No Constants on My Horizon But God

I recently wrote the following to a friend in response to their newsletter. It states things perhaps as clearly as I have communicated them so I thought I would share it here. It is the beginnings, I think for an article or message on dealing with the struggles of this time--our troubled economy, joblessness, foreclosures, bankruptcies, and fears of all descriptions.

I especially resonated with the last note from you. Lately I have been feeling the same way. Everything in life is changing and I feel I understand the Israelites in their desert wandering and complaining more and more. The impermanence of their existence, never having a clue what tomorrow brings, is a state which seems similar to your path and to mine.

For a long time I rather envied that they had the cloud as a visible reminder of God's presence and direction, but I have started thinking how much better off we are. They could not hear their God, he spoke to them through intermediaries. Sure they saw a representation of his presence all the time, but they did not know him on a personal level. So we are able to hear from God personally, and while it seems that some have a stable even-keeled life, we are not those people. We do not have that. In fact I can think of few people in Scripture who, in following after God and being called by him, had that stable life.

It seems to me, and I'm no theologian, that God takes his people--the one's I call God's Guys and God's Gals, and the paths he sets them on are defined by requiring dependence on Him and Him alone.

One further word...the speaker on Sunday said something I had never thought of before. He was talking about our misplaced devotion to stuff, and talked about Paul learning to be content in whatever state he is in, whether in poverty or in want. He pointed out that Paul LEARNED this. I take comfort in that. It appears that I am in the School of Contentment--I think I've reached college, but the finals are awful. It's the practicums that are messing with my GPA if you know what I mean. It isn't necessarily finances that we have to deal with in the area of contentment, though that is part of it, for me it is that wandering feeling, when there are no constants on my horizon but God.

The walks of God's Guys and God's Gals are the stuff of legend. They make great epic tales. Epic tales are hard to live through, however. You all are in an epic tale of your own. "We went to start a school in Thailand..." may be the first sentence of your narrative, much like "I had a farm in Africa..." (Out of Africa) and mine may be "Whatever it takes." I prayed... And thus our stories begin in seemingly simple ways, but the telling of them involves much chaos and suffering and sorrow, but then the tales of God's Guys and Gals have always been this way. I take comfort in that.

May you breeze through your school of contentment more easily than I with no repeat classes.

Battle

I have no time for tears,
but tears have time for me.
No patience for depression
but depression waits for me.
Desolation fights with consolation
hope with fear embattled
How fearsome are the battles,
But Trust and Faith prevail
Doubt and Fear to Faith must yield
And Joy defeat despair.
Is it a wonder I fall to bed
as if from labor taking flight?
For I do little each and every day
but fight this inward fight.

A Word From Moses

I will proclaim the name of the LORD. Oh, praise the greatness of our God! He is the Rock. his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he. Deuteronomy 32: 3-4 (NIV)

Words from Afar

Thanks to my friends who reminded me today that God has not changed. God is a good God, by definition. His character is good. Do we then understand what happens? Should I agonize over the sad and painful things in life, the things that don't make sense? No. I need to cling to the cross. It is my proof of the goodness of God. When all looks false, dim, dull, and dark, the cross is my evidence of things hoped for. It is the evidence of things not seen.

The tradition I grew up in denied the importance of the cross, forbidding the cross displayed in the sanctuary. The empty grave, they said, that is what matters. That is what we focus on. I hope I am not mis-stating their position. They taught the cross, yet it was the empty tomb that they saw as all important. Yes the resurrection is important, but how many times is the cross mentioned? The cross is mentioned several times, and Paul mentioned the preaching of the cross, as he did the resurrection. You don't have one without the other. The preaching of the cross is foolishness to those who don't believe, but it is the power of God to those who believe.

I wonder...is the resurrection the evidence that the cross was sufficient?

The cross is evidence of the love of Christ. It is evidence of the plan of God to reconcile his children--me--to himself. It is the substance of my hope. I can't grasp the overwhelming wonder and goodness of this news. One of these days, hopefully soon, I want to grasp this enough to not be so thrown by the woundings of others, by circumstances, by tragedies, by fear.

Thank you to my friends for the needed reminder. Although I wouldn't say my faith has been shaken, I have been discouraged by circumstances. I have wondered, despite my trust, if God was going to allow some very bad things to happen, and if I was going to have to somehow assess the unthinkable as good.

I cannot understand this God. He can be known and yet is unknowable. We can understand things, yet not understand all. He is the ultimate mystery. His ways are beyond knowing. Some people with greater faith or minds less inclined to struggle through things do not have the great trials of faith that I have. Ultimately I believe certain things are true, but I have times when I really struggle to try to fit the pieces of who God is, how he has described himself and his ways together. Some of the pieces are incomprehensible to me, but that doesn't stop me from trying to grasp them.

I don't get shaken in the same way anymore, but I go through periods of grief, struggling to deal with or understand trials. Perhaps it is because I simply don't have a real grasp on the truth of the cross and of the resurrection.

