Temptation

Temptation.
It swirls around me like a hurricane
sending my intentions spinning into the blackened sky.

 

I hear the voice of God
I hear Him tell me what is good
Why can I not obey?
My consistency is that I fail to listen
My constant is that I continue to fall.

 

The ugly truth?
I don’t believe God.
I don’t believe Him when He tells me what is best.
If I believed, I would obey.
If I trusted in God’s goodness, His love, I would always do what He asks.

 

I would choose love instead of anger.
I would choose compassion rather than bitterness.
I would forgive instead of clinging to my grudge.
I would assume the best rather than enjoying my irritation.
I would think of others and forget about myself.

 

How can I obey,
how can I root out this ugliness that is deep inside my heart?
I cannot listen when I will not trust.

 

And yet I remember.
God is mercy and God is grace.
He changes hearts and He captures our gaze.
He is faithful if we ask;
His wisdom He delights to give.

 

Christ stayed in the wilderness
He faced down our sin
He trusted in God
Trusted God’s love and goodness
Christ conquered to make me a conqueror.

 

Grace.
It captures my heart and teaches me to trust
changing my nature so that I am now able to believe what God says
And obey.

If you are viewing this via email/in a reader, click here to view this video

Our Jealous God

The Bible is the Word of God.  It is God speaking to us, revealing Himself to us so that we can know Him, know how much He loves us and so that we can learn how to love Him in return.
Word of God
This Bible of ours is a beautiful book of love.  And there are parts of the Bible that are downright disturbing, parts that don’t adhere to our black and white notions of God.  We like to gloss over these, to skim over them so that we don’t have to think about them, but they just won’t go away.  There are parts of God’s Word that don’t fit the image we have of God.  They don’t fit the sort of God we want God to be.  Even God the Son does and says some absurd and strange things.  Like the cursing of the fig tree.  Who, for the love of God, would curse a tree because it is not bearing fruit in the winter?  How could that action possibly have been done for the love of God?
Another of these disturbing pieces is God as a jealous God.  We tend to think of jealousy as weak, as petty, as fear.  We think of it as wishing that we were and had what we are not and do not.  But God is in everything and by Him everything lives and moves and has its being.  How can both of these be true?
Unfocused
We don’t always get a resolution of the images of God that don’t fit, these pieces of God we can’t make sense of.  This one, though, has become clearer lately through reading Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris.  She speaks of the jealousy of God as mother love, as a lion or tiger protecting her young with passion and fierceness.  This jealousy of God is the kind of jealousy that protects her vulnerable children from all that would hurt them, from all that would steal their joy.
Ten Commandments
It makes sense, then, that one of the times this image of God is given to us is in the first of the Ten Commandments.  These commandments were meant to show us how much we need God, to teach us how life works and the way we will be most happy.  So if God is jealous to keep false gods away from us, it is the jealousy that wants to protect us from all that would harm our souls.
God’s jealousy allows us to trust Him.
Who, after all, would trust a God, a parent, spouse, or lover, who said to us, “I really love you, but I don’t care at all what you do or who you become.”?  ~  Kathleen Norris
It is resolutions like this, resolutions that show that what seems disturbing is all somehow out of love and holiness, resolutions that help us trust for the unknown, disquieting pieces.  They help us trust that God is holy and is love and is working to make all of us and all of this world into what it was created to be.
Perfect World
Resolutions like this help us trust that God is a jealous God, “who loves us enough to care when we stray.  And who has given us commandments to help us find the way home.”  ~ Kathleen Norris

Art Credit: Moses Smashing the Tablet of the Law by Rembrandt

Using Science

I have wondered before in this space, wondered why science and our faith seem always to be at such odds. I have lamented the idea that fear is driving the Christian’s response to science and therefore is driving many intelligent people away from our faith and our churches.
DNA
What I did not address in my previous musings is how it seems that every time there is a new scientific discovery, a new theory about our world and our universe, both sides seem to leap upon the premise as proof of their point of view.
Whether we speak of the observation that the earth revolves around the sun or the theory of big bang cosmology, every new discovery or theory is at the first seized upon to carry wide-reaching theological and philosophical consequences.
Pulsar
Those who do not believe in our God grasp at the new discovery to be used as a new attack against Christianity. Those who do believe either dismiss it out-of-hand as patently false, a conspiracy of scientists who twist the facts to suit their own purposes, or else (perhaps more embarrassingly) try to use it as the basis for a new defense for proving their beliefs to the world.
Yet each time this occurs, when “the popular hubbub has subsided and the novelty has been chewed over by real theologians, real scientists and real philosophers, both sides find themselves pretty much where they were before.” ~ C.S. Lewis
Two kinds of words
One would think that we, as humanity, would learn. I suppose, though, that what was true in the third century, BC, is still true today. There is nothing new under the sun.
We would do well, I think, to remember that the purpose of science is to try to figure out how things work.  Science does not give ultimate explanation for the origin and existence of the universe or answer questions concerning the purpose of the universe or of our existence.
Perhaps our role as believers is not, after all, to prove our faith beyond a shadow of a doubt. Perhaps this attempt is what leads us to seize upon science as either a hoax or a tool without really knowing the first thing about the particular theory or discovery we are discussing. This, I think, leads to the valid complaint among unbelievers that we tend to speak hotly about things we do not understand.
Perhaps, instead, we should remember that faith is something that can be pointed to, that can be supported by evidence and can be intelligently concluded to be true, but is not something that can be proved in a way that people cannot help but believe.
Supernova
Sunlight Through a Crocus
When our faith can be proved in such a manner, that, I believe, is the day we will call Judgement.
What we believe always remains intellectually possible; it never becomes intellectually compulsive. I have an idea that when this ceases to be so, the world will be ending. We have been warned that all but conclusive evidence against Christianity, evidence that would deceive (if it were possible) the very elect, will appear with Antichrist. And after that there will be wholly conclusive evidence on the other side.
But not, I fancy, till then on either side. ~ C.S. Lewis

