I prayed and prayed and prayed.
That's right, I prayed three times about it. It was important to me. You'd have thought it'd be important to God, since it's interfering with my ministry!
And He had the gall to say "No."
Not just "no," but "No; I'm enough for you."
Like He's got a whole world to run that's more important than helping me, His number one guy, reach all of the Mediterranean coastal cities with the message of His Son!
Like it's not really a thorn in the flesh! Like it doesn't hurt, and I mean all the time!
Look, I know other people are hurting too. I've seen it. I've seen them healed. Do they go off preaching all over the known world?
Don't quote me that stuff about Elisha dying of some disease he couldn't heal after he raised a boy from the dead and fed a good-sized crowd from a snack. Don't remind me about those folks making fun of the Savior, saying "He can't save Himself!" I don't want to hear it. I hurt. And do I get any sympathy?
No; He says "I'm enough for you."
Of all the cheek.
Who does He think He is?
God?
~ the apostle Paul - after accidentally missing a daily dose of grace - in the apocryphal book The Gospel According to Me
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
I Was Humbled This Morning
You see, there's this fellow I see jogging almost every morning on my way to work. I see lots of people jogging along my short commute; apparently they haven't received the message that the eighties are over.
But this fellow is different. He's a big, tanned, strapping Nordic- or Germanic-looking guy with bulging muscles from his neck down to his knee-high sweat socks and he has short, dark blond hair styled in an almost-military cut. He has a serious running face on when he runs.
And he runs like a girl in a tight formal and high heels.
Now, I have to confess that I have derived a bit of amusement from this - especially since I am 16 pounds overweight, get winded just going up my stairway at home, have bowed legs, and have never enjoyed running. (Although I owe quite a bit to a kind track coach in junior high school who couldn't remember my name but took the time to help me learn to walk and run pointing my toes out slightly so it didn't hurt so much and looked more normal.)
So for some time, I have stolen a secret smile on my way to work at the sight of Nordic Guy, arms close to his chest, plodding with tiny though powerful strides that must require twice the effort in a run because they are only half normal-length. A smug smile. A smile of judgment on those who must be addicted to their own endorphins. A smile of superior lethargy.
Until this morning.
This morning, he was not wearing the artificial leg that I have evidently never noticed before. He was just wearing the peg from the severed knee down.
A lump caught in my throat. And I thought about what Jesus said: "You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one."
Tomorrow, if I am blessed to see him again, I will smile a smile of deep and humble joy at a man who runs when many others in the same circumstance would give up on walking.
And I just might run a few laps, myself.
- Toes out, of course.
But this fellow is different. He's a big, tanned, strapping Nordic- or Germanic-looking guy with bulging muscles from his neck down to his knee-high sweat socks and he has short, dark blond hair styled in an almost-military cut. He has a serious running face on when he runs.
And he runs like a girl in a tight formal and high heels.
Now, I have to confess that I have derived a bit of amusement from this - especially since I am 16 pounds overweight, get winded just going up my stairway at home, have bowed legs, and have never enjoyed running. (Although I owe quite a bit to a kind track coach in junior high school who couldn't remember my name but took the time to help me learn to walk and run pointing my toes out slightly so it didn't hurt so much and looked more normal.)
So for some time, I have stolen a secret smile on my way to work at the sight of Nordic Guy, arms close to his chest, plodding with tiny though powerful strides that must require twice the effort in a run because they are only half normal-length. A smug smile. A smile of judgment on those who must be addicted to their own endorphins. A smile of superior lethargy.
Until this morning.
This morning, he was not wearing the artificial leg that I have evidently never noticed before. He was just wearing the peg from the severed knee down.
A lump caught in my throat. And I thought about what Jesus said: "You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one."
Tomorrow, if I am blessed to see him again, I will smile a smile of deep and humble joy at a man who runs when many others in the same circumstance would give up on walking.
And I just might run a few laps, myself.
- Toes out, of course.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
The Carpenter's Table
There's a place for the weak and the strong
There's a place for disabled and able
There's a place for old and the young
There's a place at the Carpenter's Table.
There the rich are seen feeding the poor
And the blind set a place for the sighted
Not a soul is too full or needs more
Not a one feels rejected or slighted.
For the Carpenter's Table runs long
From the east to the west it embraces
Everyone who is drawn to its Song
Of redemption for all of man's races.
It's a Song about working the wood
About smoothing and shaping the rough
About giving as much as one could
And a Carpenter giving enough.
Just before He was nailed to the planks
He would wash the feet of each good friend
Then would serve them a meal and give thanks
For a body and blood without end.
He would give them His Song and His Spirit
He would build them together like timber
Each new friend would be drawn when they hear it
To a table where they could remember.
For each soul who's had right hewn from wrong
For each one who gives all he is able
For each friend who will sing out the Song
There's a place at the Carpenter's Table.
