Saturday, July 25, 2009

Take Heed

John Bunyan, author of the classic Pilgrim's Progress, writes in his Epistle to the Reader...

"... take heed
of being painted fire, wherein is no warmth;
and painted flowers, which retain no smell,
and of being painted trees, whereon is no fruit.
Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift,
is like clouds and wind without rain."

Thursday, July 23, 2009

answered prayers

"When the focus of your life goes from getting answers to your prayers to becoming answers to the prayers of others, you'll know Him like never before." ~ Darin Hufford

Sunday, July 12, 2009

God always protects?

God always protects. In a previous post about taking my then three-year daughter to the doctor, I speculated about what that divine protection could look like. That episode helps shed a little light on the subject, but makes it seem that God is always behind our pain, or that there is a divine/ultimate purpose for our pain.

God always protects. My reaction is, "No! There is plenty of painful evidence that he doesn't!" Always? Don't try selling that to the parents of the young couple who was killed by a drunk driver Friday night. The promise sounds good, but what about the consequences of our (and others) destructive choices. God can redeem these situations, no question; but that is a big difference from protection.

Other translations of the bible read, "Love bears all things." I decided to do some deeper study. Words can have different meanings. In my native tongue the word "rock" can refer to a stone to throw, something to do in a chair with a baby in your arms, a type of music, a person’s name. Rock.

The New Testament was written in Greek and the word in question (stego, στέγω) can mean: “bear, forbear, overhang (like a roof, thus to protect)”, to preserve or keep by covering (think Saran wrap). It can mean to hide or conceal, to carry on one's person in a secret place.

So then "love always covers." Love does not expose the one it loves. Like the infamous water-boarding, exposure (to light, heat, cold, noise, etc.,) is an effective torture technique. Love doesn't expose.Love does not humiliate or embarrass.

Like a sculptor working on a masterpiece, God is an artist when it comes to you. He sees the final picture, the finished masterpiece, long before he brings it into being. Artists often cover their work, away from public view, until it is finished, protecting what is in his heart until it has been fully expressed.

Many people fear God will expose them to the world at their worst possible moment. God doesn't do that. "Love covers a multitude of sins." From the beginning of time (remember Adam and Eve) God has been in the business of covering up sin. Not in a "cover up", conspiracy, "sweep in under the rug" kind of way; but love covers the object of its affection. Love does not humiliate, embarrass or expose.

Come with me to a third grade classroom....
There is a nine-year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he knows when the other boys see it he will never hear the end of it, and the girls will never speak to him again as long as he lives. He puts his head down and tries to fight back the tears.

He hears footsteps and looks up, mortified to see the teacher headed for him with a look in her eyes that says he’s been discovered. Suddenly, Susie absent-mindedly walks in front of the teacher while carrying the class mascot: a goldfish in a large glass bowl. Susie trips and dumps the water into the boy's lap.

The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, "Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!" Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the boy is the object of sympathy. The teacher rushes him out to get some gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out.

All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. As Susie tries to help, she becomes the object of ridicule that would have been the boy's. "You've done enough, you klutz! Get out of here!"

Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"
Susie whispers back, "I wet my pants once too, and I remember what that felt like."


That is a picture of your Heavenly Father’s heart.
God loves you. You are the object of His affection. He will cover you. He will never expose you or embarrass you. In fact, he will cover up embarrassing sins and struggles that you secretly deal with. He will never humiliate you in order to humble you.

He is great at keeping things just between you and him. You are his masterpiece and he will protect you and cover you until you are complete. The only exposing God ever does in your life is when he unveils the beautiful things about you to others.

I’m not telling you that others will never find out your sins. Sin has a nasty habit of eventually exposing itself. We have all been "busted", exposed, but God was not the one who did it. This is never in his heart. Love covers, conceals closely.

Many Christians believe that when they stand before God all of their sins, a whole lifetime of failures, is going to be broadcast on huge video screens, celestial jumbo-trons, for everyone to see. This is just not true. Who is "the Accuser of the Saints?" Who delights in exposing, humiliating and embarrassing God's children?

We have taken the character of the Enemy, of Satan, and ascribed it to God. We have distorted God's character and disfigured his heart. God is love, and love always covers what it loves.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Painful Faith

I've been out of town for a week with no internet access--ugghhh! It is good to be home and back to blogging.

My friend John Fischer wrote today of "growing pains" as we die to old ways in order to live anew in our spirits. Old ways die hard--it's hard letting go of our security blankets.

Spiritual growth hurts because it often means facing long-held fears and letting go of comfortable traditions and routines.

“Put into action God’s saving work in your lives, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey Him and the power to do what pleases Him” (Philippians 2:12-13 NLT).

We obey by stepping into our weakness or our fear, trusting in the fact that because it is something He asks of us, He will meet us somewhere along the way with the power to do it.

This is a painful proposition, but if it doesn’t hurt, it’s probably not faith.

Old ways die hard, but new life dances on the gravestones.