UNDER HIS WINGS

Real feathers—trophies from bird-hunting—graced this Bible verse display given me recently by a friend. As I read the scripture she’d chosen, I thought of how she lived it out in modeling grace through hardship. From the Living Bible she quoted Psalm 36:7:

How precious is your constant love, O God!  All humanity takes refuge in the shadow of Your wings.

It was just perfect for the relational challenges I’ve faced in recent years with troubled people. At times I felt like a little chick scurrying around the scary barnyard while a hungry dog or possum threatened. But when I ran to the Lord—like a hen gathering her chicks underneath her—I felt removed to a place of safety.

This tender image from real life crops up several times in Psalms.

Hide me in the shadow of Your wings. (Psalm 17:8)

I will take shelter in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed. (Psalm 57:1)

I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings. (Psalm 61:4)

Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. (Psalm 63:7)

He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge (Psalm 91:4—from one of my favorite psalms)

Poetic analogies help me visualize the invisible, like the constant presence and help of God. But sometimes I run across real-life examples that match up with such scriptural truths.  I found one recently in book by Charles Stanley, The Source of My Strength (Nelson, 1994). I learned that this well-known pastor and author lost his father when he was very young.  Then his mother married an abusive man. They both endured his physical and verbal abuse. It took a long time for Stanley to work through the wounds of his childhood, but he did. He found shelter under the wings of the Almighty, and that made the difference.

I especially appreciated his practical advice on dealing with an abuser, by focusing attention not on your supposed “faults” (according to the abuser) but on the bitterness and wounds that cause the abuser to lash out (p. 77):

If a person criticizes you intensely, say, “Listen, what it is about me that is really at the core of what you dislike? Do you realize that you are constantly at me about something?  It is because something is eating away at you? Is there something you don’t like about yourself that is behind the way you criticize me?”

…Intervening in a person’s abusive behavior is actually an act of love for that person.  It is saying to that person, ‘I don’t want to see you so violently unhappy.  I want to see you live in a way that is not marked by repetitive abusive behavior—either verbal or physical.  I want to see you become whole in Christ Jesus.’

Instead of trying to reason with an abuser, Stanley said, we need to turn that person over to God to deal with.  That might include saying this to the abuser: “I will no longer take your abuse. I’m trusting God to defend me.  I’m turning you over to Him, and I’m trusting that He will deal with you.”

I’ve been through some tough stuff in my life, always at the ready to “fix things.”  But some things only God can “fix,” like troubled minds. That’s when He beckons me, like a protective mother hen, under His wings. It’s safe and warm there as He faces what only He can—and should—handle.

ONE SIZE DOESN'T FIT ALL

Whenever my husband and I enjoy Chinese food, we always look forward to the “fortune cookie” at the end.  The little aphorism tucked inside usually brings a chuckle and a skeptical “oh, sure” response.  I always thought that fortune cookies went way back, maybe to Marco Polo or beyond. How wrong I was.  Two stories claim to be its real history.  One is dated 1914 and concerns a Japanese immigrant who designed the famed Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.  A boss who didn’t like people of his ethnicity fired him; a sympathetic boss hired him back. The grateful employee created the cookie with a thank-you note inside and later made them in quantities to pass out at the garden. The second credit, dated 1918, goes to a Chinese immigrant in Los Angeles who was concerned about the poor he saw wandering in the streets.  He created the message-cookie, putting in tiny papers with inspirational scriptures supplied by a Presbyterian minister.  After World War II, the cookies become commonplace in Chinese restaurants, and contained aphorisms or sage advice.  The demand continues: one fortune cookie company makes sixty million a month.

Of course, few would consider these little sayings to be messages from God. Yet I’ve observed people who trifle with Bible verses as though random passages were their “fortune cookie” from God.  There’s a joke (albeit sad) about a fellow who wasn’t much for reading his Bible.  One desperate day, he decided to open it, close his eyes, and put his finger on whatever passage showed up.  His finger landed on Matthew 5:5: “Then Judas went away and hanged himself.”  That didn’t seem like a good choice, so he did another random stab.  This time it was John 13:27: “What you are about to do, do quickly.”

BETTER ADVICE

Don’t do that!  The Bible is not a fortune-telling instrument.  But it is a truth-revealing book taken in its entirety. So...what do we do with books like Proverbs, which seem made-for-fortune cookies with its two-line nuggets?  In my Bible, Proverbs is full of highlighting and notes.  For example, one that’s especially meaningful to me is Proverbs 16:10:

When a man’s ways are pleasing to the LORD, he makes even his enemies live at peace with him.

Sadly,  I’ve learned that’s not always true. Some people are so steeped in bitterness and misinformation that their hearts are closed. But I balance that with the counsel of Romans 12:18-19:

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.   Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath.

The verse goes on to quote a proverb about returning kindness to an enemy. In the culture in which it was written, that included kindnesses like supplying food and water.  And no, you don’t throw burning materials at them, as some misinterpret verse 20: “In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” This harkens to long-ago lifestyles before the invention of matches.  Fires kept people warm and cooked their food.  To have a fire go dead was a hardship.  Sending a pot of live coals to rekindle a fire (usually carried in a pot on one’s head) was a generous and caring gesture.

Next time you open a fortune cookie, remember to take the counsel with a grain of salt (or pepper). And remember another Biblical nugget that praises God for His wisdom and provision for our lives:

he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. (Psalm 107:9).

Lots more, and lots better, than bent little cookies.

TREASURES IN A SMALL BOX

Born premature, as an adult he stood barely five feet tall and had an unseemly big head, hooked nose and sallow complexion from often being sick. He might have been called “ugly” by today’s beauty-obsessed culture.  But oh how he could rhyme! Songs and poetry flowed from his pen into publication. His brilliance extended to essays on theology, psychology, logic and astronomy.