©2006 W. Keith Brenton
There's a place for disabled and able
There's a place for old and the young
There's a place at the Carpenter's Table.
There the rich are seen feeding the poor
And the blind set a place for the sighted
Not a soul is too full or needs more
Not a one feels rejected or slighted.
For the Carpenter's Table runs long
From the east to the west it embraces
Everyone who is drawn to its Song
Of redemption for all of man's races.
It's a Song about working the wood
About smoothing and shaping the rough
About giving as much as one could
And a Carpenter giving enough.
Just before He was nailed to the planks
He would wash the feet of each good friend
Then would serve them a meal and give thanks
For a body and blood without end.
He would give them His Song and His Spirit
He would build them together like timber
Each new friend would be drawn when they hear it
To a table where they could remember.
For each soul who's had right hewn from wrong
For each one who gives all he is able
For each friend who will sing out the Song
There's a place at the Carpenter's Table.
©2006 W. Keith Brenton
Saturday, July 22, 2006
I Don't Understand Politics
Don't misunderstand me: I think it's great that President Bush finally spoke to the NAACP. I think it's wonderful that he spoke in support of renewing the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
But can someone please explain to why in the very name of sanity itself the 1965 Voting Rights Act has to be renewed?
Is a certain segment of America's citizenry on probation, and if they behave well, they'll retain their constitutional privilege to vote?
Why was it written to be reviewed, adjusted, tweaked and renewed periodically?
Why couldn't they get it right the first time?
I don't understand politics.
But can someone please explain to why in the very name of sanity itself the 1965 Voting Rights Act has to be renewed?
Is a certain segment of America's citizenry on probation, and if they behave well, they'll retain their constitutional privilege to vote?
Why was it written to be reviewed, adjusted, tweaked and renewed periodically?
Why couldn't they get it right the first time?
I don't understand politics.
Monday, July 17, 2006
How Do You Tell Mom Goodbye?
When I returned home to my wife and daughter from a ZOE Group/New Wineskins strategy meeting in Nashville a few hours ago, they told me that my 13-year-old boy Matthew seemed reticent to bid them goodbye at the end of their laundry-doing visit at Camp Tahkodah yesterday afternoon.
It's an odd coincidence. On the way to meet them in my car, I had been wondering how the conversation might have gone between Jesus and Mary before He went out into the wilderness to be baptized by His cousin, John; to fast right up to the brink of starvation; to be taunted by Satan himself; and to begin his ministry by choosing twelve no-accounts to finish the work he would start.
Did He hesitate like my Matt did yesterday? Had Jesus prepared his mother for that day when He would leave the carpentry shop? Did He tell her that James and Joses were old enough to take it over? Did He tell her He had to go? That His heart would burst if He had to wait another day?
Did she force a smile and say, "I know"?
Did she promise to check in on Him when she could?
Did she send a lunch with Him?
Did He caution her that when they met up again He would have another, larger family; that there would be other mothers and brothers and sisters?
Did she reassure Him that she would be all right; that His Father would take care of her? Did she suddenly remember those fateful words of prophecy from the old priest at the Temple on the day she took Him to be circumcised? That a sword would pierce her own soul, too? Did she, trembling, tell Him to be careful?
Did He tell her that His Father would take care of Him, but in a way she could not possibly imagine?
Did she tell Him what every mother tells a departing son: "Remember how much I love you. I will always be there for you"?
Sometimes I wish there were more of those moments described in scripture.
Then again, maybe some of them are too private to share.
It's an odd coincidence. On the way to meet them in my car, I had been wondering how the conversation might have gone between Jesus and Mary before He went out into the wilderness to be baptized by His cousin, John; to fast right up to the brink of starvation; to be taunted by Satan himself; and to begin his ministry by choosing twelve no-accounts to finish the work he would start.
Did He hesitate like my Matt did yesterday? Had Jesus prepared his mother for that day when He would leave the carpentry shop? Did He tell her that James and Joses were old enough to take it over? Did He tell her He had to go? That His heart would burst if He had to wait another day?
Did she force a smile and say, "I know"?
Did she promise to check in on Him when she could?
Did she send a lunch with Him?
Did He caution her that when they met up again He would have another, larger family; that there would be other mothers and brothers and sisters?
Did she reassure Him that she would be all right; that His Father would take care of her? Did she suddenly remember those fateful words of prophecy from the old priest at the Temple on the day she took Him to be circumcised? That a sword would pierce her own soul, too? Did she, trembling, tell Him to be careful?
Did He tell her that His Father would take care of Him, but in a way she could not possibly imagine?
Did she tell Him what every mother tells a departing son: "Remember how much I love you. I will always be there for you"?
Sometimes I wish there were more of those moments described in scripture.
Then again, maybe some of them are too private to share.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
How Do You See God?
Well, there's an odd question. He's invisible, most of the time. Except for the odd appearance to Moses and/or the leaders of Israel way back when.
