Ponderings

[theendlessword]

Honoring Space and Time ~ part 3

My previous post was about sabbath and work. Six or seven months later I’m writing about sabbath and rest. People in my culture don’t sleep well. That probably doesn’t surprise; the research is easy to find. Not only do we not sleep well, we often choose to not sleep well, and anyone who considers the frantic busyness so common in our lives is probably not surprised by that either. The question has to be asked, why do we not sleep? It is work, worry, chaotic schedules. And why do we struggle to sabbath? Surely it is for much the same reasons. As I pressed into sabbath I found myself asking, why do I believe that there is not enough? Not enough happiness in today, worry about a possible loss tomorrow, not enough work done, not enough time. 

Consider from the Prophet Haggai,  “The Lord of Hosts says this: think carefully about your ways: You have planted much but harvested little. You eat but never have enough to be satisfied. You drink but never have enough to become drunk. You put on clothes but never have enough to get warm. The wage earner puts his wage into a bag with a hole in it… Because My house still lies in ruins, while each of you is busy with his own house.”

Ultimately I am not satisfied by my work or by my rest, for I am not “lord of the harvest” nor “lord of the sabbath.” I need work that is more meaningful than myself. I do not give myself breath. I cannot make myself sleep. Life must be given to me. That dependency on the good will of God terrifies so many of us that we would rather close our eyes, pretend we are enough, eat empty food, and do meaningless work than risk coming before God when our souls rightly sense that He has the authority to reject our plea for the eternal. 

Go to God. 

Though the heart of the matter is a relationship with God, in a great mystery the eternal is tied up with the physical. We rise up and lay down, plant and harvest, eat and drink and it is worship to some god or another. Our beings will be tinged by the god we serve. Is my god “Lord of heaven and earth”? Or do I master people and shield myself with money because I actually live according to the rule(s) of the Murderer (see John 8:43-44).

A right participation in work and rest comes from trust in God’s ability and submission to Heaven’s rule. There is a humility and freedom that happens when we can say these three things: “the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away,” “not as I will, but as You will,” and “yet I am always with You.” To speak to the words from Haggai: I build His house, and I give Him authority over my house. In the midst of “vanity” and “pursuit of the wind,” Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 3, “I know that all God does will last forever; there is no adding to it or taking from it.” In the profoundness and eternality of His will, His work, and His rest, lodges the ultimate meaningfulness of my work and my rest. In the proper time work hard; in the proper time rest boldly, and pray to God for discernment as to the proper time. 

[theendlessword]

Honoring Space and Time ~ Part 2

Sabbath is more than time, a time, or a day, but sabbath does have to do with time. When I began exploring sabbath in my life, I naturally looked at time especially time for rest. One day, getting home late, I dropped my stuff on a chair and debated eating or just going to bed. I flipped on the kitchen light and the thought hit me, the electric light gave us more work, not more rest. What might happen if I stopped turning on lights? If I was going to pursue a different experience of rest and time, I could not be working at all times of the day. For the next month I left the lights off.

The real day changed how I worked. This was October and November with their dim mornings and early nightfall. I quickly found I could dress in the dark if I’d set out clothes. In fact, I could fold laundry in the dark and put away dishes. I could make meals in dim light. I was a student though, and I could not read in the dark. Once evening came I was shutting off my computer too. I woke in the dark and the sun set at five leaving a brief time in-between, time when the land was bright. While there was light I worked hard, so the first thing I found was that this arrangement of Sabbath into which I had ventured made me work. The lazy side of me pouted about that. “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work,” Jesus says. Interestingly, this passage centers on a conflict over Jesus healing on the Sabbath. There are appropriate times for things, and times in which deeds must be done. Our innovations have made the light of the sun inconsequential and our culture indulges our impatient sense of doing at whatever time, but we are not actually lords of time. I worked harder, because I recognized a time was coming when I would not be able to work.

