The Heart's Cry: Psalm 78

Psalm 78

Oh those Israelites, how they were so quick to want more than they received, how they were so quick to turn to grumbling, how they were so quick to forget God. Thank the heavens that we are not like them...or perhaps we are.

After all we show ingratitude: How many times has God provided for us in our daily lives and then we question why God doesn't provide more?

After all we have our grumblings: How many times have we had strength to go on in times of trouble but then question why God lets bad things happen to us?

After all we show our forgetfulness: How many times do we receive blessings and then act like we've yet to be blessed?

And we have a written account of what Israel went through, the Israelites mainly had an oral tradition which may or may not have been very accurate depending on the day and the author of it. And we also live on this side of the manger the cross and the empty tomb. And we live on this side of Paul's letters. And we have 2000 years of further teaching and preaching. Add all of that together and you still get a group of ungrateful forgetful grumblers. And believe me when I say we I am definitely including myself in that group, like Paul before I might say that I am the worst of sinners.

Luckily our ingratitude, our forgetfulness, our grumbling is not the end of the story, no, the end of the story is like the beginning of the story still, God keeps reaching out, God keeps holding back God's full judgment, God shows mercy and grace, God is love. So, let us try again to be thankful, to remember, to show praise, because our God is still speaking in hopes that we will listen.

+ Think on times when you have been ungrateful, forgetful, and grumbled, what can you do to help yourself not fall into those ways again?

+ Do you believe that God is still reaching out and speaking today? Why or why not?

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 77

Psalm 77

Today we find ourselves in what I like to call a 20/20 Psalm, in other words a Psalm that finds its writer in dire straits who clings to who God has been to the author and the author's people. Usually these Psalms will harken back to either creation or the Exodus, while occasionally going back to other historical moments of the Hebrew people. They are good reminders for us that we must remember all that God has done for us in our past, and that we must especially remember during times of trouble or perceived abandonment by God.

Peter Rollins, in his book Insurrection, says that the only way to truly find God is to first lose our belief in God, as Jesus does on the cross when he cries out "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?". While I am not sure if we need to go all that way, I would say that without a dark night of the soul we may never come to cling to God in the way we truly need to. It is in those dark moments when we must search our past that we find evidence of God's hand in our lives.

So often when we are living life forward, as we tend to naturally do, it is difficult to see God's movements for what they truly are. In looking backwards we can more clearly see those same movements that we daily miss. The times God saves us completely and the times that God protects us from more dire consequences. The times when God provides supernaturally or through natural means. The times when we made it another step, another moment, another breath when by all rights we shouldn't have.

+ How can you better "call to mind the deeds of the Lord" both personally and communally?

+ Recall your dark night, how did God lead you out of it?

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 76

Psalm 76

Down to Salem

I'm going down to Salem
to see my Lord in glory
will you walk with me
on this my final journey

I'm going down to Salem
to walk with my Lord
if you want to follow
just be my final guest

Chorus:
I want to walk where my Jesus walked
I want to see what he saw
I want to do everything he wants
I want to be what he wants me to be
down in Salem

I'm going down to Salem
to see my Lord's resting place
if you follow I will lead
to my final sanctuary

Chorus:

One fine day he'll meet me
somewhere down in Salem
I believe that he I'll see
and he'll be my final Saviour

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 75

Well friends, we have just hit the half way point of this particular journey, for my part I am impressed with my own output, the other times I have attempted something of this scale there were many stops and starts and so far this has been fairly smooth sailing. So here is my entry for Psalm 75, and on Monday we will begin the second half of Psalms.

Psalm 75

I have to admit that this Psalm is a bit difficult to understand. At times it seems like the author is speaking of God [verses 1 & 6-9] and at times it seems like the author is writing as God [verses 2-5 & 10]. And perhaps that is as good as any place to start, sometimes we forget who and what we are. If you are anything like me there are times when I am very willing to call judgment down on someone, but Jesus tells me to not judge because I will be judged by the standard that I use on others. There are times when I want to choose who is blessed and who is cursed, but again that decision does not rest on my shoulders, which should make all of you very happy. There is a song titled The Truth by Caedmon's Call where Derek Webb sings "For the sake of the world I thank the Lord that the truth's not contingent on me." It not so gently reminds us that we are not the gatekeepers, we are not the deciders, we are not the judge, we are only human. And that is a truth that we all too often forget.