Rainy Day

The world sounds wet today
Soggy, foggy, boggy
Dripping, slipping
Sun is somewhere far away

I am somewhere far away
In Maine, in a plane, on a train
Laughing, playing
Words are showing me the way

After Home

I did not know when I left
that it was the last
I thought I was saying see you later
not, Goodbye, so long, farewell.
I am broken up. Defenseless
against the onslaught of
wounded dreams
broken hopes.
Like my breath is gone
caught short
unexpectedly
a hit from behind
and I'm flat on my face
with my nose in the dirt
figuratively speaking
but numb, out of sorts
adrift

Open Bible Church

Today I punched in the address of another church into my GPS unit, SeanSean, this time on the far side of Baltimore. Down 95, the roadside looks like a forest exploding. Then heading further toward the harbor, the forest is gone, replaced by concrete, bricks and asphalt, the concrete crumbling and the metal girders on the overpasses bubbled and wasting from moisture. The humid summers and the wet, frigid winters are rough on much of the materials of building. The bricks and rock hold up well, but the other materials of modern life buckle, crack, rust and crumble, so that the area I'm driving through looks run-down and neglected. On my GPS unit, the roads in that area are a tangle that I cannot make sense of, this highway, that exit, the beltway, the tunnel roads, a glance at the screen and it appears that I'm driving on a single strand of a cable, whose wires twist and turn and head off in all directions.

Hurtling down the road at 62 miles an hour (the speed limit is 55), traffic passes me in all lanes, the grills of big ominous looking cars bearing down in my rear view mirror before suddenly veering off to go around me. Through the long Harbor Tunnel, whose entrance always takes me by surprise as I expect to see the harbor before entry, and then back into sunlight again. The huge cranes are off to my right, indicating the docks where huge ocean-going ships unload their cargo. I can't see the docks, or the ships that should be docked there, but there is in me a longing for all of that. The industry of it all is appealing, and in a strangely working-class way is romantic. Perhaps it is the size of it all. The shipping containers are huge, the cranes are enormous, the ships are giant, and yet are dwarfed by the sea.

This is an industrial area, but I am through it in a flash, and the flat ground seems even flatter. Green and brown flashes of water, rivers of one name or another, with no visible shore, then a wide reed swamp stretching on both sides of the motorway, and before long SeanSean indicates that it is time to leave and a turn here, a turn there and SeanSean tells me I have reached my destination and it is time to “Sing for Scotland.” I look around trying to find a building that might house the church. I am stumped, but decide to drive around to the back of some of the small buildings. A small sign indicates that I have arrived.

It is a lovely old building, with beautiful wide-plank wood floors and nice moldings. Although it's age shows, it has been maintained well, so it is aging gracefully. The church meets in a small room, that perhaps seats 60 or 70 people at best. Pretty white folding chairs and lovely window treatments that are reminiscent of Ralph Lauren Home.

Upon walking in I am immediately greeted. I turn and Sean is there. He seems like a very nice man, but I can't reconcile my memory of the gawky, nerdy teenager with this nice, confident grown man. I would never have recognized him at all.

I don't think there is more than one or two people in the entire church who do not introduce themselves to me in the course of the morning. There are a few incongruities. On the table in the entry is a computer system where people log in their attendance as they arrive, and there is a nice sound system, and a table of sound equipment, though the church seems to have only about 30 people in attendance.

The pastor is, apparently, a counselor of some kind for his primary profession, as his sermon is laced with statements about counseling people and references to his practice. He is also evangelical about home-schooling and his sermon on Ephesians 6, “children obey your parents in the Lord”, “honor your parents” and “Father's do not exasperate your children” is filled with exhortations to home school, for mothers to be stay-at-home moms, and for the Fathers to be in command at home. He speaks of honoring parents as “extolling their virtues” as well as caring for them financially.

All in all it is a strange and difficult place. Everyone is so friendly, something my heart has longed for, but then the sermon is so rigid and goes over the line as far as scripture goes. Scripture doesn't teach home schooling. It doesn't even command women not to work. But this is not the first pastor to speak as if it does.

Bill Gothard makes these kind of sweeping statements and thus goes from someone to whom I could listen to someone I completely tune out. We have to be very clear when teaching or preaching that we don't make our ideas out to be “thus saith the Lord” kind of statements. I may think it is a good idea to wash the dishes after each meal, but it isn't a “Thus saith the Lord” command, so I shouldn't make it one.

Bringing up a child in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord” does not proscribe home schooling or private schooling. I'm not sure I understand where honoring your parents becomes “extolling their virtues”.

But maybe he was talking about his preferences, rather than a scriptural mandate, and I just missed it.

Sean's wife, Jan, rode with me to help me find the Quiznos where we all had lunch. She's a very nice friendly, talkative woman who I like immediately. Sean has four very nice, well-behaved kids who seem to get along. The oldest is heading off to college in a couple of weeks, and the family is both proud and sad. Jan knows another old friend of mine from her college days, so that is another connection.

I'm invited back next week, and I'm torn. The good points: everyone was very friendly, and I enjoyed spending time with Sean and his family. They did preach from scripture, apparently going chapter by chapter, not topically as seems to be the standard for a lot of churches today. The bad points: it's a long drive, and the rabid home-schooling thing. I've got nothing against home-schooling, but it is A way to raise and teach your children, not THE way. I wonder if that is a common theme.

Absolutely overcome by heat while taking the dog out. Is it the heat and humidity or is it hot flashes? I feel and look ill as I wrap an ice filled towel around my neck, trying to get comfortable. Seems to take forever to cool down. Even the dog seems affected. She can't stop panting until given a cold bath.

The damp has my joints aching like crazy. I am forced to take massive doses of ibuprofen to keep moving, which has my stomach on fire. I wonder what the solution is. Lord, please heal me or get me somewhere with a drier climate.