A young lady read his works and felt stirrings of love, sight unseen. This was long before Facebook, internet matchmaking, or even photos. She traveled to his home. He was so excited—somebody might love him, even marry him. But when she saw him in person, things changed.  She said that although she loved the jewel, she could not admire the “casket,” meaning the case, containing it.

He would never marry during his 74 years on earth. Yet his nation esteemed him so highly that a bust of his image was posthumously placed in Westminster Abbey. We still sing some of the 600 hymns he wrote during his life: “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” “Joy to the World,”  “Join All the Glorious Names,” “Oh God Our Help in Ages Past,” “Jesus Shall Reign Wherever the Sun,” “I Sing the Mighty Power of God” and “Come We That Love the Lord.”

ROUGH START

He started life with a father in jail for holding religious views at odds with the established church. His mother nursed him on the jail steps just so his father could hear his son’s cries. The father was later released and soon realized his growing baby was gifted, taking to books almost from infancy. He learned Latin at age 4, Greek at 8 or 9, French at 11 and Hebrew at 13.  He loved rhyming words, a trait that sometimes irked his father. One time the exasperated father threatened to spank the child if he continued. The boy replied, “O Father, do some pity take, and I will no more verses make.”

He grew up, went away to college, and returned home disturbed over his church’s boring “singing,” which consisted of dull poetic paraphrases of psalms.  His father challenged him to write something better. He did, and it was so well received that he wrote a new hymn every week for the next two years. 

Then he was hired as a tutor for a wealthy Christian family in London. He joined their church, was asked to teach, and in 1698 was hired as associate pastor.  At age 24 he preached his first sermon. Church members considered him a brilliant Bible student, and within a few years asked him to become senior pastor.

PUSHING THROUGH ILLNESS

He struggled with his health, so a wealthy couple in church invited him to visit their estate for a while to recover. His “health visit” would turn into 36 years.  He enjoyed their children, and from that time published a children’s hymn that sold 80,000 copies in a year. He adapted most of the 150 psalms into new hymns with Christian truths.

At about age 65, he suffered a stroke. Still able to speak but unable to write, he continued working with a transcriber for several years. Declining health led to his death at age 74. He wrote his own epitaph of two verses: 2 Corinthians 5:8 (“Absent from the body, present with the Lord”) and Colossians 3:4 (“When Christ, who is my life, shall appear, then shall I also appear with Him in glory”).

But his music lived on. Almost 150 years after it was written, one of his hymns, “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed” was sung at a revival service in the United States. When the choir sang the final line, “Here, Lord, I give myself away,” the truths about Jesus Christ touched the heart of a 30-year-old woman. She later said that “My soul was flooded with celestial light.”  At that, she decided to give herself away to Jesus. Her name: Fanny Crosby. This blind woman went on to become America’s greatest Gospel song writer of the past century.

The name of the composer whose music inspired her?  Isaac Watts.

SOMETHING TO PONDER
The apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:27 observed that God can choose the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. As an illustration of that, we just need to open a hymnbook.  Or, look in a mirror and see ourselves as God sees us: beloved, full of potential.

GRANDMA'S PADDLE

Years ago, for a speaker’s prop about God’s discipline, I turned a ping pong paddle into a humorous “Grandma’s Paddle.”  It’s pretty, lacy, and amply padded—unlike the “red wooden stick” (about 15” long) that I remember from childhood, stored in the drawer of the dining area’s built-in hutch.  My dad would have to just move his hand in the direction of that drawer, and the tears of repentance would flow.  Recently, as strong pre-school wills have returned to our home in the form of grandsons, we have guidelines for “discipline” when they stay with us.  Their parents’ preferred method is three “steps” of warning, with consequences at step 3.

But a few weeks ago, as I unearthed this paddle from my box of “speaker props,” I had thoughts of how God disciplines us—and sometimes it really hurts! God’s discipline is not for His temporary peace of mind (as so often it is for us as human parents) but for our ultimate good: "My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke; because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in." (Proverbs 3:11-12)

I reconsidered that principle recently while re-reading Jerry Bridges’ The Practice of Godliness (NavPress, 1983). That book and his The Pursuit of Holiness are two I try to re-read regularly to be reminded of God’s standards for behavior.  This time, because of encounters with angry people, I was particularly struck by his treatment of patience versus anger. The person prone to losing his or her temper, he wrote, must especially work at “patience under provocation.”  Instead of excusing that behavior as “just the way I am,” Bridges wrote, “he must acknowledge his quick temper as a sinful habit before God.” He suggested meditating extensively on verses like these:

Exodus 34:6: “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”

First Corinthians 13:5: [Love] “is not rude, it is not self-seeing, it is not easily angered...” James 1:19: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.”

Bridges added: “He must also pray earnestly that God the Holy Spirit will change him inwardly.  He should apologize to the person who is the object of his outburst each time he loses his temper.  (This helps him develop humility and a sense of his own sinfulness before God.)”  (pp. 208-209)

Recognizing our weaknesses, Bridge added that persons prone to anger shouldn’t give up on conquering that habit. “He needs to realize that his problem is as much a sinful habit as it is a result of temperament. Habits are not easily broken, and there will be failure.”  The difference is that when he falls, God is there to help him—if he reaches out.

 As for Grandma’s paddle, I hope just the sight of it (like the red stick of my childhood days) will be enough to encourage “course correction” with our young ones. As we love on them (as grandparents do), I’m reminded of how much more God loves me, and desires my character to grow in Christ-likeness. His discipline is part of the process.