Going back to the other day and the concept of life to the full...the only way we can live the abundant life that we are meant to live is if we have the correct perspective on who we are and what we are. Only by living true human lives can we ever become what God made us to be, because God did not create us to be surrogate Gods. God created us to be how we are and only by living within those confines can we ever move in the direction that was set out before us. So let us be human. Let us err, let us forgive errs. Let us experiment and fail and succeed. Let us rejoice and worship and rage and grieve. Let us do the things that we were meant to do, love, give, sacrifice, let go, loosen our grip, and live life to the full.

+ In what ways have you seen others act like God? How have you acted like God?

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 74

Psalm 74

This is an interesting Psalm if you think about it, essentially the Psalmist is saying 'look what you've done God, you've created the world, you've separated the day and night, but you don't seem capable of saving us in our humiliation'. It brings to mind the book of Job where Job is tested in various ways and after so many call him to renounce God he finally calls God to the mat to have God explain God to him. What God does instead is explain to Job what God has done throughout creation, throughout time and points out how could Job begin to understand the ways of God. In essence the Psalmist could be Job finally at, if not his breaking point, at the point of exasperation.

I have written about the song The Silence of God by Andrew Peterson before and it comes to mind again in this moment. It is a song that reckons with those times when we pray and plead and get seemingly no answer in reply. Andrew finally takes comfort that even Jesus encountered that silence and can speak into our lives because of it. Those times that we receive silence is often heartbreaking. Those times when the illness seems to win, when the money doesn't come, when the relationship is not mended, when the job is not secured, when our preferred future doesn't come to pass. It is in those moments when it may become difficult to hold to our faith, but it is in those moments that our faith is actually made for. Faith in the sunshine is easy to have, but faith in the storm takes a little more, it needs to be a little more.

God doesn't seem to show up in the Psalm, and sometimes God doesn't seem to show up in the moment, but that is not to say that God is not there, it is merely to say that we don't see God. There is a quote from Soren Kierkegaard that goes "Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward," in the same way we can often only see God by looking back at our lives, but faith requires us to always look forward, expecting God, even when we can not see.

+ How have you been able to cling to faith when you are faced with the silence of God?

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 73

Psalm 73

I think that the Psalmist points out something very important in these verses, that prosperity has nothing to do with righteousness, power has nothing to do with righteousness, popularity has nothing to do with righteousness. There is a segment of Christianity that would say 'if you follow God, God will bless you abundantly' and what they mean is that you will get the things that you want to get. It is called the Prosperity Gospel and in my opinion it has greatly missed the mark as far as understanding what Jesus taught. The amount of money in your bank account has next to nothing to do with the amount of blessings in your life, the size of your house, your car, your boat have next to nothing to do with the amount of blessings in your life, your physical health has next to nothing to do with the amount of blessings in your life. You can be happy healthy and wise and be blessed, you can be sorrowful sick and dumb and be blessed, and you can be anywhere along the spectrum and be blessed.

What Jesus does say is that if we follow him we will have life and we will have it to the full. I believe that what Jesus meant is that if we follow him that we will actually live the life that we have been given, and we will live it in such a way that our experience will be deeper than those who do not follow Jesus's way. We will experience our joy more deeply, and our sorrow more deeply. We will experience every aspect of life to the full, what others gloss over we will be alive inside of. Compassion is not the realm of the lazy, sacrifice is not for the faint of heart, love is not for those who are lukewarm. In order to carry our cross daily we must be alive in each moment, we must be aware of what is going on around us, we must have open ears, open eyes, open hands, and open hearts.

Sometimes the righteous live on the street and the wicked prosper. Sometimes the righteous are mocked and the wicked uplifted. Sometimes the righteous are in tears and the wicked are in parties. Ones social standing is not congruent to ones blessings, and so it is not an easy road that Jesus calls us to walk upon, but it is one where we are able to find abundant life.

+ When you hear the word blessing what comes to mind?

+ How have you seen examples of the wicked prospering and the righteous seemingly weak?

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 72

Psalm 72

I wonder if those in power throughout the world today have ever prayed a prayer like this one? A prayer that at first seems like it is just a selfish king wanting things to go his way, but is truly so much more than that...