I would have asked, "How do you imagine God?" or "How do you picture God?" but I was trying to get away from a visual-only picture. I want to ask about His character.
Do you see God as a kind of angry, vengeful deity - like the cartoon Vulcan/Zeus of the "Pastoral Symphony" segment of Fantasia, ready to throw down lightning bolts of doom at the slightest - or no particular - provocation? Just because He can do it?
Do you see Him as the sort of deity who would withhold information from you and then penalize you forever because you didn't know or understand it? Would he require you to do things - or do them a certain way - without telling you about it? Would God obliterate you for offering strange or unauthorized fire without warning you against it first?
- By the way, I don't think that's the case with Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10). First of all, they weren't to be the ones handling the incense; that was for their father Aaron (Exodus 30), and before him, Moses (Exodus 40) - and at the altar of incense inside the holy place, in front of the curtain hiding the most holy place. It would seem from v. 4 that Aaron's disobedient sons died outside the tabernacle, in front of the sanctuary - and in full view of the people who had just seen the glory of the Lord.
Secondly, there were commands against using the holy incense for personal use, whenever you wanted to (Exodus 30:37). Later on, King Uzziah's violation of these commands would be punished by leprosy (2 Chronicles 26:16-21).
Thirdly, fire had just come out from the presence of the Lord - I assume that refers to the Shekinah seated on the throne of the covenantal ark in the Most Holy Place of the temple ... would you stand between it and the altar waving censers of holy incense that only your dad was permitted to use? [Some time later, Korah's kinfolk would be obliterated for being presumptuous enough to wave their censers, along with several thousand of their followers. (Numbers 16).]
Fourth, they offered their fire "before the LORD, contrary to his command." (Leviticus 10:1). No mystery there: no example forbidding it, no inference - necessary or otherwise - against it; but a command. Pretty clear. It is right there in the instructions God gave Moses four chapters previously to give to Aaron and his sons that they were not to let the fire of the altar go out, under any circumstances (6:12-13). Think about that for a moment. For what other reason would Nadab and Abihu have brought fire to the altar of sacrifice outside - strange, unauthorized ... or not? Especially after God lit the fire Himself (in the last verse of the previous chapter, 9:24). Do you bring fire to light a fire where a fire's already been lit?
Finally, there's at least a hint that Nadab and Abihu's judgment might have been altered by alcohol, about which God issues an instruction to Aaron while the image of the smouldering remains of those two sons is still fresh in his mind. That instruction would be incongruously cruel if it were not immediately relevant to the situation ... an instruction about something that, like the sacrifice of babies to Him much later in the Old Testament (Jeremiah 7:31), might not have entered God's mind because He thought His children would use better judgment. But it's not like He hadn't given them any instructions. So let's just lay that "Nadab and Abihu" metaphor to rest when describing people who want to worship differently in violation of some possible unexpressed command of God, okay? Aaron's boys should have known better. The rules were in place. It was too important to mess up, especially by partying the night before.) And if the teaching God intended to impart to all generations was "Don't do anything I haven't specifically told you to do - especially in gathered worship," then the logical place for that to be explicitly stated would be verses 8-11. Instead, we read this:
It was evidently widely understood that God intended for the entire assembly - not just the priests - to fast from wine (Deuteronomy 29:2-6) while they wandered the entire forty years that God provided water from rocks and manna from heaven (Exodus 16:34-35).
To me, there's a strong likelihood that a whole passel of specific commands of God have been nose-thumbed by the actions of Nadab and Abihu.
So can you really see God judging and eternally condemning people without letting them in on all the rules first? He is sovereign, of course; I'm not saying that He couldn't do whatever He wanted to ... if it were in His nature; His character.
If you still "see" Him exclusively that way, please consider this bit of insight: Psalm 103.
I would have asked, "How do you imagine God?" or "How do you picture God?" but I was trying to get away from a visual-only picture. I want to ask about His character.
Do you see God as a kind of angry, vengeful deity - like the cartoon Vulcan/Zeus of the "Pastoral Symphony" segment of Fantasia, ready to throw down lightning bolts of doom at the slightest - or no particular - provocation? Just because He can do it?
Do you see Him as the sort of deity who would withhold information from you and then penalize you forever because you didn't know or understand it? Would he require you to do things - or do them a certain way - without telling you about it? Would God obliterate you for offering strange or unauthorized fire without warning you against it first?
- By the way, I don't think that's the case with Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10). First of all, they weren't to be the ones handling the incense; that was for their father Aaron (Exodus 30), and before him, Moses (Exodus 40) - and at the altar of incense inside the holy place, in front of the curtain hiding the most holy place. It would seem from v. 4 that Aaron's disobedient sons died outside the tabernacle, in front of the sanctuary - and in full view of the people who had just seen the glory of the Lord.
Secondly, there were commands against using the holy incense for personal use, whenever you wanted to (Exodus 30:37). Later on, King Uzziah's violation of these commands would be punished by leprosy (2 Chronicles 26:16-21).
