SAND PAPER

Who among us doesn't have fond memories of a sandbox or playing in sand at a lake or ocean beach? I sure do, and so do my children and grandchildren. Because the ocean, especially, provides such a tempting writing surface close to the water's edge, you've probably (like me) taken a stick and written messages in the just-exposed, packed sand. How many people in love have written their names that way, joined with a big heart? Oh, young love. Of course, the next tide would erase all that away.

Our back-yard toy-filled “turtle” sandbox has no room for messages in the sand. But it recently reminded me of a quote by the great English preacher Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892), the renowned Baptist preacher whose printed sermons still teach and inspire. He said: We are too prone to engrave our trials in marble and write our blessings in sand.

This resonated with me as I pray for folks who repeatedly seek new sympathetic ears for their tales of woe. It's as though that particular life message is engraved into their souls. One mark of Christian maturity is accepting the reality that life isn't perfect. Our life scripts aren't like the movies, where everything turns out okay in the end. “Perfect” isn't earth's language. In His infinite wisdom, sometimes God leaves us in less-than-perfect circumstances to deepen our character and hone our faith. Yet in the midst of it He offers hope.

The book of Isaiah anticipated the fall of the prophet's homeland to a pagan conqueror, Babylon, in about 700 BC. To add insult to injury, there followed a mass Jewish prisoner migration to that land. Isaiah warned it could happen, and it did. But among his stern prophecies were also verses of hope. Because they reflect the character of a loving, forgiving God, they still speak:

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland....(Isaiah 43:18-19).

Even though removed from “The Holy Land,” the slice of earth where God planned for them to live and thrive, He reminded them that He would never forget them:

See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me. (Isaiah 49:16)

It brings me great comfort to know that whatever my circumstances—and especially the unwelcome or uncomfortable ones--God is still in control. I'm as close to Him as something inscribed on His hands. He's not confined by current circumstances, but has a redemptive vision for whatever negatives come into my life.

Even better, those things metaphorically “inscribed on His Hands” are permanent, not like the sands erased clean by the tides. They are even better than any sin-tainted scheme we may have come up for living without depending on Him. Or to rework what Spurgeon said so well: we should be willing to inscribe our blessings in heaven's marble, and trace our trials in sand, to be erased by His nail-pierced Hand of love.

Making 'Psense' of Psalms--Psalm 37: The Meek and the Mean

Part of a continuing series on selected Psalms.
“In three seconds, everything washed away,” The Seattle Times headlines read on March 23, 2014.  The previous day, an entire rain-drenched hillside collapsed, smothering a small community in mud and debris. Some victims were trapped in their homes as the structures were torn from foundations. The disaster was quickly ranked as among the state’s worse, up there with the volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens, earthquakes and horrific windstorms. As I processed the news coverage of this sad, unexpected disaster, I was also thinking of lessons from my study of Psalm 37. Only God knows the true spiritual condition of each who died, and some were likely solid Christians. But the enormity of the landslide made me wonder what will happen at the end of time, when Psalm 37 says the wicked will be destroyed. Jesus also taught about the sobering suddenness of events when He returns: “Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left” (Matt. 24:40-41).
 
Psalm 37 is one of seven acrostic psalms, built off the Hebrew alphabet. In Bible times, alphabet songs helped teach spiritual truth to children and adults. The big idea behind Psalm 37 is finding spiritual peace in the midst of the age-old battle between good and evil. Or, to simplify it to two “m” words, between the “meek” and the “mean.” Verse 5 is a key: “The meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace” (37:5). In His sermon on the mount, Jesus reiterated that truth: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5). He didn’t elaborate, but David had already, hundreds of years earlier, in this psalm.

MEEKNESS

The same Hebrew word for “meek” in Psalm 37:11 (anayw) was also used to describe Moses’ humble reaction when his siblings criticized Moses’ choice of a wife: “Now Moses was a very humble (anayw, “meek” in KJV) man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3 NIV). A common definition of this Biblical trait is “strength under control.” Moses lived out the proactive responses David gave in Psalm 37:
 “Fret not”—literally, don’t get heated up. Stay cool. As if for emphasis, “fret not” is repeated in verses 7 and 8. It’s easy to fret when bad seems to be winning out, and bad people seem to prosper, but God says keep the long view in mind.

 “Trust in the Lord”—Trusting in God includes practical steps of doing good and doing your best in your circumstances (“dwell in the land”).

“Take delight in the Lord”—Delighting in the Lord shows others that He is worthy of our love and worship, not the frowning, legalistic deity that non-believers tend to see Him as. The promise to give us the “desires of our heart” means that when our desires match up with His, we will know those blessings. It’s not a cart blanche promise to receive any frivolous thing out there.  Sometimes God needs to protect us from our unwise desires.

“Commit your way to the Lord”—The original language is a picturesque term of “rolling off our burdens.” Years ago, visiting a banana planation in Panama, I watched workers shouldering huge just-cut stalks, laden with dozens of green bananas.  They took these burdens to trailers, gently rolling them off into padded platforms. Similarly, God says to roll our burdens onto Him—as 1 Peter 5:7 expresses it:  “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

 “Be still before the Lord”—Waiting on God goes hand-in-hand with waiting patiently for His perfect timing. David put it another way in Psalm 62:5: “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.”

