Tag: Faith

Squandering God’s Estate

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Jesus told a story of two brothers. The older brother fulfilled society’s expectations of a dutiful son. He worked alongside his father, maintaining and supervising the family estate. He never broke the rules, never disappointed his father, never neglected his responsibilities.

The younger brother was the family wild card. He chafed at responsibility and expectations, and when he reached manhood he demanded that his father hand over whatever his part of the inheritance would be worth so that he could go out on his own. He was sure he could find a better life for himself than drudging away under his father’s thumb. When his father, instead of rebuking his restlessness, gave him what he wanted, the young man traveled as far from home as he could get. With no one he had ever known to see or comment on his lifestyle, he indulged every desire and filled his life with every pleasure he could imagine.

On the surface the brothers look like polar opposites: one the responsible, respected son; the other rebellious, thoughtless, and selfish. But the story doesn’t end there, and the young men are both full of surprises. The younger brother woke up one day to find all of his money gone; he had done nothing to replenish his resources, had been entirely focused on his “good life” until he could no longer pay for his pleasures. Then, as drought set in and work was scarce, he took the most demeaning job in his society in the hard realization that he had wasted his truly good life. He had squandered every blessing ever given him, including that of a father who only wanted the best for him.

The older brother came home from working one day to find the house in a fever of celebration; the rebellious son had returned in humility and had been received with joy. The son who had been outwardly responsible and respectable immediately revealed his true heart, a knot of well-hidden resentment and rebellion. All the while he did what was expected, he hated responsibility, wished for the pleasure his brother pursued, and resented what he perceived as lack of appreciation from his father.

Both brothers shared the misunderstanding that their inheritance was a physical thing: money, possessions, etc. Neither understood their father’s love and provision for them as being his true estate. Both threw away, squandered, the relationship that was their father’s truest legacy.

Jesus told this story to Jewish leaders who complained that He welcomed sinful people into his presence. Those sinful people were the brother who had thrown everything away for his own pleasure, and who had been humbled and drawn back to the father’s embrace. The leaders were the “responsible” son who secretly harbored a rebellious heart. Neither those who had wasted their lives in rebellious lifestyles or those who prided themselves on outward righteousness had appreciated the love of God. They viewed God’s “estate” as an oppressive system of rules and demands; the only difference was whether they rebelled openly or secretly.

Jesus came to show us His true estate. He came to demonstrate the open arms of the father and the joy of belonging with Him. He came to show the difference in being a son and being a slave. Those who recognize the blessing of belonging to God approach Him with a longing to serve in gratitude and love, and receive the treatment of sons with awe and wonder. Those who see themselves as sons strictly because of their own outward fidelity, expecting privileges that ultimately get them out of such fidelity, behave like slaves. They throw away their inheritance for the sake of selfish pride.

The great news is that, no matter how we have squandered our portion, our condition is not final unless we make it so. The younger son was welcomed home with great celebration. The older son was reminded that he had always had access to what he sought, he had just been looking from the wrong direction. We will never stop being God’s children as long as we live, no matter how we waste our time and His chasing the wrong dreams. He will always be there to welcome us home. But why squander any of it? Why throw away a love, an eternal estate, so full as His?

What Are We Looking For?

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The Pharisees and other Jewish leaders ostracized anyone who broke what they thought was part of God’s law. They spent their days watching for infractions, railing about rules, and arguing about minutae. When God Himself visited them, they rebuked Him using their interpretation of the law He wrote, the law He was; then they killed Him rather than admit they were wrong.

Jesus looked for the smallest signs of faith, sometimes extending compassion and help in order to spark life in broken souls. He lived by love rather than rules. He was intimate with “sinners” and held the “righteous” at arm’s length. Hearts were changed by being in His presence. Crowds followed Him everywhere, drawn by what He offered. A feast day parade to the temple reversed course into a reception for the King. The only people given harsh treatment were the heartless enforcers.

What we look for in people matters. The Jewish leaders looked at Zaccheus and saw a greedy thief. Jesus looked at him and saw an eager heart. The Jews looked at the Samaritan woman and saw an adulterous descendant of a rebellious people. Jesus looked at her and saw a woman searching for a Savior. The Pharisees looked at the crowds following Jesus and saw lazy, unholy rabble. Jesus looked at them and saw sheep longing for a shepherd’s love and protection.