I did rest. Inevitably, a time would come every day when I would blink at my book, look around, and think, ‘it got dark; I guess I’m done.’ There I would be: done with work still sitting before me. I put it away. The habit of putting my work away filled me with the sense that rest was waiting to welcome me. With open arms it stood at the other end of my day, and rest did not care if I had finished my work. I’m going to venture out and say that the industrial revolution gave humanity all the glories of ceaseless work, and they have not saved or satisfied us. Innovation is not bad, and it has helped us in its way, but work is not the end of life. My experiences of evening time and not-work are coming in the next post.

[theendlessword]

Honoring Space and Time ~ Part 1

Rest. What to do with sabbath?

I live in a culture that has uniquely left behind the rhythms of tradition and of the natural world, and culture cannot be fully blamed when the rebellion is inside me as well. Into my own life creep the signs of the deeper human struggle with the rhythms of life: times of burnout, depression, insomnia. These days it’s been on my heart to explore the reaches of sabbath. Here is my next series of blog posts. Before I wander through too many thoughts, I want to illuminate the importance of sabbath.

Why even raise the question? Does my rebellion against rest have to do with something deeper?

To answer this question I’m going to go back to Genesis 1 where sabbath is first expressed and embodied.

Genesis 1:31-2:3 “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”

In the beginning we see two things about God: He creates and says it is very good, and He rests and says it is holy. The first source of these things, creation and rest, is within God himself. While man may be considered the climax of creation, Sabbath is the climax of the rhythm of the first days, and man’s first day was sabbath with God. The beginning place for man’s relationship with God was sabbath.

Much of the Christian faith is rightly focused on the re-establishment of relationship between God and his rebellious and fallen people. Sacrifice, law, atonement, sin, justification, sanctification, and forgiveness are all responses to the fall. It is not so with sabbath. Sacrifice is a provision, but sabbath is native. Sabbath is established within man and within the rhythm of creation from the beginning. Even before man must struggle to master the earth, rest is established. 

If the significance of sabbath in the beginning is not enough, Jesus identifies with it saying, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). Understanding Jesus and understanding sabbath go hand in hand, and experiencing Jesus and experiencing sabbath go hand in hand.

[theendlessword]

The Fight ~ part 3

God is the one able to save. Who then comes out of this struggle walking with God? People will tack the answer to this question upon “predestination” or “free will.” I think both are generalizations that arise out of flattening a paradox into overly systematic belief. The question given to us to answer is more like, ‘What characterizes the heart He cannot touch?’

Because relating to God is just that, a relationship, we have direct choice in how God relates to us. We cannot touch who He is, but we do touch the living, constantly transforming, substance of relating to Him. I think He gives that to us because of His vibrant, risky desire to love and be loved. He loves first (1 John 4:19), He stands at the door and knocks (Rev. 3:20), but He will not be other than God. So the heart He cannot touch is the one that is proud, independent, the heart unwilling to be touched and the person unwilling to be His.

God is distant from the proud because there is no room for Him. He is also distant from the hypocrite. This is not the one who tries to follow Him and fails, this is the one who inwardly does not desire to follow Him but outwardly pretends in order to be praised by men. God sees through the pretense of offering service to Him without being willing to be the offering ourselves. When the writer of Hebrews speaks of Jesus’ submission to the Father he quotes Psalm 40 saying, “You do not ask for a whole burnt offering or a sin offering. Then I said, “See, I have come… to do Your will”” (Hebrews 10:5-7). The battle of believing God cuts deeper than wanting or not wanting to be the offering dedicated to God; we want to but we do not always want to. The battle is being the offering or not. After telling the parable of two sons (see Matthew 21:28-32) Jesus asks, “Which of the two did his father’s will?” (Matthew 21:31).

[theendlessword]

The Fight ~ part 2

‘I will be your God’ — the relationship that is not broken even in death. When the hopes and dreams are torn away and we wrestle with God, He does not leave us alone. Jesus took that from us when He was abandoned on our account. The Spirit of Jesus dwells with the believer throughout trial and need, from beginning to end. “I was an unthinking animal toward You. Yet I am always with You” (Psalm 73:22-23). “Even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff—they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.” (Psalm 23:4-5).  