Thirdly, fire had just come out from the presence of the Lord - I assume that refers to the Shekinah seated on the throne of the covenantal ark in the Most Holy Place of the temple ... would you stand between it and the altar waving censers of holy incense that only your dad was permitted to use? [Some time later, Korah's kinfolk would be obliterated for being presumptuous enough to wave their censers, along with several thousand of their followers. (Numbers 16).]
Fourth, they offered their fire "before the LORD, contrary to his command." (Leviticus 10:1). No mystery there: no example forbidding it, no inference - necessary or otherwise - against it; but a command. Pretty clear. It is right there in the instructions God gave Moses four chapters previously to give to Aaron and his sons that they were not to let the fire of the altar go out, under any circumstances (6:12-13). Think about that for a moment. For what other reason would Nadab and Abihu have brought fire to the altar of sacrifice outside - strange, unauthorized ... or not? Especially after God lit the fire Himself (in the last verse of the previous chapter, 9:24). Do you bring fire to light a fire where a fire's already been lit?
Finally, there's at least a hint that Nadab and Abihu's judgment might have been altered by alcohol, about which God issues an instruction to Aaron while the image of the smouldering remains of those two sons is still fresh in his mind. That instruction would be incongruously cruel if it were not immediately relevant to the situation ... an instruction about something that, like the sacrifice of babies to Him much later in the Old Testament (Jeremiah 7:31), might not have entered God's mind because He thought His children would use better judgment. But it's not like He hadn't given them any instructions. So let's just lay that "Nadab and Abihu" metaphor to rest when describing people who want to worship differently in violation of some possible unexpressed command of God, okay? Aaron's boys should have known better. The rules were in place. It was too important to mess up, especially by partying the night before.) And if the teaching God intended to impart to all generations was "Don't do anything I haven't specifically told you to do - especially in gathered worship," then the logical place for that to be explicitly stated would be verses 8-11. Instead, we read this:
Then the LORD said to Aaron, "You and your sons are not to drink wine or other fermented drink whenever you go into the Tent of Meeting, or you will die. This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. You must distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean, and you must teach the Israelites all the decrees the LORD has given them through Moses." ~ Leviticus 10:8-11
It was evidently widely understood that God intended for the entire assembly - not just the priests - to fast from wine (Deuteronomy 29:2-6) while they wandered the entire forty years that God provided water from rocks and manna from heaven (Exodus 16:34-35).
To me, there's a strong likelihood that a whole passel of specific commands of God have been nose-thumbed by the actions of Nadab and Abihu.
So can you really see God judging and eternally condemning people without letting them in on all the rules first? He is sovereign, of course; I'm not saying that He couldn't do whatever He wanted to ... if it were in His nature; His character.
If you still "see" Him exclusively that way, please consider this bit of insight: Psalm 103.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Onesimus
This was the start of what I had hoped would be a longer set of verses, but it didn't happen. I just didn't perceive a direction to take from here:
Paul:
I'm in chains, bound to You, Lord
with a 'son' who slaves for me
I return him to his master
Set him free
Onesimus:
I ran away from a brother
who has always enslaved me
now my 'father' sends me to him
Set me free
Philemon:
I once owned this useless one
who now bows and offers me
a plea from my dear brother
to set him free
Break me now, break me always
when my heart's too hard to see
that I'm the point of grace
Lord, set me free
Help me out with this, will y'all?
Paul:
I'm in chains, bound to You, Lord
with a 'son' who slaves for me
I return him to his master
Set him free
Onesimus:
I ran away from a brother
who has always enslaved me
now my 'father' sends me to him
Set me free
Philemon:
I once owned this useless one
who now bows and offers me
a plea from my dear brother
to set him free
Break me now, break me always
when my heart's too hard to see
that I'm the point of grace
Lord, set me free
"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." ~ Galatians 5:1
Help me out with this, will y'all?
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Father, May I?
There's a way of looking at scripture that insists its purpose is to authorize or condemn every possible course of action under the sun; that all the rules and instructions are there, and are all perfectly understandable to everyone who sincerely seeks them.
It sounds really attractive - like the Bible can be subtitled Your Complete and Foolproof Instruction Book for Every Aspect of Life ... The 'For Dummies' Edition! - if that's the way you want to view it.
I have trouble limiting the Bible to that role or subtitle.
That view makes life really just a child's game of "Father, May I?" whenever we encounter a question about something we might want to do or not do; to say or not say. You just open the book, search around a little, and WOW! Sure, enough! There's the answer on page 728b!
So you spend your life trying to get permission; trying never to do the wrong thing; trying to be perfect - then hitting the wall when you realize deep down that you're failing miserably, because there was only One of those perfect guys - and finally either spending the remainder of your days depressed and purposeless, or lying to yourself that you have achieved perfection and followed all the rules. Or perhaps alternating schizophrenically between them.