The Pharisees were certain that salvation came from their own actions, their own perfect rule following. They lost sight of the law giver and of the souls to whom it was given. They believed that they trusted God, but when given the chance to prove it they dug into their self-imposed framework instead and lashed out at anyone who threatened their perception of their own perfection.

Matthew 23:13, 15 (CSB): “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you don’t go in, and you don’t allow those entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to make one convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a child of hell as you are!”

Jesus delivered the above rebuke over exactly that behavior, that approach to their fellow humans. He also said anyone who hindered another from a relationship with God by their need for control would be better off drowned in the deeps with a millstone around the neck. Jesus didn’t see people with such an attitude as sheep; he saw them as wolves slathering to rip the flock to shreds and eat them for lunch.

The faithful reflect the nature, the character, the viewpoint, of Jesus Himself. If our claims to faith are accompanied by a fine toothed comb or a twist of the wrench, whose character is reflected? What is it we are truly seeking?

Mustard Seed Faith

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The mustard tree is a fascinating plant. Its tiny seed is one of the smallest in the world, and must be collected by soaking the pit of the mustard fruit for several days and then straining the resulting pulp through a cloth. The seed germinates quickly but grows incredibly slowly. Its most rapid growth occurs when planted near a water source; its roots seek out water, sensing it and growing toward any source, even breaking through pipes or well walls to access it. However, the tree can live and thrive on less than 8 inches of rainfall per year in some of the hottest, driest climates on Earth. The hotter and more consistent the sunlight, the healthier the tree, and clay that grows little else nourishes it. The leaves resemble those of succulents, and are often consumed for their moisture by desert animals and people. When in dryer conditions the mustard tree may only grow to about six feet tall, but in wet environments will grow up to 25 feet, an imposing sight.

On three separate occasions Jesus explained the power of faith using the image of the mustard seed. He said that even faith as small as a mustard seed could do such impossible things as moving a mountain from one place to another or uprooting a mature tree to plant it in the sea. I have known the analogy all my life, but grasping such a thing is difficult when we tend to think of big and small as opposite limits of size.

God doesn’t think in limits. Just as a day and a thousand years are the same to Him, big and small hold no meaning in a physical sense. Instead, he sees potential. The tiny mustard seed has no strength of its own, no power to impress our human sensibilities, yet in the harshest, most unexpected conditions, life can be induced to spark within it. The germs of faith wake under similar circumstances. Like the mustard tree, faith does not become full overnight. It grows, millimeter by millimeter, over a lifetime. It can outlast some of the hardest circumstances life can throw at it, although often in hard times it merely exists, eking out drops in desperation but not finding enough to grow any larger. When the nourishing rain of an answered prayer, an encouraging word, a relief from a trial arrives, it grows again and fills new leaves with nourishment to hold in reserve for the next difficulty.

Also like the mustard tree, the roots of faith reach out endlessly with insatiable need. Faith knows its source, and will move in that direction only no matter what gets in the way. It cannot be stopped; even when we feel like we are barely hanging on, faith looks for any sign of God in the darkness and dirt of life and drinks it thirstily. If there were no water to be found, the tree would die – it cannot manufacture its own nutrition – but those roots can find and use any trace of moisture. Faith without nourishment would be nothing -a shriveled, rotten trunk – but unlike water God is always there to be found.

When Jesus’ disciples woke Him in the storm, He told them their faith was weak and small but He still stopped the storm. When they failed to cast out demons in His name He told them their faith was weak and small but He still cast out the demons. When a man begged for healing for his son and said he wanted to believe but needed help making faith stronger, Jesus healed the man’s son. When Moses hid in the wilderness for forty years because what he thought he was supposed to do for God failed, God became fire in a bush and told him he was chosen for a purpose because of his faith. How many more have been planted while tiny and insignificant, then nourished by God’s eager help into trees of faith to feed and harbor weak and searching souls?

“It’s like a mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the sky nested in its branches.” Luke 13:19 CSB

God will feed any faith we are capable of placing on Him, including the mere desire to have faith. Are you a mustard seed? How high will you grow?

God in the Moments

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This morning I woke up with a heart that felt like lead in my chest. The future lay in shadows that I could not penetrate, and I doubted even the point of me. I did not think anything I tried to do came to anything. I felt as if all my gifts from God were useless, extras in the grand scheme, discardable. I felt discardable.