Here is a prayer where the king asks to judge with righteousness

Here is a prayer where the king asks for plenty for his people

Here is a prayer where the king promises to deliver the needy

Here is a prayer where the king promises to be help to those who have none

Here is a prayer where the king promises to have pity on those who are suffering

Here is a prayer where the king promises to stop violence and oppression

Here is a prayer where the king promises to care for those who are hurting

Here is a prayer where the king asks for his people to grow and prosper

Here is a prayer where the king asks for all these things so that the nations of the world would be blessed because of him

Here is a king who understands that he is not king for himself or so that his name may be made great or that his brand can grow but that he is king for the people and cares about each one, from the richest to the poorest, from those who speak loudly to those who have no voice, to those with mansions and those who sleep on the street, to those who are happy healthy and wise and those who are depressed sick and uneducated. Here is a king who understands that we are blessed so that we can be a blessing to others. Here is a king who asks for things for himself to help others.

I hope that the leaders of the world might be this wise. I hope that we all might be this wise, understanding that what we have been given is not merely for ourselves but that we have been blessed like Abraham was blessed, to be a blessing to the whole world.

+ How have you been a blessing to others this past week? How have you held onto your blessing this past week?

+ Will you commit to pray for your leaders that they may gain such wisdom?

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 71

Psalm 71

Your power and your righteousness, O God,
    reach the high heavens.
You who have done great things,
    O God, who is like you?

In a way what I do is ridiculous. The idea of trying to describe the indescribable, of explaining the unexplainable is in a way a fool's errand. It is a fool's errand because all I have at my disposal are creations of creations to explain the creator. How can the sheet of paper explain the one who writes on it? How can the butterfly explain it's beauty let alone the beauty of the creator? How can the rushing waterfall explain its power let alone the power of its creator? And how can I explain the grace that has been shown to me let alone explain the grace of the one who gave grace? And if I can't explain that then I am a fool for trying to instruct you on what following the one who gave grace should or should not look like.

The only thing that gives me the leeway to try is that Jesus, one with the creator, used the same creations of creations to explain what following the one who gives grace should look like. All I attempt to do these two thousand or so years later is re-explain his explanations. I merge then into our context, taking his actions and words and love and attempting to place them into situations that we might be easier able to grasp in 2017. And what you have to do is decide whether or not what I am saying jives with what Jesus said. If it does not it is your responsibility to dismiss my thoughts and words as mere vapor. On the flip side if you judge that it does then it is your responsibility to take them in and let the original teacher, Jesus, instruct you through the imperfect means of me.

Isaiah 29:13&14

But even if you agree with what I have to say it does not mean I am not a fool, merely that you are also a fool for trying to hold onto the indescribable, the unexplainable, which seems to be quite all right, because when the wisdom of the wise perishes and the understanding of the prudent disappears all that is left is the fools to show the way.

+ How have you allowed yourself to be a fool for God?

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 70

Psalm 70

If you clicked the link above you would notice that this Psalm is a prayer for deliverance from enemies. And perhaps today, January 20th 2017 this might mean something extra to some of you, and I would like to argue that it shouldn't. David wrote this with an understanding of the world that included an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, if someone does something to you then you do a proportional response in return. Unfortunately there are times throughout David's reign where the proportions were blown out of proportion, and more importantly for us, we do not live in the same time or under the same understanding, or at the very least we shouldn't be.

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." Ghandi

In this space I would like to quote large sections of Matthew 5, the first part of a sermon that Jesus gives that includes, among other amazing thoughts, the idea that fixing a problem between you and a brother or sister is more important than worshipping God, that if someone does harm to you you should repay them in offering more of yourself and your stuff to them, and that we are to love our enemies, do good to them, pray for them. The logical conclusion of all of that is to turn our enemies into our loved ones. And so we stand here on inauguration day with an impetus to turn our enemies into those that we love, so put aside any anger you may have, to our about to be sitting president or our about to be former president, to those who voted for them or against them. Pray for President Obama and President Trump. Do good to those who voted as you voted and do good to those who voted the opposite way. And above all remember that we live on the other side of Jesus's words, not on David's side.

+ How have you been acting toward those who disagree with your politics?

