is chesed and used of God's steadfast, faithful love, such as seen in His covenant relationship with His people. It's a whole package of amazing qualities: loving-kindness, mercy, and loyalty that is unwavering in challenges of difficulties. In English, we just don't have an adequate synonym for God's awesome, immeasurable love.

Do we experience hardships in this life? Slumps? Discouragement? Harm and danger? Yes. Is God aware of them? Absolutely. Are we supposed to kick at them and blame God? No. It's better instead to stop, look and be in awe of how He works through our trials and hard places. He knows “how long,” and it will be just the right interval.

Possibly, on that hard-to-travel path, we'll find whispers of His goodness. Little blessings, Glimpses of joy. Like those delicate beaded hyacinth blooming by my home every spring. Reminding me that, after every winter, God will stir the earth and send them forth. True to His character as faithful—to me.

HALF-WHAT?

Is your life half-full or half-empty? Our answer to that rhetorical question depends a lot on our spiritual walk. That truth came to mind when I read the newsletter that came recently from a Bible translation ministry we support. A lesser person would have given up. But a persecuted man, who loved Jesus with all his heart, soul, and mind, persevered. Reading his story was a “wow” moment.

This man lived in war-torn Africa, part of a tribal community with a language only 26,000 people spoke. Hostilities became so intense that one day his family hastily fled their village with just the clothing they wore. For seven days, night and day, they walked. There was no food and many in their community died of thirst or starvation. One night, half way to a country which would shelter them, they heard gunfire. The group ran one way, but this man sensed a voice telling him to go another. Later he learned his family escaped an ambush that killed hundreds.

Settling into a refugee camp in another country, he started working with some Bible translators who wanted help with his language. Then, the translators had to flee to a safer area. Compelled to continue, he and another man rode bikes 200 miles to continue their work with the translators.

The rebels didn't give up, kidnapping this man and eight others from the translation office. One by one, they killed his companions. One night they came for him—but released him. More trials came his way, but he persevered in his quest to have the New Testament translated into his native tongue.

Thirty years after the translation effort began, the New Testament in his language was published and distributed in a great celebration. Of that event, he said, “At that time, I forgot all the challenges I went through.”

As I finished reading that, the words of Paul came to mind: “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13).

Working with the half-full glass of opportunity and skills he was given, he filled it with determination and faith. And finally, his cup runneth over.

A good message, I think, for the fears and inconveniences that have come upon us in the coronavirus pandemic. Half full, and still filling, with Jesus? Or half-empty, and draining, with complaint?

BAD TOOLS

Disclaimer: the tools in this illustration are not bad of themselves. In fact, they’re quite useful when my husband needs to grab his most useful assortment to repair bikes. But I snapped a photo of them as a reminder of a well-used speaker’s illustration of spiritual problems.  The story is called “The Devil’s Toolbox.”  It describes an imagined yard sale in which the Devil had put out for sale the various tools he used against humans. They were labeled “hatred,” “envy,” “jealousy,” “pride” and so on.  Off to one side was a very worn tool with an extravagant price. When customers asked about it, curious why it cost so much when it was obviously in poor shape, he replied, “That’s ‘discouragement.’ It’s worn because it’s my most useful tool. It helps me pry open human hearts when the others can’t.”

Those tools of the tempter came to mind as I read the counsel of psychologist Dr. Henry Cloud about working through emotional pain in the journey toward Christian character. Facing negative things in our lives is hard, he wrote in Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality (Harper, 2006, pp. 198-199). But, to borrow a cliché to emotional healthiness, “No pain, no gain.” He added: "Even the best things in life that are free, as we say, such as love, have big price tags in order to possess. Self-denial, sacrifice, giving, delay of gratification, repentance, forgiveness, swallowing pride and ego, are all among the price tags of making love work. But, in the end, it is always worth it.”

Fixing things that are “not good” in our lives—like a marriage or relationship, addiction, depression, failure, or even a physical injury—happens every day to people who prize character above comfort. “There is no easy street and no shortcut,” he added. “In the end, the short-cut is always the longest route, and people of character know this and it has become a part of their makeup” (p. 199).

He goes on to point out that teaching children about delayed gratification and keeping short accounts are part of the training that goes into positive adult character.  That made me think of the “discouragement” tool. Its blows are felt the hardest by people who haven’t been brought up to learn resilience and forgiving grace, the very character qualities modeled by Jesus. And again, James 1 came to mind: that when trials come, we can consider them a burden or an opportunity to grow in godly perseverance. In other words, saying a firm “NO!” to the threatened blows of the Enemy’s “discouragement” tool.

It’s not always easy, but it’s God’s best way.

PROTECTED (PSALM 121)

My mother, whose hobbies included oil-painting, did this art of

Mount Rainier for me. A few months later she died of cancer.