Your whole life is a monotonous chain of questions.
Father, may I smoke? Father, may I drink? Father, may I drink if I don't get drunk? Father, may I clap in church? Father, may I give to a church-related cooperative organization that feeds starving orphans and widows? Father, may I worship in public with instrumental music? In private? In private without actually worshiping? Can I just listen to it?
There would be a problem for some people if they started perceiving answers from Him in what they were taught scripture said, like "No! I don't like clapping anymore. I'm not sure I ever liked it in the Old Testament worship plan. Or musical instruments, either. Maybe we'll have some harps and trumpets in heaven later. But not right now. I don't feel like it."
I would be one of those people.
And the real problem isn't in any of the answers that you might find - some of which may sometimes seem contradictory even to the sincerest of Biblical pupils - but with the questions:
"Father, may I?"
Why should anyone feel obligated to search scripture up and down, backwards and forwards; to fast and pray and beg of God for permission to do something good? Shouldn't our questions be more directed to the welfare and benefit of others? Don't we already, deep-down, have a pretty good idea what pleases God and what really, really ticks Him off just from reading the stories about the people in scripture who sought His heart - or did everything in their power to oppose Him and glorify themselves?
Is the primary purpose of the Bible to keep God in a job of constantly-pestered Father, constantly dispensing permission and authority through His word to men so they can do (or not do) whatever thing they're asking about? Or to empower people to do the good they create in His likeness, by relieving them from the constraint of guilt and sin and doubt and self-centeredness by revealing the selfless sacrifice of Jesus, the Christ?
Now don't misquote me. Of course there are things that are word-for-word prohibited in scripture, and things that are word-for-word authorized. There are things that are commanded. There are also things that are suggested. There are things that are recommended, and some recommended against. There are some good examples. There are some really bad examples. There are some inferences you can make; some of them necessary and some of them downright absurd. And there are a whole passel of things that are left up to each and every one of us to figure out for ourselves, to help us mature our own consciences, to assist in building our own relationship with God through His Son and His Spirit.
No one else can authoritatively decide them for us. Their pronouncements wouldn't help us grow individually or communally, or help us struggle for ourselves, or for own our own answers.
Because all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus. Not to men. Not to a book. Not even the Bible. Nothing in it says that He redistributed it in any measure, except to his apostles to do good things for others - cast out demons; heal the sick. The authority is His. He judges. He decides. And if all the books in the world could not contain what could be written of Him, then they certainly couldn't contain precisely detailed legislation for every conceivable situation or desire or question that confronts us.
That's not what the Bible was primarily designed to be, just: The Book of Rules.
It was written to be The Book of God and Man, Reunited Through Jesus.
We can trust Him. We can trust Him to be both righteous and loving; merciful and just. We don't have to waste our entire lives asking questions. We do good. We can become better. He will help us.
He didn't let us down on the cross. And He won't let us down now.
The Bible is not so much about permission so we will all live spotless lives as it is about forgiveness, because we can't.
It's been that way since the beginning. It'll always be that way. It's the way we were made: perfect, but gifted with choice - and imperfect by choice.
Of course we need rules. We also need guidelines. We need boundaries. And we need freedom. We were never meant to be creatures of only one-or-the-other.
If we are created in God's image, don't you think He hopes we will imitate His own creativity? Innovating new ways to touch the lives around us with His love? Pioneering new expressions of our love for Him? Trying things we've never dared to try before, and growing in courage because we try; perhaps even succeeding in persuading souls that we've never been able to touch or reach before?
Or do you think He'd prefer that we all huddle together in rubber-stamped unity and agree on a set of minimum daily adult requirements for moral and acceptable Christian living; making it as difficult as possible to prove one's devotion through the strictest, narrowest interpretations imposed upon each new Christian; condemning to hell all those who would dare to disagree with the interpretation we have legislated for all time and all mankind in our perfect and divine wisdom and Bible-given authority?
It sounds really attractive - like the Bible can be subtitled Your Complete and Foolproof Instruction Book for Every Aspect of Life ... The 'For Dummies' Edition! - if that's the way you want to view it.
I have trouble limiting the Bible to that role or subtitle.
That view makes life really just a child's game of "Father, May I?" whenever we encounter a question about something we might want to do or not do; to say or not say. You just open the book, search around a little, and WOW! Sure, enough! There's the answer on page 728b!
So you spend your life trying to get permission; trying never to do the wrong thing; trying to be perfect - then hitting the wall when you realize deep down that you're failing miserably, because there was only One of those perfect guys - and finally either spending the remainder of your days depressed and purposeless, or lying to yourself that you have achieved perfection and followed all the rules. Or perhaps alternating schizophrenically between them.
Your whole life is a monotonous chain of questions.
