I am a husband, father, brother, son, pastor, poet, activist, and engineer... I care deeply about the world and am often overwhelmed by all that is going on... I'm most offended by greed and rudeness, and I believe that selfishness is the practical opposite of love...
These days there is much that gives us cause for concern. There is much to pray about. There is much to protest. We live in troubling times.
While things are disturbing and frustrating, we have this confidence – God is still on the throne! God is sovereign! God’s will be done – no matter what!
So, when fear creeps in and worry threatens to steal my joy – I put my trust in God.
When I’m weary from circumstances – I meditate on God’s word, and I trust God.
When it seems like wickedness is winning and daring to overtake me – I remember that my life is in God’s capable hands, and I trust God!
3 When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. 4 In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?
Life is full of ups and downs. There are trials and struggles that we must all encounter. There are obstacles that confront us all. It rains on the just and the unjust.
But there is an upside to all these things. While it may sound like nonsense, there is an advantage in the adversities we endure.
Through our troubles we learn what is really needful, what matters, and who sustains us.
We are reminded of God’s abiding presence, when those people and things we trusted in are no longer reliable. We discover God’s faithfulness when all else falters.
While all else is fleeting and passing away, while illusions dissolve, and notions of our independence are stripped away, we find that God’s character does not fail.
There is an upside to every crisis. There is an advantage amid the most profound adversity. There is hope in the midst of every storm, and help for us in all that afflicts us!
1 God is our refuge and strength,a very present help in trouble. 2 Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,3 though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.
Times are uncertain but God remains faithful. It’s another brand new day, and by the grace of God, we are still here. What will we do with it?
This morning, I will turn my heart to God. I recount God’s goodness and mercy, God’s love, God’s wisdom, and God’s power.
I consider God’s ways, and though I am often confused by the hardness of human hearts, the cruelty and apathy we display toward one another, I have this hopeful refrain.
Hope in God.
Though the wicked seem to prosper and the powerful seem to go unchecked, my trust remains in God – the One who creates, cares, and redeems. I receive, again, God’s grace.
Hope in God.
As I listen for the voice of the Spirit, I recite the words of the Psalm, and my heart is encouraged.
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.
Last night I dreamed I was caught in a shootout – in a real active shooter/ mass shooting scenario.
For whatever reason, while others ducked and covered, I ran out to spot the shooter. I ended up caught in a crossfire between those who would call me friend and those who would rather see me dead.
With a rifle pointed at me, I stared down my ‘would be’ friendly shooter. I brushed the muzzle of his rifle aside, grabbed the weapon, and then pointed it in the direction of the actual enemy.
Boom!
When I woke up I could still hear the sound of gunfire.
In times like these, when everyone is already afraid and on edge, people who aren’t used to combat will panic. This panic may cause us to mistake a friend for a foe. The pressure of battle can make us freeze or retreat.
While I am not inclined to either of these behaviors, it is particularly costly – especially when comfort and safety are the idols before which many of us bow.
Lord have mercy on me for not being able to just fall in line, to acquiesce, for disturbing your peace… But now is not the time to be silent! And ,I guess you already know that I cannot keep quiet!
13 “For from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely.
14 They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.
When I think about the massive changes that are occurring all around us and how it seems like there’s no end in sight, I am beginning to realize something.
First, I am seeing that as a culture we haven’t learned how to deal with difficult things, to wrestle with what makes us uncomfortable, or to face challenges that require more than just short bursts of energy. We like quick fixes. We love shortcuts.
Second, I see that forgetting painful things and glossing over tragedies are ways of avoiding the necessities of grief and mourning. We double down on entertainment as an escape rather than learning how to embrace the pains that accompany loss while producing empathy and compassion.
Third, I see that our desire for quick fixes and our drive to escape any sign of discomfort keeps us from developing the capacity and resilience to deal with our present crises. Our shortsightedness and lack of vision are our undoing!
The nonsense we have going on will not go away with a wish or whim. The old wounds that have been exacerbated by new offenses, will not heal in a day. The historic and systemic injustices that shape our nation’s identity will not be undone with a single election, a court ruling, a protest, or a boycott.
We are in a centuries-long battle for our souls, our sanity and our dignity , and we will not prevail with the simple stroke of a pen. We are in an uphill battle that demands more than happy thoughts and sunny dispositions. Our ancestors knew this.
‘I don’t feel no ways tired. I’ve come too far from where I started from. Nobody told me the road would be easy. And, I don’t believe He brought me this far to leave me…”
(Rev. James Cleveland)
The days ahead will require of us a new discipline rooted in the hope that sustained our foremothers and forefathers. The days ahead will require of us the faithfulness of all the saints who’ve preceded us. The days ahead of us will require the fortitude that only the Spirit can provide us.
