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Consider: The Ravens

August 2, 2010

Part 6 of “Consider This”

Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings. -Victor Hugo

Yesterday morning I sat on my lawn-chair and a Robin hopped by on the grass with a lime-green worm as big as my finger in its beak. I don’t even know how that Robin managed to hold on to it because the worm was flipping around, protesting its capture something fierce! But the bird puffed out its crimson chest, oblivious to the worm’s displeasure, thrilled that it had found the mother-load. The bird flew off with its catch and would have a fine feast of it somewhere with its family (though undoubtedly some chick would beak off, “Not green worm again, I don’t like green worm” and the dad would say, “You’ll eat it and you’ll like it!”).

The Bible calls us to

“consider the ravens: they do not sow or reap…” (Luke 12:24 NIV)

Humans don’t do nearly as well as the birds, living on a wing and a prayer. To be like that Robin, without cupboards, would stress most of us out.

Is it possible that we can forget what freedom tastes like and come to fear it, rather than long for it? Can we come to actually treat open spaces with suspicion, preferring the cage over the sky? I wonder if we build “bird-houses” because it makes us uncomfortable that they don’t? Is having a floor and four walls so important to us, that the thought of gliding over the treetops fills us with dread rather than amazement?

What words do we assign to our present experiences? Are they descriptive of trust or apprehension?

Remember the children of Israel in the desert? Just now it occurred to me that the word we use for their experience is “wandering.” But if you were in the mix, knowing that someone was taking care of your every need, wouldn’t “holidaying” be a better description? The whole thing started with a campfire experience, with just the right amount of getting-there stories to recount later, good weather every day and, better than better, not once did they have to run into town for food or drink; they were fed morning and night by God himself. God wasn’t even subtle: cloud by day, pillar of fire by night; it wasn’t like God went away and they were wondering if He would come back.

So why were they so stressed out?

The Israelites in the desert didn’t see any beauty in it. They weren’t pinching themselves saying, “Can you believe it?” Instead, they sat by their tents at night worrying, “My life is going nowhere.”

  • Where is “there” and “nowhere?”
    * Where is where we ought to be not where we could be?
    * What is stable and unstable?
    * What does predictable give you that unpredictable doesn’t give you more of?
    * Is having something in your hand so much better than seeing how it gets there?

Consider the birds, they do not sow or reap; they have no storehouse or barn; yet God feeds them. And Jesus says, “you are so much more valuable than birds” (Luke 12:24). Is Jesus saying quit everything; just check out? No, He follows up His statement with: “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?”

So yes, quit something: quit worrying.

God is calling me to not only be OK with “not knowing” everything, but to actually relish it. Consider the birds that swoop and glide and occasionally seem suspended in mid-air, caught in some sort of up-draft; they sing for no reason, bathe in whatever puddle they can find and only create enough of a nest to rest in. Consider this.

Like us, they have a beginning of a story and an end of a story, but the whole middle is being written as we live. The whole middle is all about where we find ourselves, and who can say where that will be? Birds venture out. We need to consider venturing out…

Venture

1 : to expose to risk
2 : to face the risks and dangers of
3 : to go ahead in spite of danger

Yes, like the birds, God wants to add “venture” to our vocabulary and our experience (adventure, you see?) and quit making up dangers as an excuse to stay indoors. Quit worrying; God is with us and as P.D. James said, “God gives every bird his worm, but He does not throw it into the nest.”

– Teresa Klassen (http://onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

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Consider the Great Love of the Lord

July 28, 2010

We took this picture in Mexico; a tree growing out of nowhere; so out of place. I am sure no one was crazy enough to actually plant it there; it just decided to make something good out of a bad situation.

On another note, it is easy for me to claim, “God is good,” when times are good; maybe God is good, or maybe I just got my own way. What about on a really bad day, is God as good then? This may sound like a rhetorical question; maybe I can’t quantify when God is “the most good,” but Psalm 107 has me thinking. Verse 43 says, “Consider the great love of the Lord;” it happens right at the end of a Psalm that is largely about hard things; a whole list describing very bad human experiences:

  • The Psalm says there are those who will find themselves in unfriendly spaces;
    * Some can’t find home;
    * Others hunger and thirst.
    * There are those who feel their lives “ebbing away;”
    * Some find themselves in very dark places;
    * Others find themselves in a state of deep depression.
    * There are those who find themselves prisoners;
    * Some in a bitter line of work;
    * Others are just rebelling, and life is bad because of it.
    * There are those who are in a bad place because of bad choices;
    * Some are closer to the grave then they ought to be because of foolish living;
    * Others are in perilous positions.
    * There are people in actual, physical danger;
    * Some see no alternatives to the distressing place they find themselves in;
    * Others who were successful see success fall away.
    * There are those who are humbled and humiliated;
    * Some experience actual oppression;
    * Others one calamity and sorrow after another.

There is so much pain in this Psalm, summarized for our convenience. Just take one and add real life to it and it stretches out for days, a year, many years; is God good then? Yet, read the Psalm; for every one of these hard things is God’s merciful response.