God is the one who deeply meets deep needs. Our need is a great tension around which we come to know ourselves and God. But anyone who comes to God with a need will find that He will not be relegated to simply being the one who meets our needs. He is not only the Fulfillment; His fullness overflowed to create that which now needs fulfillment. Or to put it another way, if life is a question and God is the answer, He is also the question-maker, and the first conversationalist. Sometimes He does not meet the need, does not answer, and I can only say that is His right; I will wait on Him. Maybe we have forgotten God as a person and made Him a component in the equation of life. Maybe we have avoided God as a person in an attempt to make Him make sense.

[theendlessword]

9 The Fight ~ part 1

      Our dance is gentle steps

      Gone now are bone on bone fights

      Fading are our wounds

      I have been destroyed to trust you

      And you destroyed by love for me

A person can come to this point of conflict between having God and having the one other thing which at the core of their being they feel they need. This one other thing varies between us: a relationship, a career, an ability. It may morph through many different expressions, but there is one underlying need: to be meaningful, to be known and accepted, to be effect-full, and others. The need to have this thing manifests itself as anxiety. In Matthew 6 and 7 Jesus points out, “No one can serve two masters… You cannot serve God and money… therefore do not be anxious about your life.” Anxiety is also complex in the ways it can expressed: worry, fear, anger, pining, masking. 

What we hold to in the crux of conflict - how we die, break, surrender, and seek, or harden, fear to die, call ourselves self-sufficient - will have great consequence in our lives. And it is a choice: a terrifyingly singular, free, mid-battle choice. It is also a season given by God, and through life revisited. We cannot say ‘now I will take the test’ or ‘now I am ready’ or ‘now I have finished.’ We are not such masters.

There are many people who have come to God for salvation, but when they are faced with this decision will not sacrifice the thing they need. They must be broken to be remade; the idols they seek and cling to are struck down. I have been one who fell with my idols, and in my falling I blamed God. I see how a person there can loose sight of “the joy set before” them and flee their cross. Because they will not surrender, they loose the lordship of Jesus. I cannot say they lose their salvation, but the lordship of Jesus is central. Without Jesus being lord He cannot not be Guide and he will not bring peace, hope, joy. Without surrender there is no abiding, and without abiding there is no fruit. God is a jealous God; His place will not be given to another needed thing, and so the consequences of this decision bear out on earth and in the future heaven.

“From that moment many of His disciples turned back and no longer accompanied Him. Therefore Jesus said to the Twelve, “You don’t want to go away too, do you?” Simon Peter answered, “Lord, who will we go to? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that You are the Holy One of God!” —John 6:66-69

[theendlessword]

11 ~ on the day of testing

Hebrews 3:8-9 “as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works for 40 years.”

In the back of my mind, unconsciously almost, I am aware that God at times tests us. I hear it spoken about among Christians. I look back on times of refinement in my life, so I think “the Israelites in the desert — their time of testing.” This is not actually what Hebrews says. “They tested Me,” God says. The overarching descriptor of this season in Israel’s history is this: they tested Me.

Looking back at times of testing in my life, I see that circumstances and events unearthed struggles in my life and conflicts in my affections. I, with Jesus beside me, came face to face with the real me. That is what testing does, and it is well to understand that it begins refinement. “Search me,” David boldly says in the Psalms. God though already sees me face to face; His sight is not clouded. In testing He refines me more than He comes to know me. Here is the great contrast. I test God not to refine Him, for He Is, but to know if He is true.