Father, may I smoke? Father, may I drink? Father, may I drink if I don't get drunk? Father, may I clap in church? Father, may I give to a church-related cooperative organization that feeds starving orphans and widows? Father, may I worship in public with instrumental music? In private? In private without actually worshiping? Can I just listen to it?
There would be a problem for some people if they started perceiving answers from Him in what they were taught scripture said, like "No! I don't like clapping anymore. I'm not sure I ever liked it in the Old Testament worship plan. Or musical instruments, either. Maybe we'll have some harps and trumpets in heaven later. But not right now. I don't feel like it."
I would be one of those people.
And the real problem isn't in any of the answers that you might find - some of which may sometimes seem contradictory even to the sincerest of Biblical pupils - but with the questions:
"Father, may I?"
Why should anyone feel obligated to search scripture up and down, backwards and forwards; to fast and pray and beg of God for permission to do something good? Shouldn't our questions be more directed to the welfare and benefit of others? Don't we already, deep-down, have a pretty good idea what pleases God and what really, really ticks Him off just from reading the stories about the people in scripture who sought His heart - or did everything in their power to oppose Him and glorify themselves?
Is the primary purpose of the Bible to keep God in a job of constantly-pestered Father, constantly dispensing permission and authority through His word to men so they can do (or not do) whatever thing they're asking about? Or to empower people to do the good they create in His likeness, by relieving them from the constraint of guilt and sin and doubt and self-centeredness by revealing the selfless sacrifice of Jesus, the Christ?
Now don't misquote me. Of course there are things that are word-for-word prohibited in scripture, and things that are word-for-word authorized. There are things that are commanded. There are also things that are suggested. There are things that are recommended, and some recommended against. There are some good examples. There are some really bad examples. There are some inferences you can make; some of them necessary and some of them downright absurd. And there are a whole passel of things that are left up to each and every one of us to figure out for ourselves, to help us mature our own consciences, to assist in building our own relationship with God through His Son and His Spirit.
No one else can authoritatively decide them for us. Their pronouncements wouldn't help us grow individually or communally, or help us struggle for ourselves, or for own our own answers.
Because all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus. Not to men. Not to a book. Not even the Bible. Nothing in it says that He redistributed it in any measure, except to his apostles to do good things for others - cast out demons; heal the sick. The authority is His. He judges. He decides. And if all the books in the world could not contain what could be written of Him, then they certainly couldn't contain precisely detailed legislation for every conceivable situation or desire or question that confronts us.
That's not what the Bible was primarily designed to be, just: The Book of Rules.
It was written to be The Book of God and Man, Reunited Through Jesus.
We can trust Him. We can trust Him to be both righteous and loving; merciful and just. We don't have to waste our entire lives asking questions. We do good. We can become better. He will help us.
He didn't let us down on the cross. And He won't let us down now.
The Bible is not so much about permission so we will all live spotless lives as it is about forgiveness, because we can't.
It's been that way since the beginning. It'll always be that way. It's the way we were made: perfect, but gifted with choice - and imperfect by choice.
Of course we need rules. We also need guidelines. We need boundaries. And we need freedom. We were never meant to be creatures of only one-or-the-other.
If we are created in God's image, don't you think He hopes we will imitate His own creativity? Innovating new ways to touch the lives around us with His love? Pioneering new expressions of our love for Him? Trying things we've never dared to try before, and growing in courage because we try; perhaps even succeeding in persuading souls that we've never been able to touch or reach before?
Or do you think He'd prefer that we all huddle together in rubber-stamped unity and agree on a set of minimum daily adult requirements for moral and acceptable Christian living; making it as difficult as possible to prove one's devotion through the strictest, narrowest interpretations imposed upon each new Christian; condemning to hell all those who would dare to disagree with the interpretation we have legislated for all time and all mankind in our perfect and divine wisdom and Bible-given authority?
"... But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. .... (to teachers of the law and the Pharisees) You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are." (~ from Matthew 23)
Monday, July 10, 2006
Stop A Head
My older sister (by eight years) thought it was funny when the two of us kids sat in the back of mom and dad's car and it passed a "Stop Ahead" sign. She'd put out a hand on my forehead and push back gently. When I looked at her like she was crazy, she'd shrug, "Well, the sign said 'Stop A Head.'"
Yesterday we took 13-year-old Matthew to Camp Tahkodah, up that long gray Highway 67 ribbon from North Little Rock to Bald Knob, and as I passed exit 22 for the umpteenth time, I again relived one of the most bizarre episodes of my life - from thirty years before.
I was in college at Harding, and having the advantage of a huge 1968 Olds Ninety-Eight on loan from my dad, I'd drive my roomies and our occasional dates down to Little Rock from Searcy on the odd weekend. One was a bit more odd than the rest.
The Friday night before the anticipated Saturday morning trip, I awakened suddenly in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. I had just dreamed, very vividly, that I was barrelling down a highway and suddenly became aware of a car coming straight at mine. In the dream, I jammed my foot down hard on the brakes. In my sleep, I jammed my foot down hard on the end of the bunk and woke myself up.