+ How can you move forward with grace and love towards all people?

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 69

Psalm 69

I will praise the name of God with a song;
    I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
This will please the Lord more than an ox
    or a bull with horns and hoofs.
Let the oppressed see it and be glad;
    you who seek God, let your hearts revive.
For the Lord hears the needy,
    and does not despise his own that are in bonds.

What I find so interesting sometimes is how the people in the Bible are so often breaking the Bibles own rules. I find this so interesting because there are still so many religious leaders, be them clergy or lay, that hold so fast to the rules that they never allow for the leeway of the Holy Spirit to flow. Part of me thinks this is because they just don't believe that God speaks anymore, they seem to think that once the book was bound God was silenced, or at the very least God couldn't come up with anything new but just says the same few verses over and over and over again. I'm sure you've picked it up by this point, but I do not hold to such a concept. What I do hold to is a belief that God is ahead of us, pulling us forward into new understandings, new enlightenments. I believe that God welcomes innovation and creation, after all God is the standard when it comes to creativity.

I also don't hold to the idea that we need to fear any part of science or discovery or new knowledge. Paul claimed that all truth is from God and so we in the church should be championing discovery, because if what we claim is true it should merely enlarge our views of what a great and awesome God we serve. If God is the standard for creativity then every new discovery is merely a discovery of what God has already put in place and we're just figuring it out these thousands of years later, It is not God who is concerned with new things, it is us and we shouldn't put our mortal fears on the one who is immortal.

This Psalm is a call to God in times of persecution but like David sometimes we exaggerate our persecutions, except he does it in songs and we do it in press-releases.

+ Have you ever been scared of what scientists might discover? Why or why not?

+ Can you find rest in the belief that God created it all and therefore God already knows what we may one day discover?

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 68

Psalm 68

Father of orphans and protector of widows
    is God in his holy habitation.
God gives the desolate a home to live in;
    he leads out the prisoners to prosperity,
    but the rebellious live in a parched land.

It is highly appropriate on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day that we should come along upon Psalm 68 and these two particular verses. These verses that point to the very heart of God, a heart that loves and cares for those that society as a large decides, for whatever reason, are the unworthy, the unneeded, the wanted, the unloved. Many groups have fallen under that category through the years, and many of those same groups still are considered less than by groups today. At times it is the old, at times the young. At times it is the Native American, called Indians because of mistaken geography of a European. At times it is the immigrant, because they don't come where we come from. At times it is those with darker skin, considered less than human because of melanin. At times it is the sick, or the poor. Today we continue to add to the groups that are considered less than, now we do it by who a person loves.

But, God looks beyond our categories, beyond our attempts to make God's decisions for God. God chooses whom God chooses and often that is in the face of what society thinks is appropriate or not. God chooses whom God chooses and often that is in the face of what the religious think is appropriate or not. God is the father of orphans and the protector of widows still today, and sometimes those orphans have parents who are still breathing and sometimes those widows have husbands who are still alive. God still gives the desolate a home and beyond that doesn't consider them desolate in the first place. God still leads out the prisoners to prosperity, it just looks a whole lot different than we think of when we here the word prosperity.

And those who shun whom God loves still live in a parched land. They may have wealth. They may have power. They may have a 'voice' when so many others do not. They may have all of that and more, but they strive for what is merely a passing fancy and they miss out on the water that is available to all.

+ Who have you been guilty of thinking as less than yourself? If you have changed have you forgiven yourself?

+ Who has made you feel like you were less than them? Have you forgiven them?

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 67

Psalm 67

May God be gracious to us and bless us
    and make his face to shine upon us,
that your way may be known upon earth,
    your saving power among all nations.

"Thank you and may God Bless America."

That is how most presidential addresses end, but I wonder how often there is an internal "so that your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among all nations", if I had to guess not often or more likely not at all. This is not a comment against our current president nor our past presidents nor our future president, what it is, is a comment against all those who say God bless America and don't really care about spreading God's way upon the earth, or at the very least that hope is buried under so many layers as to be nonexistent. I fear that when most people say God bless America we don't really care if God blesses any other nation or people, as long as God blesses us. And if you remember that is not the way it works.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this in the past 66 posts or not, but I have mentioned it often enough in other settings that you may have heard what I'm about to say. And what I'm about to say is that if you remember way back when God told Abraham that God would bless him and through him that the whole world would be blessed. You see, that's the way it works we are blessed so that we can be a blessing to others. This is true of individuals, this is true of churches, this is true of nations. Blessing is never simply for the good of the one being blessed, it is always meant to be shared, to be communal.