The fall in the Garden of Eden can be seen as man’s first test of God and God’s resulting test of man. “As in the rebellion,” Hebrews 3:8 says, and that rebellion has roots all the way back in the Garden. God was good to His word: mankind’s eyes were opened. God then tested mankind asking, “where are you?” and mankind failed the initial trial: they hid and lied. Their relationship with God was broken, perhaps it already had been by their disobedience, yet Adam and Eve, having hidden from God, at God’s question saw themselves face to face and thus began their refinement.

I think that when humanity’s relationship with God was broken, the “day of testing” became necessary. We need to know God, and God needs to refine us. Job says, “Yet He knows the way I have taken; when He has tested me, I will emerge as pure gold.” (Job 23:10). Then Job 42:1-6 reads,

“Then Job replied to the Lord: I know you can do anything and no plan of Yours can be thwarted. You asked, “Who is this who conceals My counsel with ignorance?” Surely I spoke about things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, “Listen now, and I will speak. When I question you, you will inform Me.” I had heard rumors about You, but now my eyes have seen You. Therefore I take back my words and repent in dust and ashes.”

This strained relationship between God and man is the relationship between God and man, in the earth as it is now.

Remember though that the “day of testing” is eclipsed by the power of the cross. Because Jesus was tested (Hebrews 2:17-18) the process of testing is redeemed. Our testing of God no longer damns us, and when we fail God’s test there is One who was struck in our place. Perhaps Israel’s greatest fault, highlighting our own greatest fault, was not that they tested God, but that they did not hear what He declared of Himself and did not see Him in the works He did. (See Numbers 14 and 20.) In being tested maybe we can find ourselves already known by God. Then let us be refined. When we test Him, may we be willing to say like Job, “I had heard rumors about you, but now my eyes have seen You. Therefore I take back my words and repent.” Then God reveal Himself to us and our eyes be open to see Him.

[theendlessword]

10 ~ World

And He Remembered Noah. This is a song title from Clint Mansell’s soundtrack for the movie Noah, which I now intend to see. As I understand it, the movie does not intend to be a production of the Bible, but a creation and destruction story inspired by the biblical account. I recognized the song names as quotations from Genesis though, and I could not help hearing them in the lighting of their original setting: What Is This Thou Hast Done?, Flesh Of My Flesh, Day And Night Shall Not Cease.

Genesis: the story of creation—I was in love with it. That something was brought out of nothing seemed a very tender and generous gesture. In the face of simple truth, existence, could there be doubt as to what things were? Wasn’t light light and darkness dark without mask or pretense? In the relationship of one thing to another, animal, God, and man, there was no misunderstanding. Weave onto that beginning a turn to lies and betrayal. Understand the sadness and weight of brokenness, a world off-kilter, because you, yourself know it. Both of these things, having and loss, are impossible to drown out of life, and from here the story will take many terrible and beautiful turns. Though it can be told, I will tell no more, because what struck me today was not the story, but that there is a story. I knew it meant something shocking and glorious that I live and breath and walk inside it, and then I wondered if it wasn’t all, well, a story.

A quote from Puddleglum in CS Lewis’ book The Silver Chair, came to mind. I suggest reading the book, but to summarize this scene an evil Witch catches the two main human characters and Puddleglum, a Narnian marsh-wiggle, in her underground kingdom, where they were trying to rescue the prince of Narnia. “There never was any world but mine,” the Witch says trying to overcome them with an enchantment. The adventurers recall, and struggle to recall, and eventually give up and forget their reality. The Witch makes their memory of the sun an imaginary version of a lamp, the lion, Aslan, who redeemed Narnia a make-believe version of a cat. She says, “and look how you can put nothing into your make-believe without copying it from the real world, this world of mine, which is the only world… Put away these childish tricks. I have worked for you all in the real world.” Then Puddleglum, stomping on her enchanted fire, says:

“One word, Ma’am,” he said, coming back from the fire; limping because of the pain. “One word… I won’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play- world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I shouldn’t think; but that’s a small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.”

[theendlessword]

Good thoughts about wisdom, belief, and our tendency to live only by what we see.