My three roomies stirred at the banging sound - there were four of us in all in the suite (which we had made into a four-bunk bedroom separated by bath from the four-desk study lounge) - but they didn't awaken. I, however, didn't go back to sleep for quite a while.
In the morning, I almost couldn't remember the dream at all; I could only reliably recall having a really bad dream, maybe about cars.
So we gathered and breakfast, then piled into the Ninety-Eight and headed for Little Rock. The others were in pretty high spirits, and even though I was on my first date with a really cute lass with a gorgeous voice and short blond curls, my mood was kind of subdued.
We did the usual date things we were stuck with doing on the cheap back then: an inane movie and lunch at Casa Bonita (the earlier incarnation of the recently re-closed Casa Viva), squandered some time at some bookstores and some money at Farrell's ice cream parlour of McCain Mall and headed back for home pretty early, way before dark.
It hadn't been a banner date. I was not very communicative or attentive, let alone affectionate. I was just deeply troubled inside, and I didn't know why. One of my roommates insulted my date at lunch, and I had the presence of mind to kick his shins pretty hard under the table a few times until he apologized, but the slim likelihood that she would never go out with me again (or that I would ever ask her again) didn't have very much to do with my gloom.
For one thing, I was having one of those "deja vu" days, when you know good and well that everything happening to you could not possibly have already happened before, but you remember it anyway - just a second or two before it happens.
The others chatted and chided quietly, listening to the car radio while I silently drove them back hours before dorm curfew - having insisted like a cranky mother hen that everyone fasten their seat belts before we left - and we zoomed along at the legally-allowable speed of seventy miles per hour, until ...
... Exit 22. It's for the town of Ward. Going north on 67, you come around a little blind curve, with woods too close to the highway for you to see the exit or its sign coming clearly, and you happen upon a little rise in the highway right at the exit.
And, that day, we happened upon a car which had missed the exit and was backing up at full tilt up the rise to take it anyway - just as we crested the hill.
There wasn't even a half-second to brake - and I didn't try.
I swerved into the passing lane so fast that even a solid old horizontal Ninety-Eight had to beg me not to tip it over on its left wheels, so I swerved back into the right lane almost instantly, having left the idiot in the reversing car of doom far behind.
Then I put on the brakes. Fortunately - blessedly! - there had been no traffic in the passing lane. I certainly hadn't had time to look.
I went to the shoulder under the overpass at Exit 22 and pulled off. My arms were locked straight ahead, hands gripping the steering wheel for dear life.
"That's what I dreamed," I whispered. "That's what I dreamed last night and couldn't remember today. That's why I've been such a grouch all day today." I looked over at my date, squeezed between me and the roomie who had insulted her. Her eyes were wide behind her wire-rims. "I'm sorry," I said.
She just looked incredulous, and a little short of terrified. Pretty much like everyone else, as I looked around to check on the rest.
"It's okay," she managed.
So I put the old tank into gear, checked carefully behind, and eased back out onto 67.
I don't remember anyone in the car saying anything else all the rest of the way back to Searcy.
When you're twenty and you think your whole life is ahead of you, and it only takes two or three seconds to prove you could be incontrovertibly wrong about that, it takes some of the fun out of an evening together with your friends.
Of course, I wondered then as I wonder now: Did I get a warning in my sleep? A "stop a head" from God the night before? A heads-up that saved my life and the lives of my friends?
The couple in the back eventually married each other and had three kids. My insulting friend - long forgiven and still a crazy treasure of a pal - married and had three of his own. I haven't the slightest clue how many might belong to my poor, sweet date on that very strange day.
In the intervening years - through a painful divorce, the loss of the ability to father children of my own, the deaths of cherished family members and dear friends and some career hopes and countless other tiny setbacks - I have sometimes also wondered: If He did give me a sneak preview of the end that might have been, have I made His effort worthwhile in my own life?
Now when I remember my adopted two kids splashing together in the surf on our recent trip, their mom looking adoringly on - or see Laura and Matthew awkwardly saying goodbye to each other as we leave him at Camp Tahkodah, unable to avoid or do better than a quick hug, I have my answer.
He's made it worth my while.
In four days I celebrate birthday fifty-one. It's been quite a ride with Him so far. I'm inexpressibly grateful for the blessings He's sent to fill this old life of mine, and the years that He's added to it.
And maybe most of all, for the signs along the road to remind me that way out ahead - or closer than I think - it all comes to an end.
Yesterday we took 13-year-old Matthew to Camp Tahkodah, up that long gray Highway 67 ribbon from North Little Rock to Bald Knob, and as I passed exit 22 for the umpteenth time, I again relived one of the most bizarre episodes of my life - from thirty years before.
