I Lost My Voice . . .

  . . .  because of summer cold’s cough. Its been gone for three days and the experience of trying to communicate amongst four children eight and under is awkward. They have a tough time waiting for me to croak out what’s on my mind. Talking to Doug is equally frustrating. I can’t talk on the phone, either.  Somehow, the effort required to get the words out makes me look cranky – well, after having to repeat myself 2 or 3 times, I am crabby.

Not being able to make myself heard because of a stupid virus, however made me think of people who can’t make themselves heard because of the wars raging around the world – and in American cities, like Chicago and New York City, and Baltimore. I can’t always keep the countries or combatants straight – and I don’t understand why human beings shoot into crowds of people hoping to hit their enemy.

 

The Light Shines in the Darkness

But I see the images of those who cannot make themselves heard and have been caught in crossfire so virulent that rational men and women apparently cannot stop.

In a few days, my voice should return – but what of the voices silenced in fighting in the Gaza Strip . . . Sudan . . . Ukraine . . . the drug wars, the gang wars . . . abortion?

·      Sometimes I think it should be a rule of war that you have to see somebody up close and get to know him before you can shoot him. ~M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter

·      Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953

·      What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world. ~Robert E. Lee, letter to his wife, 1864

*Quotes are from quotegarden.com.

Is God MIA?

 

A writer for Christianity Today wonders why God is missing from Downton Abbey, the PBS series that has engaged Americans as surely as Brideshead Revisited did almost three decades ago.

It's been well reported that Downton Abbey is the most successful British period piece since Brideshead Revisited, the series based on the Evelyn Waugh novel. Both are set in roughly the same geographic and economic regions—and as of Season 3, with some time overlap as well. Both stories mark long and descending trajectories for once-in its characters' passionate and complex relationships with God. great English families. But the plot of Brideshead is driven by and steeped Waugh's story turns on a crisis of faith that both sums up the sea changes of aristocratic life at the end of the nineteenth century and transcends earthly questions with spiritual ones.  (Why is GOD Still Absent from Downton Abbey?) 

Perhaps God’s  “absence” from the new series testifies that folks in the second decade of the 21^st century have stopped grappling with God and left the wrestling ring of faith. (Jacob wrestles with God) The Genesis account of an all-night wrestling match between Jacob and a man captures my heart’s struggle with the knowledge of my guilt and grief and my understanding of God – but I doubt I could make it through a literal night like Jacob did.  Too often, I give up struggling because of my own willfulness or worries.  And sometimes it just hurts too much to keep hanging on to an unseen God.   

This isn’t so distinct from the struggles of Americans or Brits in last century – or from the angst of Evelyn Waugh’s memorable characters, or our new friends from Downton Abbey.  Real life hurts – and our struggles alongside the reality of war, human frailty and financial ruin that both works of fiction captured are recognizable.  But none of struggles, or the author, Evelyn Waugh, faced the cultural, social and legal marginalization that Christians face today.

Britain: Judge Rules Christians Have No Right to Refuse to Work on Sundays

A new court ruling in Britain says Christians have no right to refuse to work on Sundays because it is not a "core component" of their beliefs, The Telegraph reports . . . The ruling  . . . essentially means the courts are now in a position of deciding what is and what is not a "core" doctrine of Christianity. (Crosswalk)

Explaining our faith may become more problematical as Christianity is no longer an influencer of the culture. But living out our faith – well, that's the history of what it’s all about. Here’s where the Bible can be helpful. (Psalm 119:65-72)

And here’s where I hope Christian artists and writers will succeed – pointing folks to God in times when His enemy seems more powerful and attractive than HE is.

God, I believe – help thou my unbelief  (Mark 9:24)

The “Whether” Report

The short-term forecast is dismal – many more days of 105+ heat. Yet, I have lived long enough to know, the weather will moderate, delight, and then bring blustery gusts of freezing temperatures.  Reports of riots in London, financial downturns, upheavals in the Middle East, and our own decade-long war against terrorism coupled with all the news I get of my friends’ problems and trials are as potent arrows that worry and wound me.  I feel as powerless as one impaled by a volley of them.  I am as powerless!   

The only power I have is deciding what I will do with what is my portion of life.  And then, doing it.  I can’t change the weather, quell rioters, or save the world from its folly and cruelty; I can’t protect any one from life’s “reproofs” – whether they are broken transmissions and water pumps, illnesses, old age, or Christians’ failures to act like Christians  -- probably the most painful of all.  

So, why can’t I remember that? Why do I spend [so much] time critiquing, kibitzing and worrying?  (Matt 6:25-34)

Probably because it is still easier to cluck like some mad hen over other stuff than settle down and tend my own nest.

You and I live in times that are important as those proceeding the Great Depression, World War I and II.  Our rulers and leaders are much as those were who lead people into and through those dreadful times.  What’s somewhat different is the 24/7 news reporting. We also live in times when many of us don’t have family, farms, or faith to sustain us when we lose our jobs or health.  And the 24/7 news reporting can underscore our helplessness.  Are we really only expendable [nameless] cogs in a mighty machine of worldwide destruction? 

 God, I hope not!

Is that hope in a meaning, purpose and power that is greater than myself, and those around me, just wishful thinking?  Is faith in God nothing but an evolutionary adaptation that keeps men from giving up?

Does the squirrel that wrecks my flower garden imagine a creator who hides acorns just for it? 