[theendlessword]

"O but is it sad?" Cried Dr. Pearson. A wistful look floated across Wilhellm’s face.”I suppose, but it can only go on being the Wisteria House; it will be the Wisteria House for whoever lives here next. No!” A positive fatefulness filled Willhelm’s eyes now. “My good doctor, I don’t need it! What I must have is an adventure.” - A History of the World #amazonofafrica

[theendlessword]

Song of the day: Le Matin by Yann Tiersen

[theendlessword]

Song of the day: Whirlwind by Austin Roberts

[theendlessword]

Picnicking

I saw a springtime blossom fall, a plum, 

and drift among the shadowed trunks of grass

‘till eyes no longer loved its winsome fall;

if here we spread our table trespass all:

ourselves, our friends. With this great wealth secure;

our quick laid feast is walnuts, wine and fruit.

O flying sun we race and detour not

to capture each next blossom, tribute sought,

to lay at strangers feet and on kings crowned.

Such thieves we welcome, thieves ourselves of Spring,

whose bards spin songs we cannot earthbound buy,

nor keep, as sunset nears unveiling I

but touched a springtime hour as it fell

and kissed its face and drifting bid farewell. 

a rhyming exercise in sonnet form, April 18, 2014. 

[theendlessword]

Lent: Christ Given

Year to year surrender is a common theme of Lent. This year God has brought me to Himself not asking of my body that I would fast, nor of creativity that I look on Him and praise, but He has asked for my time. His hand has reached from Thursday morning hours when I would like to be asleep to my entire estimation of what is a valuable life. 

As one belonging to God I surrender these things, but not without struggle. I have feared that He will not satisfy me and a moment later rejoiced in His love. I have doubted His vision for my life and yet passionately prayed “on earth as it is in heaven.” So I am His and yet becoming more His. 

Morning of Good Friday the focus shifted. The Spirit had been working in me, but the specific work of the past forty days was done. In the quiet Jesus became the focus. God brought me face to face with a beautiful truth: however much I am given to Him, He is more given to me. I am being presented as a living sacrifice, but Christ is sacrificed. The Bible says of Him, 

“he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” ~ Philippians 2:8 

[theendlessword]

My song of the day: Be Still My Soul by Page CXVI.

[theendlessword]

Lent and The Questions of God

One aspect of Lent is a question and not a rhetorical one. It is need, seeing that we fall short, emptiness, humility. 

"For you [God] save a humble people,

but the haughty eyes you bring down." 

Psalm 18:27 

My questions to and of God if not numberless are at least constant. Every discomfort prompts them, and honestly our father-like God intends that we ask. "What father among you, if his son asks..." (Luke 11:11). These questions are absolutely vital, but there are a few dangers. Questions can be masquerading criticisms instead of honest inquires. Also questions can cause self-delusion if we're unaware and inexperienced. I've found myself answering in God's place because a question seems too monumental to stand the strain of waiting for an answer. 

God and I are different. As a result of that I am always either running from Him or fighting Him until my ways match His. Sometimes I abandon questions and hide from God, but such deceit seldom lasts long. In my experience avoidance leaves life shadowy and hollow. There is an elusive third way, and this is submission. 

After my questioning is worn out there have come moments when God rises up. He pins me with His questions of me. And though He knows I love Him, I am not wholehearted but fallen short, and so in these moments I experience Christ most dearly. 

At the center of Lent are not my questions of God, but God's questions of me. Lent, after all, is about humility. 

[theendlessword]

Psalm: Day 7

The Lord of heaven and earth -- He has created them. When my mind hears His voice I am overcome; At His mighty shout I fall Recalling I am dust. 

There is a Mediator for Heaven’s God, The one Holy Man. When my gaze falls on Jesus, I am overcome; Here is a friend, here every need met, Here truth and here grace.

At the feet of the undaunted God, I release my fears; At the hands of such love, I surrender my loves. Because my heart is allotted one love, I have loved You.

from psalms written March, 2013