“Refrain from anger”—God wants us to guard against anger, instead fully trusting Him when facing injustice and disappointment.

MEANNESS

Psalm 37 gives various names for the “mean”: “the wicked” (14 times in the King James version), “those who do/are evil,” “who do wrong,” “who carry out wicked schemes,” “those he [God] curses,” “enemies,” “wrongdoers,” and “sinners.” This conflict between the “godly” and the “wicked” goes back to God’s covenant with Israel, told in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 27-30. If Israelites obeyed God, they could live in the Promised Land and enjoy its blessings—the reason behind “the land” or “inheritance” repeated eight times n Psalm 37. If they disobeyed God, they’d be chastened by invasion, drought, or famine. Chronic disobedience would mean removal from the land—which is exactly what happened during 70 years captivity under foreign rulers.

In David’s time, however, hundreds of years before captivity, the faithful saw wicked people prospering, contrary to their thinking that God should only prosper those who followed Him. In this psalm, David was teaching them to trust God’s character. He would punish the wicked—and thoroughly: “All sinners will be destroyed; there will be no more future for the wicked” (v. 38). In the meantime, they weren’t supposed to give up on the Promised Land and move elsewhere (as did Naomi’s family in the book of Ruth).

Our modern economy has changed customs of inherited lands. One good result of this is the freedom to move to different places to do God’s work. On the other hand, it allows people to give up when God might want them instead to stay and work through problems. One who has learned to listen to God’s call to “wait” or “go” is Edith Schaeffer.  Her words in Common Sense Christian Living (Nelson, 1983, p. 227) are worth considering: “You and I often want to know, ‘What comes next?’ God is saying, ‘Trust Me,’ He is saying, ‘Stay in the place where you are until I show you [in a variety of ways, usually not mystical at all] what comes next.’ He is saying, ‘Blessed is the person who waits in the dark, holding My hand.’”

One more important reason to stay put: our witness to the “mean” or ungodly. This quote by 19^th century preacher Charles Spurgeon says it well: “If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies.  If they will perish, let them perish with our arms around their knees.  Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for.”  That’s a “bold” assignment for the “meek”!

Got dust?

Whenever I harness all my courage for beyond-the-usual house-cleaning, a whole nation of dust bunnies rises up, chanting, “Be sure your sin will find you out” (thank you, Numbers 32:23).

            It happened for me recently when the smoke from massive forest fires finally crawled out of our valley and I retired the breathing mask I’d had to use even to go to the mail box. Feeling energized and virtuous, I asked my husband to help me pull the mattress off the bed and the bedside stands away from the wall. Just as I predicted, I got a “Why? Nobody looks there!” response until he saw that, indeed, silent invaders were lounging in all their gray glory. As an asthmatic, I want those sniff-and-wheeze triggers gone.  Armed with the vacuum cleaner hose, I got down on my knees to suck up the worst of them.

            I’m not one of those perfectionist housekeepers who weekly dusts the top of the refrigerator. That’s when I would say, “Why? Nobody looks there.” Okay, every few months I remove the coupon basket, the extra potholders, and the cat treats to give it a swipe.

            I thought about dust recently when I came across a scribbled note that I just couldn’t toss.  Dr. Hubert Harriman, of World Gospel Mission, spoke at my church in February 2004 with an appeal to personal holiness.  I jotted this quote from him: “The problem in our churches, he said, is that we just want to be dusted, not cleansed of sin.” In other words, we don’t want God moving around the furniture and showing us the neglected or dusty parts of our spiritual walks. We’d rather avoid the blazing, exposing light of His holiness.

            Yet spiritual deep-cleaning is exactly how God grows us in spirit and in service.

            One of those who knew and practiced that was a Scottish preacher named Robert Murray McCheyne (1813-1843). Like David Brainerd (last week’s blog) he died young, only 30, of typhus. But what a life. He taught himself the Greek alphabet at age four. At 23 he became pastor of St. Peter’s Church of Dundee, Scotland. At 24 he went to Palestine to research how to best evangelize the Jews. In his late twenties, a revival that began in his church spread through Scotland.

            It was later said of him, “It is not how long you live, but how you live that counts.”

            The renowned English preacher Charles Spurgeon, in Lectures to My Students (Zondervan, 1962, 7-8), included this powerful quote from McCheyne: “Remember, you are God’s sword, His instrument—I trust a chosen vessel unto Him to bear His name.  In great measure, according to the purity and perfection of the instrument, will be the success.  It is not great talent God blesses so much as the likeness to Christ.  A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.”           

            When God wants to use us in His kingdom, His standards are high. You don’t get away with “Why? Nobody looks there.” God sees it all: the slimy secret sins, grubby grudges, icky-apathy, and crud-crusted cravings.

            Ready to deep-clean, spiritually? The best position is on your knees. It was for McCheyne, for whom the prayer closet was a refuge of fellowship, holiness, and intercession. The hidden life prepared him for his brief yet dynamic public life of serving God.