“If we cannot fly, then we will run. If we cannot run, we will walk, and if we cannot walk we will crawl. But by all means, we will keep on moving!”
(Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.)
We have some tough days ahead. And we will need every ounce of joyful discipline and hopeful endurance we can muster to keep leaning forward. But we have a cloud of witnesses before us!
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
It’s amazing how philosophical and technical we can get when we start talking about how to treat one another. We strain gnats and swallow camels!
The hemming and hawing about who to love, how to love, and what love looks like is maddening!
Worse yet, it appears to be that those who claim to follow Jesus are some of the worst at discerning what the LORD requires.
The way we discriminate and dole out grace as if it is a limited commodity, picking and choosing who’s in and who’s out according to our own proclivities is shameful. The way we mind other folks’ business like we’re getting paid and in possession of a bottomless barrel of perverse judgments – a paradox!
We are supposed to begracepeople, mercypeople, justicepeople, generouspeople, lovepeople…
Sadly, it is often only when crisis strikes or troubles come, that we want to hold hands, ‘cum-ba-yah,’ feigning sincerity with hollow prayers that belie our practices and policies.
What do we do, Oh LORD?
God says, ‘You already know!’
He has told you, O man, what is good;and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness,and to walk humbly with your God?
God cares about the last, the lost, the least, the left out, and the left behind!
Jesus is acquainted with the lowly.
It is impossible that while claiming to love God, we hate and reject those whom God loves – those to whom Jesus came!
God is on the side of the oppressed.
Jesus said,
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed,19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
One of the greatest challenges to our faith is systemic injustice. It is sneaky. It is subtle. It is the invisible millstone around our collective necks, threatening to drown us! It is a violent cancer gnawing away at our internal organs. It is a destructive blood borne illness that attacks our own body.
Too graphic? Too early for such disturbing imagery? Perhaps.
The evil embedded in our world’s systems, the ‘ghosts in the machine,’ hide in plain sight behind labels called patriotism, conservatism, and even, I dare say, morality and christianity.
But like a destructive computer virus that alters file names, this evil turns wrong to right, equity to discrimination, and diversity to division. Then it erases and corrupts memory so that even with a reboot, there can be no recovery.
There is no ‘safe mode.’ Only a red, white, and finally the dreaded blue screen of death!
The only thing to do is to totally scrub the machine, reformat the hard drive, and restore the machine from an immutable data source – with a trusted image – and start over! Get it?
Sometimes the only, the best, and the hardest solution is to start over. As difficult as it is to accept – we may be at a point where we must seriously consider the cost and what it means to start over.
Get it?
We may continue to ‘throw good money after bad,’ wasting time, energy, and resources – feigning progress only to regress, or we may begin, at least, to imagine and embrace our hopeful alternative – from a trusted, immutable source of data.
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
I won’t tell you how long I lived in the South before I realized that, ‘Bless your heart,’ wasn’t actually a blessing.
When we claim to love God but are then cruel and compassionless to others, we become liars and the truth is not in us.
‘Bless your heart.’
When we offer praise to God, while cursing our neighbors, we walk in darkness. When we claim grace for ourselves but demand judgment for everyone else, we are hypocrites.
‘Bless your heart.’
When we are polite and genteel on the outside, while harboring bitterness and malice in our hearts, we deceive ourselves.
‘Bless your heart!’
Subtle deceptions are often the most destructive – counterfeit faith – false piety – wrapping warped behaviors in flowery words – using holy language as a cloak for hatefulness!
We become those of whom the prophet spoke:
8 “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 9 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”
When we are recovering from some hardship, illness, serback,or loss, for some of us our tendency is to isolate ourselves and try to battle it out on our own.
As noble as this seems, healing work and then the ability to get and remain well and free is often a communal work. We need assistance and encouragement from others!
Remember the story of the man sick from palsy? He had four friends who carried him to Jesus. Remember when Lazarus was resurrected from the grave? Jesus told those who were outside the tomb to, ‘loose him and let him go!’
Don’t be afraid or ashamed to rely on those around you to help you when you are trying to get better! God gives us one another to care for and sometimes even carry one another! And when we get free we are able to free and offer our strength to others!
Remember when Jesus restored Peter? Jesus told him to ‘strengthen the brethren.’
We will all need some help sometimes. When we get free, one of the best ways we can demonstrate our gratitude is by assisting others! Get it?
31 “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, 32 but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”
pastorpoet 