So do yourself a favor, if you ask for a blessing be prepared because it comes with the responsibility of blessing others.

+ In what attitude do you ask for blessings? for yourself alone or for the good of others.

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 66

Psalm 66

Why do we praise God? Why do you praise God? Do you?

Why do we praise God?

We praise God because of what God has done for us individually.
We praise God for what God has done for us as a family.
We praise God for what God has done for us corporately.
We praise God for what God has done for us through creation.
We praise God for what God has done for us through salvation.
We praise God for what God will do for us in the future.
We praise God for restoration.
We praise God for reconciliation.
We praise God for the mind God has given to us.
We praise God for the grace God has given us.
We praise God for the strength God has given us.
We praise God for the hope God has given us.
We praise God for the deliverance God has given us.
We praise God for mercy.
We praise God for forgiveness.
We praise God the morning and the mourning.
We praise God for the evening and for the dark night of the soul.
We praise God for our breath,
We praise God for our death.
We praise God for the moment and for the whole.

Why do you praise God?

Do you?

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 65

Psalm 65

We've talked before about the idea that the gods were often seen as angry when things didn't work out for the people. While we have progressed by leaps and bounds since that time we can still easily fall into the same mindset of 'when things go good God is near and when things go bad God is silent." This Psalm is a Psalm of praise, which is altogether good, but I wonder what the psalmist would [or will when we get to a different psalm] when the harvest isn't plentiful, when the weather isn't warm clear and sunny.

I believe that God causes the sun to shine and the rain to fall but I do not believe that he causes today's rain to fall or today's sun to shine. By that I believe that God created the world and it is created in such wondrous detail that if but one detail was even a fraction different our world would be uninhabitable. I believe that God set up seasons and weather and plants and animals and even the insects that I hate. And within the systems that God set up there is the potential for sunny days and rainy days and hurricanes, there is a potential for a plentiful harvest and a wasted year, there is a potential for a good hunt or a gored hunter. God set up the system so you could blame God when things go bad but a lot of the bad things in this world are allowed for in the system but are caused by actions of those within the system [usually us] not the creator of the system [God].

I believe this because I believe that God gave us a ridiculous amount of freedom and we sometimes make good decisions with that freedom and we oftentimes make bad decisions with that freedom. We created cars and boats and trains and planes so when there is an accident we can't blame God, God didn't create us to fly or float across oceans or go 55 in a 35mph zone he just gave us the freedom to do it ourselves.

How do you view the interplay between God and the world around us?

How have you used your freedom in good or bad ways recently?

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 64

Psalm 64

David seems like such a black and white kind of guy, doesn't he? From reading the Psalms I get the feeling that there are two types of people, the righteous and the wicked. When I was younger I used to be that kind of guy too, there were the people who thought and believed like me who were the righteous, and then there was a lot more people in the world who didn't believe like I did and they were the wicked. It was simple and made the world an easy place to understand, but as I grew and, in my opinion, matured I came to realize that life is so very often not black and white but an untold number of shades of grey. The good guys are never only good, the bad guys are never only bad. And from this perspective people who only see in black and white scare me.

Now, it is possible that David saw more shades of grey than comes across in the Psalms, after all when you use less words to convey a point, which is part of the point of poetry and song, you must distill what you want to say to the bare minimum. So, it is possible that David saw shades of grey. I hope that's the case because if you know David you know that he was righteous and wicked. He was a man after God's own heart and he was a murdered and a rapist at worst or an adulterer at best.

I am currently reading the novel Joshua by Joseph Girzone and in it there is a place where Joshua is talking about grace and how it was meant to be a gift but that religious leaders [of which I am one] have shackled it with feelings of guilt because they have used it as a line in the sand deciding who was and was not worthy. I think that part of the reason that this has been the case is because we have attempted to make the world simple and easy, like it used to be and have forgotten that even we religious leaders are not always black and white but are within the same shades of grey as everyone else, I have my good attributes, and I have attributes that I would rather not have at all. I make good decisions and bad decisions. I am righteous and I am wicked. But, I am given grace from my God, not to show that I am worthy, but because I was worthy all along and have now simply begun to believe it myself.