I wasn’t created to be a commentator on God’s ways – or yours. But, I can communicate His grace. (Isaiah 55)  I can tell you – and me -- cooler days are coming to Dallas, for they always have; at the same time I must tell you and myself, today is all we have.   And too many are dying without knowing the Creator God who gives them a hope and a future: Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey.  The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice.  He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene . . . (Isaiah 59:15-16)

Living in air-conditioned comfort today, knowing where I have a bit of food and a change of clothes, and having time to reflect on the Scriptures is an mind-blowing blessing, then, isn’t it? How will I spend it?

Today I got an e-mail devotional from Joni Eareckson Tada who described people she met who do not know there is reason for their afflictions – and reminder that even a quadriplegic has work to do:

I was at a loss for words when a young disabled girl in Bangalore, India told me, "My aunt said I would have to go through eight reincarnations before I could become a whole person."  A doctor from New Delhi said, "Most people do not consider autistic children to be human."  On that same trip while I was in Africa, I met mothers who were beaten because they gave birth to a child who was blind or disabled.  A man told me his cerebral-palsied sister was left out in the jungle for the animals to take; "My parents thought it would appease the animist spirits," he said.   In Southeast Asia I met people who thought disabilities were "curses from the shamans in the village."  My heart broke when several disabled women told me they were "easy targets for abuse."

Isaiah lamented, "Truth is nowhere to be found... Is there no one to intervene?"  This is the commission God has given us.  Jesus is "the way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6).  When we follow his way and carry the truth into the dark corners of the world, we bring light, hope and deliverance.  Jesus tells the truth about everything; from the atonement to autism, from the resurrection to rickets, from sanctification to spina bifida. 

"So my counsel is: Don't worry about things-food, drink, and clothes . . . [Your] heavenly Father already knows perfectly well that you need them, and he will give them to you if you give him first place in your life and live as he wants you to.

 "So don't be anxious about tomorrow. God will take care of your tomorrow too. Live one day at a time. (Matt 6:25-34TLB)

Whether you and I put this hope -- that God will care for us -- to good use is wholly our choice.  

Lord, I believe – help Thou my unbelief – and please send me. (Mark 9:24; Isaiah 6)

Taking It Personally

Jeremiah 18

Lots of politicians this week will make a public oath with their right hands on the Bible. The Bible seems an anchor of sorts, linking words and deeds. But most politicians will speak and do what they think right – with little heed to what the Bible teaches about political leaders, much less spiritual needs. So, I can spot their hypocrisy – can I spot my own?

The older I get, the more helpless I see that I am, no matter my good intentions. The closer others invite me into their lives – the fewer answers I have to their deeply felt needs: Singleness, a marriage coming apart, infertility, debt, disease, unruly kids, loss of a job or vision – old age. Knowing God and using His word to speak to Him, and to hear from Him are just about all I know for the troubles I face – that and having the courage to actually do what He says! (Micah 6:8)

Studying the Bible and learning to pray sound like dissembling solutions – and they may be. But, I offer the following introduction to women in the Bible to women who feel helpless and hopeless. God helps the helpless – including powerful politicians and the wealthy, which most American women are, comparatively. (Isaiah 25:4) In the midst of our pain, you and I are just the kind of women God seeks out!

Can you use this to get started studying your Bible this week?

God has shown us what HE wants HIS women to be like, so he carefully recorded information about many women for a reason. They were not perfect — they had problems — they struggled with unbelief — but they obeyed at a critical point in their walk with God — and HE blessed them. Their faith was the assurance of the things they hoped for, the conviction of things they could not see. For by faith in God the women of old gained approval. (Heb 11:1-2)

What He said about these women may help you to pray more intelligently. What about her life impresses you?

How does the record of her life encourage your prayer life?

Pick one or two women and listen for God to form some specific prayers about issues in your life:

Tamar: Overcame came a dysfunctional family. Her name may mean "like a palm." Because of the value of palm trees in the East, the idea of this name connotes wealth and beauty
Scripture references Genesis 38:6-30; Ruth 4:12; 1 Chronicles 2:4; Matthew 1:3

Rahab: A “working girl” changes professions
Scripture references: Joshua 2:1, 3; 6:17-25; Matthew 1:5, Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25

Ruth: An outcast’s faithfulness
Scripture references: The Book of Ruth, Matt. 1:6
What about Naomi's life impresses you?

The wife of Uriah, Bathsheba: An adulteress restored
Scripture references: II Sam. 11:2,3; 12:24; I Ki. 1:11-31; 2:13-19; I Chr. 3:5; Matt.1:6

Here's more:

Hannah: Giving over her most treasure possession – her first born son.
Scripture references: I Samuel 1; 2:1-21
How does her prayer life inform yours

Abigail: The woman with beauty and brains — and a troubled marriage
Scripture references: I Samuel 25:1-42; II Samuel 3:3

Sarah – Married to a difficult man
In Gen 21:1: "Then the LORD took note of Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as He had promised." What do you know about Sarah's life? Her life was recorded by Moses in Genesis. She became the mother of nations. Look up Isaiah 51:2; Romans 4:19; 9:9; Hebrews 11:11; I Peter 3:6

Mary: The mother of our Lord Jesus Christ
Scripture references: Matthew 1;2; 12:46; Luke 1; 2; John 2:1-11; 19:25; Acts 1:14
Read the Magnificat. (Lk 1: 46-55) What do you learn about prayer from Mary?

Keep reading! Read about these women —

Deborah, (Judges 4 & 5; Hebrews 11:32-34;)
Dorcas, (Acts 9 36-43)
Jeosheba, Joash's aunt, (2 Kings 11) and
Salome, who wanted the best for her boys. (See Mat.20:20-24; 27:56; Mark 10:35-40; 15:40, 41;16:1,2)

Build your own list! A good resource is All The Women in the Bible by Herbert Lockyer.

Remember: "The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and will save them. (Ps 145:18-19)