I know I’m in trouble when I lapse into the thinking that “it’s just me against the world.” When I feel overwhelmed by negative people or circumstances, I’m in a downward spiral—until I look spiritually “up”…to God.

I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. (121:1-2)

I don’t lift my eyes to the “ills”—the problems—but to the higher, invisible presence of God.

Some of my reminders to do that come from paintings or photos in my home of Mount Rainier, the 14,000-feet-plus snow-capped, sleeping volcano that squats above the valley where I grew up. In that area’s rainy climate, it wasn’t always visible. But on sunny days, if I went to the end of the street to peek between rooftops, I could see it and report back home, “The mountain is out.” I’m aware that scientists say it could, like Mount St. Helens, cause great damage and loss of life if it ever erupted. Still, whenever I read the opening words of Psalm 121, in my memory I “look to the hills” (and this mountain) because my human tendency in thinking of God is to look “up.” In doing so, I remember that Christ ascended into heaven, wherever that is in the mystery of God.

When I learned that Psalm 121 was one of the psalms “of ascent,” sung by pilgrims headed to Jerusalem (“up” in the hills), I better understood why it referred to the “hills.” These people, traveling to their Holy City, were looking “to the hills” for the first evidence of Jerusalem’s temple. The primitive route there, however, harbored risk. Besides harsh weather, snakes and other animal dangers, they were vulnerable to bandits. But they focused instead on what was ahead: the religious celebrations and reunions with other God-followers. These would remind them that their true help wasn’t in rituals but from their Creator God.

WATCHED

Five times the psalmist refers to God as watching us. He watches us instead of “sleeping” (vv. 3-4) He watches as a protective shade (v. 5). He watches out for possible harm to us (v. 7), and our comings and goings (v. 8). Does that mean bad things will never happen?  Of course not. We experienced “harm” when involved in two serious auto wrecks caused by drivers who were allegedly drinking or just plain careless. But was God there? Of course! In the midst of the frantic and scary stuff, He hadn’t left us.

Paul experienced that through many life-threatening situations—stonings, mob attacks, bandits, intrigue, shipwreck (check out the list in 2 Corinthians 11)--yet left this golden verse in his letter to the Philippians:

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7)

Bandits called discouragement and doubt still hide behind the boulders of life’s journey. They’re “bandits” because they want to take away what is most precious to us, and that is peace with God. Depression can slither in from such attacks. At such times I need to get my eyes off the rocks in the path and up to the destination: of communion with the God whose ultimate goal is fellowship now and forevermore (v. 8).

HANDING IT OVER (Psalm 31)

This old abandoned service station in an Eastern Washington town seemed

to illustrate to me the feelings expressed in Psalm 31: down and unwanted.

An ongoing series on the 48 psalms listed as “recommended reading” for "down times" by counselor David Seamands (author of Healing for Damaged Emotions).

“Favorable outcomes…solution-based…positive results.”  Such are the catchwords of our generation. We want things that take away the pain—if not instantly, then as fast as possible.  Psalm 31 runs straight into those ideas with the truth that life isn’t always easy and sometimes it really hurts and confuses. David gets right to the point with something I’ve probably prayed in one way or the other:

In you, O LORD, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame, deliver me in your righteousness.

The word “shame” reappears in verse 17:

Let me not be put to shame, O LORD, for I have cried out to you.

Our English word “shame” comes from the Hebrew bosh, meaning to become pale.  Good description, for it seems the blood and courage drain away when someone “shames us.” I felt similarly “depleted” when I ran into people who “shamed” me for innocent and upright actions and words.  They were so emotionally disheveled that their perceptions of people and life were distorted.

Bingo!  Did you read Saul into that (“emotionally disheveled,” “perceptions distorted”)? Welcome to history repeating itself in the ordinary threads of life.

A MENTAL/PHYSICAL MESS

So here, in Psalm 31, is a persecuted believer feeling it in his bones.  Verses 9-13 give a glimpse into his medical chart. Lots of tears, anguish, groaning, weakness, forgotten, like broken pottery, pressured by slander and other attacks. Depression manifests itself in such ways, like a creeping darkness. But the portion of Psalm 31 that lifts me most is verse 5:

Into your hands I commit my spirit; redeem me, O LORD, the God of truth.

Does it sound familiar? Jesus, on the cross: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”  When he had said this, he breathed his last. (Luke 23:46)

Stephen, as stones flew, killing him: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”(Acts 7:59)

Making the world “right” is not my responsibility. I’m to trust and obey.  Sometimes that’s really hard because our world’s mantras are “favorable outcomes…solution-based…positive results.”

Psalm 31 records a journey, from hurt and dismay to trust.  Because David was frank enough to recall his pain, we benefit these thousands of years later in our own spiritual battles.

But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, “You are my God.”My times are in your hands; deliver me from my enemies." (vv. 14-15)

Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD. (v. 24)