DUSTY...

Spider webs captured smoke ash
on shrubs at my home

My household “chore” as a small child was “dusting” the furniture, wiping an old flannel cloth across surfaces. I don't recall dawdling and using my finger to write my name in the dust, although I could have so-”autographed” the household furniture. I just wanted to get through my chore! I remember that chore now as I notice more-than-usual household dust in my own home, no thanks to multiple wildfires in hills and mountains in my part of the state.  

Winds are wafting the smoke into our valley, dusting everything (including what sneaks into the house) with a gray ash veil. And I remember....that ash had great symbolic meaning in the Bible. Often it's used for human mortality and humility before God. One of the more familiar occasions: Job, bereft of all he held dear (children, possessions, health) and left only with a crabby wife. Here he sat in ashes, afflicted with a miserable illness such that nobody wanted to get too close to him, and she hollers, “Curse God and die” (Job 2:9). (I wouldn't call her an “encourager”!)

It helps to understand this Biblical “sitting in ashes” pose to realize that in those times ashes represented repentance, mourning, humility, and morality. Besides sore-covered Job sitting in the ash heap, some centuries later there was city-wide ash-sitting in Nineveh. That's when Jonah, still dripping in whale saliva, followed through with God's command to call the city to repentance. It shocked the whole evil town, and even the king put aside his royal robes for sackcloth, and left his throne for a pile of ashes (Jonah 3:6).

Such history helps me understand why in Mosaic law, ashes were used in purification rituals. Representing human frailty, judgment and destruction, ashes pointed to cleansing and hope. But I think Jesus put another spin on the rite when He rebuked the evil cities of Korazin and Bethsaida (located north of the Sea of Galilee), which--despite seeing His miracles--refused to repent (“in sackcloth and ashes”--Matt. 11:21) for their sins.

There's nothing magic about “dust and ashes.” But there is truth in their symbolism: that of admitting that the “things of earth”—like living a “good” but Christ-empty life--are worthless unless there's a heart renewed by the purifying power of God.

DUSTY....

“Dusty”--the nickname for characters in decades-ago cowboy movies or shows--amuses me. Who'd name their kid after dirt? Then I checked a “baby name” book and learned it's related to the Old German for “Dustin,” meaning “valiant fighter.” I guess that would fit for cranky men-of-the-wild-west who had showdowns on Main street. But my relationship with this “dusty” picture had more to do with the angst of housework. If you noticed the picture, you already figured out the culprit.

Are you ready for the ingredients of so-called “dust bunnies”? Dust-researchers suggest they (the “bunnies,” of course) may contain (besides dust) hair, lint, flakes of dead skin, spider webs, pet dander, and pollen. Hmm, sounds like what might have gone in the potion that the wicked queen Grimhilde (in the 1937 Disney cartoon version) cooked up for the poisoned apple she offered (incognito) to pure-hearted Snow White.

“Dust” has lowly but significant symbolism in scripture. First, the Bible says we start and end as dust. God crafted the first man from “dust.” At death, we return to “dust” as our physical bodies deteriorate (1). Between the “born” and “die” dates, dust expressed emotions, as when an angry person threw it or shook it off (2). Placed on one's head, it expressed grief (3).

Another image: an old, abandoned house, full of junk, cobwebs and dust. Some Bibles get that way. They might get a dusting-off when grabbed for the trip to Sunday morning services. I remember Sunday school contests for Bible-bringing-faithfulness. But between Sundays, it was back to “dust.”

If that sounds familiar—if reading through the Bible (Genesis through Revelation) is something you've never done, and want to do, there's help. Some Christian publishers now offer Bibles “styled” with a one-year reading plan. The internet has downloadable Bible-reading plans: Free Downloadable Bible Reading Plans - Search Images Or you might do a simple division problem: divide its 1189 chapters by 365 days. That works out to about 4 chapters a day for a year's read-through.

Some parts of the Bible are slow-go, especially the prophets and Old Testament genealogies. (I just trudged through Leviticus. Besides the big lessons of “purity” and “sacrifice,” I wondered how the priests laundered their blood-stained garments!) Read for understanding, for blessing, for heart-stirring. “Study Bibles” help. So do time-honored survey books like Henrietta Mears' The Bible and What It's All About. Slow down if needed. But find the jewels, the things that “speak to me.” God-lessons.

Just don't let it gather dust.

(1) Genesis 2:7, 3:19; (2) Matt. 10:14, Acts 13:51; (3) Joshua 7:6, Job 2:12, Lamentations 2:10, Ezekiel 27:30, Revelation 18:19.

Making 'Psense' of Psalms--Psalm 90: Lifespan

 Part of an ongoing series on selected psalms.

I pondered a blip of punctuation, the hyphen, as I wandered among graves at a small cemetery where many of my husband’s relatives are buried. Perched between birth and death dates, that hyphen represents the brevity of life. As expressed in a couplet found on many plaques, “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.”  The quote’s author was C.T. Studd (1860-1931), who left stardom in England’s cricket-playing circles for sacrificial years of missionary work in China, India and Africa.