Art credits: DNA photo by Tomislav Alajbeg; Pulsar and Supernova photos from NASA

Alive!!!

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He is ALIVE!!!
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Today, the tomb is empty.
Today, the earth is singing for joy.
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Today, He has risen from the dead.
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Today, He has proven beyond any doubt that He is able to fulfill His promises!
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By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” (Rev. 21.3-5)
He is able!
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He is ALIVE!!!
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Art credits: Das Engel öffnet das Grab Christi by Benjamin Gerritsz Cuyp; Title page of the New Testament section of a Martin Luther Bible; The Resurrection by Luca Giordano

The Last Temptation

This, the Friday before Easter, is a hard day.

I’d much rather jump straight into Easter, to the joy of the earth singing as it once again feels the touch of Jesus’ feet.

Yet you cannot get to the empty tomb without going through the suffering of the cross.

I’ve written a lot about suffering and pain in these pages. I am often tempted to do almost anything to avoid feeling pain.

It recently struck me that perhaps that is what temptation really is: Satan doing everything he can to help you avoid suffering here on earth.

We don’t know about very many of Jesus’ temptations, but God gives us enough glimpse to know that He, like me, desired to avoid pain.

That is what Jesus’ wilderness temptings were: Satan trying to convince Jesus to believe in him and take the easy, pain-free way of becoming king rather than believing God and obeying His pain-filled, cross way of becoming king.

The way that would also rescue His people.

Too often, I believe Satan instead of God.

Yet Satan did not end his tempting of Jesus in the wilderness.

When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left Him until an opportune time. ~ Luke 4

That opportune time?

The Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus’ last temptation.

The temptation to once again take the comfortable way instead of the suffering way. The temptation to believe in Satan’s hazy seductions rather than in God’s rock-solid promises.

Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will but Yours be done. ~ Luke 22

I bow my head in shame, knowing how often I choose to believe Satan.

Yes, He was God, yet He still struggled as much as we do with this same temptation.

And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. ~ Luke 22

And so we come full circle.

That which began in a garden now ends in a garden because this time the man obeyed.

Jesus obeyed. He chose to believe in God’s promise while knowing the immediate consequences of pain.

My heart wants to weep because I know why He did this.

But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ~ Romans 5

Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil. ~ Hebrews 2

Because He loves us and He wants to rescue us, to rescue you, from the power of pain and death.

This. This is why we linger long on this hard day instead of leaping ahead to Sunday. To remind us to believe in God’s promises of the end of death and pain even while knowing of the fleeting death and pain we might face in obedience.

May I end with something I wrote and a video I made with a friend? (if you are viewing this via email/in a reader, click here to view this video)

Pause for a moment and dwell on the hard things so that on Sunday your heart can resonate even more fully with Easter’s joy.

Temptation.
It swirls around me like a hurricane
sending my intentions spinning into the blackened sky.
I hear the voice of God
I hear Him tell me what is good
Why can I not obey?
My consistency is that I fail to listen
My constant is that I continue to fall.
The ugly truth?
I don’t believe God.
I don’t believe Him when He tells me what is best.
If I believed, I would obey.
If I trusted in God’s goodness, His love, I would always do what He asks.
I would choose love instead of anger.
I would choose compassion rather than bitterness.
I would forgive instead of clinging to my grudge.
I would assume the best rather than enjoying my irritation.
I would think of others and forget about myself.
How can I obey,
how can I root out this ugliness that is deep inside my heart?
I cannot listen when I will not trust.
And yet I remember.
God is mercy and God is grace.
He changes hearts and He captures our gaze.
He is faithful if we ask;
His wisdom He delights to give.
Christ stayed in the wilderness
He faced down our sin
He trusted in God
Trusted God’s love and goodness
Christ conquered to make me a conqueror.
Grace.
It captures my heart and teaches me to trust
changing my nature so that I am now able to believe what God says
And obey.

 

(special thanks to Kati Pessin for putting together the video and to our Pastor for his thoughts on Christ’s temptations)

art credit for the video: music is “Window” by Album Leaf