+ Do you see the world in black and white or in shades of grey? Has that always been the case? If not what about your current viewpoint do you like or dislike?

+ Do you believe yourself to be worthy? Why or why not?

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 63

Psalm 63

O God, you are my God, I seek you,
    my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
    as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Do you ever get the feeling that you aren't going to ever find what you're looking for? Do you ever get the feeling that you're doing the equivalent of looking for water in a land that has no water? In other words do you ever find yourself trying to find something that simply does not exist in the place you are looking for it; it's not going to be in the last place you look because it just isn't there at all. I think that this is the fundamental problem with humanity's quest for meaning, we keep looking for the right thing in the wrong place, but it doesn't need to be that way. There is a place that has exactly what you and I are looking for, or rather there is a person who has it.

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” John 4:13-15

We are dry, wore down, perhaps even beaten, and we are in need for something to quench our thirst, and we keep finding water, but it's a water that doesn't satisfy, it never satisfies, and we don't get that the problem is not with us but with the water itself. In the above passage Jesus encounters a woman who is thirsting and he offers her a water unlike any she has ever encountered before. The water that Jesus has, the water that he offers has the potential to truly bring satisfaction to our lives, to our moments, to our very being, we simply need to ask him for it and then receive it from him.

We live in a dry and weary land where there is no water, but through our faith in Jesus we have access to a water that will do more than quench our thirst, it will quench our soul.

+ When was the last time you couldn't quench your physical thirst? When was the last time you felt that your soul was quenched?

+ Do you believe that Jesus has a water that will quench your soul? If so, have you asked him for it?

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 62

Psalm 62

Those of low estate are but a breath,
    those of high estate are a delusion

I was reading a book just yesterday that was talking about time and how it is a mere illusion, that we created the concept so that we could better organize our experiences and memories. The author stated that only now exists, an ever present moment, and this is how God can see all of 'time' now.

A couple months ago I sat in a meeting with some people whose job it was to decide whether or not I was deserving of ordination and among other things we had a conversation about time. One person suggested that time was a creation, to which I replied 'in my mind time is the space between moments and there had to be some kind of space between moments even before the creation of the world'. But what if there is not?

In verse 9a above it is suggested that there is little, if any, difference between the wealthy and the poor and in truth the only difference in today's world is a combination of ones and zeroes that say how much wealth one person has in relation to another person. A twist of fate and the rich person becomes poor or the poor person becomes rich, so is there any difference between them in reality?

Jesus says that God causes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on both the just and the unjust. What's interesting is that we instinctively believe that the sun shining is good and the rain falling is bad, but without rain or with too much sun we would not have food to eat. Some people are allergic to bees, but without bees how would plants pollinate? I have friends who can't stand spiders, but they eliminate insects better than Raid.

So what? What if all boundaries are in our mind? What if there is no space between my first tooth coming in and the moment I lost my first tooth and the moment I got my first [and so far only] filling and the moment I can't eat cheesecake ever again? What if there really is only now, and so there really is no need to worry about tomorrow because tomorrow is a boundary that doesn't exist, but today has enough worry for itself because now is all we ever have anyway?

And if none of that blows your mind, nothing I say ever will.

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 61

Psalm 61

From the end of the earth I call to you,
    when my heart is faint.
Lead me to the rock
    that is higher than I

This is a cry I so often need in my life but too often don't cry out. It is a tightrope walk between wanting to rely on God and wanting to rely on myself, my talents, my gifts, my abilities. I have heard it said that 'God only helps those who help themselves' and while I don't believe it works that way I sure do live like I do sometimes.

For the past few years I have written, for lack of a better term, a mantra for the new year on my big white board in my home office. For 2015 it was to be better. For 2016 it was to love more. Now at the dawn of 2017 it is to do more and less. I want 2017 to be a year where I do more things that are beneficial to me, my family, my job, my church, my God and do less things that take away the time I have to do just that.

That seems like a good goal, but I wonder if I'm not simply falling into the same trap all over again of thinking that I need to do x,y or z. I don't know, but it's up on the board so we'll see how it goes, I've never edited or discarded one yet, but maybe I will this year.