Psalm 107 seems to be saying, on bad days, in the middle of a mess, God’s goodness is all the more “divine.” His presence in our aloneness is an inexplicable and totally undeserved comfort. His loyalty to us when we have been betrayed, or when we have been the betrayer, is there beyond reason. Verses 1 and 2 say that God is good and His love endures far beyond our current circumstances into the incomprehensible “forever.” These “redeemed,” the one’s who get it about having nothing worth offering, see God’s goodness the most in His forgiveness and in His favor “in spite of” not “because of” our own perceived goodness.

On sunny days, when we are decent people, experiencing our favorite mountain-top, we feel good because we feel good. I guess it could also be said, we think we feel God because we feel good. I am not saying our worship of God is invalid during these heights of inspiration, but the depths prove everything we have read.

Contrary to what I think we think (“hard times test our mettle”), the dark depths aren’t the place where we show up, but where Christ shows up. On these days we cry and finally cry out (see verses 6, 13, 19, and 28); bad days cast a shadow over the stars in our eyes and leave us emptied, staring at what we’ve really made of things; but wait! Bad times allow us to understand something that Job knew, “My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you.” (Job 42:5)

God joins us so tangibly in our most desperate times. He may seem blurry (what with the tears) but God is in the room; He is rescuing what others see as beyond rescue. He is saving what seems beyond saving. He is using what seems unusable. He will do what He has promised and take possession of every circumstance for His ultimate good purposes. He always has the last word.

Psalm 107 ends by inviting those who want to walk wisely to take note of God’s love from this lens so we really get it about the great, and some versions say the loyal/steadfast/faithful, love of God. The Psalm says, to those of us who have limited experience with very bad days; those of us who have only dipped our toes in the ocean of suffering ought to consider that God’s great love is only made greater on impossibly bad days. Don’t forget.

Here His perfect love sharply contrasts what’s fickle and faulty about us. Here is when we “get it” about our lack of options and offerings and we can receive from Him. Here His goodness comes into clear focus: the green tree growing out of the bare cement wall.

—Teresa Klassen (http://onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

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Not less; more!

July 25, 2010

Would I want God to be less than He is? This came to my mind as Brian was talking to us about Proverbs 6:16–19 on Sunday and the challenging topic of God “hating” certain things. Brian asked, does the Bible really mean “hate” when it says “hate,” or is that a loose translation of an idea? Can there be divine hatred? It is an uncomfortable topic when all we can imagine is the kind of dark hatred that leads one to harm another.

Walking through Scripture (as we saw today), the Bible clearly shows that God can and does hate things, just as we do. The difference between our hate and God’s is: both the reason for and the outcome of most of our anger/hatred is rooted in sin and results in us mistreating or damaging others; but all of God is holy and righteous and what angers Him and the outcome of his anger is righteous, rooted in love and leads to fixing what is broken, not creating more brokenness. God’s response to evil is intense and of equal intensity is His protective, pursuing, abounding love.

Would I want God to be less than He is; less passionate? Having less of a zeal for what is right or less anger over what is wrong? What if God were more polite about addressing evil and would say, “Pardon me, if you don’t mind, could you not…?” What if He used a toned-down word like “it bothers me when” or “I am irritated by;” but hate?

God isn’t mildly perturbed by the things that steal, kill and destroy His handiwork; He hates it. God experiences and expresses OUTRAGE with a thundering “How Dare You?!”

God hates what has poisoned and perverted what was meant to be perfect. God hates what diminishes and excludes and sets up class-systems. God hates untruths and half-truths and the withholding of the full truth. He hates cutting words and abusive behavior. He hates gossip and cruelty. He hates it when people are violated and innocence is stolen. He hates that evil fascinates some and tempts all. God hates division and dissension anywhere and everywhere.

And shouldn’t we? Isn’t there a rightness to that? Don’t we know that we ought to have more of an opinion, more of a reaction to evil?

God’s hate does not lead Him to neglect and abandon (as ours does); it leads Him to invite us to His home. It does not lead Him to turn His back on people (as ours does) but to give us His very life for people everywhere. God’s hatred of the dark leads Him to reveal, and reveal again His light; countless times. He is disgusted at waywardness and where it has led us, and then stepped right into the middle of it to show us the way home.

Do you see the difference between Him and us?

I don’t even know how to really express how that makes me feel. I am in awe of a God who is so angry at all that is wrong, so angry that He hovers over me, watching all my waking and sleeping moments, calling me and calling me to not lose my way. I matter; I matter so much that He has and will again shout “NO” to wickedness and all that is foul and loathsome. He hates that this world is hateful. He hates that we take free-will and make life a living hell. He hates that every day people hurt people and brother turns against brother.

If you have ever felt violated, it is amazing to think that the God of the universe has felt a world of violation (ours included) to His core and He doesn’t wink at it or accept it. He doesn’t treat it like it is nothing or say that, given enough time, it won’t hurt quite as much. He doesn’t shrug His shoulders or pretend it isn’t there. God hates what ought to be hated and it is the kind of hatred that does not make Him less loving; it makes Him more.

—Teresa Klassen (http://onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

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