A similar message comes from Moses, whom most believe wrote Psalm 90. Scripture records two other songs by him. One was a victory song after the Red Sea swallowed up Pharaoh’s army (Exodus 15:1-18). The other was his “farewell sermon” before ascending Mount Nebo to die (Deuteronomy 32:1-43). Scholars suggest he wrote this reflective psalm about the time of incidents recorded in Numbers 20. His sister and brother died, and God barred Moses from entering the Promised Land for dishonoring God in a water-from-the-rock episode. Those circumstances left Moses keenly aware of mortality and of the short lifespan allotted to do God’s work.

Psalm 90 opens with the grand expanses of time known to God:

Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Eternity is “forever backward” and “forever forward.” Our lives are but tiny dots on this infinite timeline, but God is its entire, unfathomable existence. God had no beginning and has no ending. He is our “dwelling place” or security. As Moses also said in Deuteronomy 33:27, “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”

 TO DUST.... (vv. 3-6)

“You turn men back to dust,” says Psalm 90:3. One morning my vacuum cleaner gave up in a burst of toxic fumes. I suspected it was beyond repair, so I was an easy target for a call offering me a “free rug cleaning” for learning about “a comprehensive vacuum system.” The cleaning consisted of a misting of spray, then vacuuming by the demonstration machine—after more than two hours of sales pressure. That included shaming me as a housekeeper by vacuuming the top of my mattress, which yielded  a thick haze of dust mite debris on his pristine demonstration filter. The truth is that all mattresses get these tiny, dead-skin-munching visitors over time. (Note I said “mites,” not “bed bugs,” a different and vicious problem.) I didn’t buy his super-deluxe and overpriced vacuum, but I’ll never forget that “dead-bug dust.” On the bigger scale, these bodies that we pamper at such great expense, at the end, also return to “dust.” The mighty end up like mites. Our earthly existence is temporary. We’re like fresh morning grass in the thin Palestinian soil, burnt quickly the same day by the merciless sun.

THE BAD NEWS (vv. 7-12)

Sin offends a holy God. The first sin brought the ongoing penalty of death. God knows all our sins, public and private (“our secret sins,” v. 8). Though Moses lived to 120, the typical life span was 70 to 80 years, and still is. Because of sin, we suffer the death of dreams, relationships, plans and finally health.

In 1975, Natalie Babbitt published a children’s novel titled Tuck Everlasting. The main characters were a family who had discovered the “fountain of youth” and would never die. But because others around them did die, immortality wasn’t all that great. They realized they’d experience the world’s brokenness forever, unable to get away from it. Here’s where the New Testament answers the sorrow of the Old.  When Jesus came, He said, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25-26). Believing in Him and His promise of eternal life will make immortality in Heaven a real and wonderful thing. In the meantime, we have work to do: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (v. 12).

THE HOPEFUL NEWS (vv. 13-17)

In the mid-1980s, an older friend gave me calligraphy he had done of Psalm 90:12, 14 from the 1966 Jerusalem Bible translation. It hangs above my kitchen sink, reminding me daily of its truths:
Our lives are over in a breath.  Teach us to count how few days we have and so gain wisdom of heart.  Let us wake in the morning filled with your love and sing and be happy all our days.
Psalm 90’s closing section is an appeal for God’s mercy in the short time we do have on earth. Every day is a gift. Even though the days, months, and years may bring their share of sorrows, God intends that we grow through them and beyond them. Moses was bold enough to ask God to allow the bad times to be balanced by the good: “Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble” (v. 15).

When I am around people whose conversation dwells on the past or on their difficulties, I feel dragged out. We can’t undo the past, but we can go forward with God into a fresh future. Our trust in God can encourage others to do likewise, and is a testimony to the generation behind us: “May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children” (v. 16). Notice the phrase, “sing and be happy”? Indeed! Singing happy and worshipful songs lifts the spirits.  One suggestion: the classic 1719 hymn by Issac Watts that paraphrases Psalm 90, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.”

JOB EVALUATION (v. 17)

Employment typically involves a regular “evaluation,” in which a superior tells the employee what’s been done well and what needs improvement. The “evaluation” of our whole lives is still ahead, and will take place in Heaven before God. The psalm ends with a reminder that life is so short that we dare not throw away our skills and opportunities, particularly those which draw others to the Lord Jesus. Moses concludes:
May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands.
The word “favor” in Hebrew is noam, which also translates “beauty” or “delight.” Derek Kidner, known for the Hebrew scholarship in his commentaries, preferred “delight.”

God, who crafted us--weak humans that we are--does delight in seeing us do what He originally intended, and that’s to bring Him glory through the skills He gave us. Doing so will lead, at the end of this short life, to the “well done” from the Master (Matthew 25:21, 23). As often said, we’re saved not just to “get to heaven,” but to serve well until we get there. Or, as Ray Waddle remarked in

A Turbulent Peace (Upper Room, 2003, p. 110): “Knowing the inevitability of death brings zest to life.” Time’s short: live it for God. One life: live it right.

Next; Psalm 91

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.