No questions today, but I will end with a short prayer.

As this new year begins I pray that we all will find the right balance in our lives. Balance between doing and being. Balance between love and life. Balance between faith and doubt. Balance between all the things that we want to happen and all the things that will happen. That we would find a balance not through any might of our own but rather through God.

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 60

Psalm 60

May I ask you a simple yet profound question? Who has responsibility for your life? Is it God, the devil or you?

I know people who blame the bad things in their lives on the work of Satan.

I know other people who blame the bad things in their lives on the hand of God.

And then I know people who think that the bad things in their lives happen because of choices that they make, choices that other people make, or simple, random chance.

Finally I know people who have a hodgepodge belief that it is some kind of middle ground between either 2 of the above options or all 3.

Which person are you?

Now take that same question and ask yourself about a larger scale, say a nation, for instance the US, or whichever other one you live in. Who is responsible when bad things happen to your country?

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 59

Psalm 59

Some years ago Rob Bell did a tour on the topic 'The Gods aren't Angry". It was about the evolution of religious thought from the first inklings of greater powers that were fickle and needed more and more to satisfy them. In the minds of the first people the gods required sacrifice, first of crops and animals then leading up to humans. These people prayed for rain or sun they prayed for good harvests and good hunts and when the didn't get what they wanted they gave more and more. Do you see a common theme in those last couple sentences?

I mention all of that because I am reminded of a mindset that says that God must be appeased in order for God to look kindly on us. This Psalm and the previous one are both to be sung to the tune of something called 'Do Not Destroy'. I wish I could say that the concept of an angry god is something that belongs to a bygone age, but alas that is not true. There are still those today, namely extremist groups with all major religions, that still hold to a god who is angry at the world, or at least a certain corner of the world.

They, like David and many others before them, believe that God wants to strike down a certain segment of the population. Sometimes this is due to their anger, sometimes their fear. Sometimes this is due to personal negative experiences, sometimes because they have been indoctrinated into a certain story. Always their belief system is a perversion of their religion, always they choose their own desires over the truth of faith.

I know a little bit about a lot of faiths, but I know a lot about my own and in Christianity Jesus teaches us about a God of justice and love, of righteousness and mercy, of holiness and grace. Those who hold up Jesus and a God of mere wrath have missed the point, we need to be careful not to miss it also.

+ Do you believe that the gods are still angry?

+ How can you keep from painting religions only in light of their extremist factions?

The Heart's Cry: Psalm 58

Psalm 58

The righteous will rejoice when they see vengeance done;
    they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.
People will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
    surely there is a God who judges on earth.”

Really? Is that really what the righteous long to do? To rejoice over vengeance? To bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked?

But don't worry, it's the Koran that is a book of violence, not the Bible.
[if you know me at all you know that sentence is dripping with sarcasm]

When reading passages like this one I believe that there are a few things we need to keep in mind:

The first thing we need to do is be honest about what the Bible contains, and the truth of the matter is that it contains quite a bit of squeamish moments. There are times when people in the Bible, including God act in a way that seems to be a bit barbaric, and it seems that way because it is that way.

The second thing we need to do is to be honest about the people who are in the Bible, namely that they do not live in the 21st Century, they neither have our knowledge nor our morality. The Bible is a story of a people and these people evolve over time, we live on the other side of the incarnation [i.e. Jesus] and so we are held to a much different standard than some of the people in the Bible.

The third thing to remember is that just because it is found in the Bible, or any other holy book for that matter, does not necessarily mean it is what we are meant to do in our lives today. This goes back to my point about living on the other side of Jesus, we have to read what comes before Jesus through the Jesus lens, if it doesn't match up with what he calls us to then it isn't something that we are supposed to do.

The fourth thing we need to realize is that the people in the Bible are kind of like us, they were trying to do the best they knew to do, sometimes it succeeded and sometimes it failed. And like them we may be looked at from a far distance of time as being a backward people who didn't know their head from a hole in the ground, in other words try not to judge them too harshly, because we are judged by the same measure by which we judge.

+ How do you feel when you read passages like this Psalm?

+ What other things do you think we need to keep in mind when reading through the Bible, especially the First Testament?