I was in college at Harding, and having the advantage of a huge 1968 Olds Ninety-Eight on loan from my dad, I'd drive my roomies and our occasional dates down to Little Rock from Searcy on the odd weekend. One was a bit more odd than the rest.
The Friday night before the anticipated Saturday morning trip, I awakened suddenly in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. I had just dreamed, very vividly, that I was barrelling down a highway and suddenly became aware of a car coming straight at mine. In the dream, I jammed my foot down hard on the brakes. In my sleep, I jammed my foot down hard on the end of the bunk and woke myself up.
My three roomies stirred at the banging sound - there were four of us in all in the suite (which we had made into a four-bunk bedroom separated by bath from the four-desk study lounge) - but they didn't awaken. I, however, didn't go back to sleep for quite a while.
In the morning, I almost couldn't remember the dream at all; I could only reliably recall having a really bad dream, maybe about cars.
So we gathered and breakfast, then piled into the Ninety-Eight and headed for Little Rock. The others were in pretty high spirits, and even though I was on my first date with a really cute lass with a gorgeous voice and short blond curls, my mood was kind of subdued.
We did the usual date things we were stuck with doing on the cheap back then: an inane movie and lunch at Casa Bonita (the earlier incarnation of the recently re-closed Casa Viva), squandered some time at some bookstores and some money at Farrell's ice cream parlour of McCain Mall and headed back for home pretty early, way before dark.
It hadn't been a banner date. I was not very communicative or attentive, let alone affectionate. I was just deeply troubled inside, and I didn't know why. One of my roommates insulted my date at lunch, and I had the presence of mind to kick his shins pretty hard under the table a few times until he apologized, but the slim likelihood that she would never go out with me again (or that I would ever ask her again) didn't have very much to do with my gloom.
For one thing, I was having one of those "deja vu" days, when you know good and well that everything happening to you could not possibly have already happened before, but you remember it anyway - just a second or two before it happens.
The others chatted and chided quietly, listening to the car radio while I silently drove them back hours before dorm curfew - having insisted like a cranky mother hen that everyone fasten their seat belts before we left - and we zoomed along at the legally-allowable speed of seventy miles per hour, until ...
... Exit 22. It's for the town of Ward. Going north on 67, you come around a little blind curve, with woods too close to the highway for you to see the exit or its sign coming clearly, and you happen upon a little rise in the highway right at the exit.
And, that day, we happened upon a car which had missed the exit and was backing up at full tilt up the rise to take it anyway - just as we crested the hill.
There wasn't even a half-second to brake - and I didn't try.
I swerved into the passing lane so fast that even a solid old horizontal Ninety-Eight had to beg me not to tip it over on its left wheels, so I swerved back into the right lane almost instantly, having left the idiot in the reversing car of doom far behind.
Then I put on the brakes. Fortunately - blessedly! - there had been no traffic in the passing lane. I certainly hadn't had time to look.
I went to the shoulder under the overpass at Exit 22 and pulled off. My arms were locked straight ahead, hands gripping the steering wheel for dear life.
"That's what I dreamed," I whispered. "That's what I dreamed last night and couldn't remember today. That's why I've been such a grouch all day today." I looked over at my date, squeezed between me and the roomie who had insulted her. Her eyes were wide behind her wire-rims. "I'm sorry," I said.
She just looked incredulous, and a little short of terrified. Pretty much like everyone else, as I looked around to check on the rest.
"It's okay," she managed.
So I put the old tank into gear, checked carefully behind, and eased back out onto 67.
I don't remember anyone in the car saying anything else all the rest of the way back to Searcy.
When you're twenty and you think your whole life is ahead of you, and it only takes two or three seconds to prove you could be incontrovertibly wrong about that, it takes some of the fun out of an evening together with your friends.
Of course, I wondered then as I wonder now: Did I get a warning in my sleep? A "stop a head" from God the night before? A heads-up that saved my life and the lives of my friends?
The couple in the back eventually married each other and had three kids. My insulting friend - long forgiven and still a crazy treasure of a pal - married and had three of his own. I haven't the slightest clue how many might belong to my poor, sweet date on that very strange day.
In the intervening years - through a painful divorce, the loss of the ability to father children of my own, the deaths of cherished family members and dear friends and some career hopes and countless other tiny setbacks - I have sometimes also wondered: If He did give me a sneak preview of the end that might have been, have I made His effort worthwhile in my own life?
Now when I remember my adopted two kids splashing together in the surf on our recent trip, their mom looking adoringly on - or see Laura and Matthew awkwardly saying goodbye to each other as we leave him at Camp Tahkodah, unable to avoid or do better than a quick hug, I have my answer.
He's made it worth my while.
In four days I celebrate birthday fifty-one. It's been quite a ride with Him so far. I'm inexpressibly grateful for the blessings He's sent to fill this old life of mine, and the years that He's added to it.
And maybe most of all, for the signs along the road to remind me that way out ahead - or closer than I think - it all comes to an end.
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