I buried my head in my pillow with tears pouring down my face, and I cried to my God for answers. “Why does everything have to be so hard? Why does no one want what you gave me to give? What exactly is it that you want from me? Why am I failing?”

As I lay there, my husband wrapped his arms around me and spoke in my ear. He reminded me of our children’s answers to some recent questions, answers that filled me with awe at the hearts of children. Children who have seen God. “You are not pointless.”

The telephone rang, asking if the kids could interrupt their routine to haul firewood. A cold front is coming and hard workers were needed to lay in a good supply. The hard workers asked for were my children, because they would certainly get it done. It’s what they have been taught. “You are not failing.”

My tears still flowed, my heart still screamed, and I reached out to friends for prayer. Four dear sisters heard my cry and felt my pain. Messages flooded in; prayers, empathy, wisdom, and love filled my screen. “You have been called for a purpose.”

My husband remembered a lunch meeting with a brother. Their conversation turned to frustrations, doubts, and fears that this friend and fellow worker shared with us. Commonalities that would have continued to have been suffered alone otherwise. In the sharing perspective was discovered in each other’s struggle. “You are needed.”

Family called with an invitation to a donut feast. A loved dog had died and cheer was needed. Orders were taken, favorites recorded, and two dozen donuts purchased. The laughter of children, sticky fingers, and sugary faces followed a shared supper. Grief receded into togetherness. “You are wanted.”

I went to shower and turned on the radio as I often do. My daily shower provides a few minutes of reflection and music provides a focus. Words of faith and reassurance streamed like water over my head. All the feelings I had poured out to my Lord, all the answers given through the events of the day, culminated in those strains of praise. “You’re gonna be okay!” “I am not alone!” “I will trust in you!”

My heart still aches. The causes of my feelings still exist and will continue. But in my moments of pain God heard me. In the words of friends He was there. In the calls for help and fellowship He was there. In my quiet hours He was there. God is in all my moments, and in seeing Him there I can dry my tears. In His presence I find again my reasons and my joy.

The Darkest Valley

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When Moses was called to release God’s people from Egyptian servitude, he feared to obey, and the first results of his efforts seemed to justify his fear. Pharaoh was so incensed by the challenge to his perceived authority that he responded with harsh punishment. Beatings, killings, and impossible expectations made the Israelites utterly wretched. Moses, who himself remained untouched, was forced to watch these consequences of standing for God, feel the pain his people endured. In addition, he became a pariah to those God sent him to rescue; the familiarity of slave life, of being treated as inferior or as beasts of burden, was more palatable than the cost of freedom.

What would have happened if Moses had told God His freedom was too hard? Had returned to shepherding in the wilderness and left the Israelites to their familiar drudgery?

Because Moses faithfully walked through the shadow of suffering with his people, eventually even Pharaoh suffered enough from his behavior that he granted freedom, at least temporarily. Like all egomaniacs, however, as those who had been under his thumb stood on the brink of escape, he reached out to trap them again. Once again, Moses had to watch the darkness of evil falling around the people he loved, and endure their panicked blame. It seemed that every action taken in the direction God sent put them all in a deeper valley of hopelessness.

What would have happened if Moses had told the people to give themselves up? If he had decided the assignment was impossible and that life in slavery was better than promises that came with fear?

When Pharaoh’s army had been drowned and the Sea had been crossed, Moses faced the task of leading a nation through cultivated lands populated by military powers who would not share, through wild lands where no food could be found, and through deserts that parched throats without relief. Over and over he watched his charges face death on the path God had chosen for them, wept for their suffering, and endured accusations from people who found dehumanization and subjugation more palatable than scrabbling for their own necessities in freedom.

What would have happened if Moses had bowed in defeat in the desert? If he had decided the hunger and thirat and recriminations were too much to bear and left the Israelites to throw themselves on the mercy of their enemies?

“Even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, for you are with me;… you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies…” Psalm 23:4,5

What would happen if, when threatened for following the path God set, we kept walking? What would happen if, when punished for speaking God’s challenge to evil, we kept talking? What would happen if, when hardship and death loomed because we stepped out in faith, we trusted Him to give us life? What would happen if, when in our darkest valleys, we chose to look at the Son?

Love

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Peter wrote to early Christians during a time of relentless persecution. Those who claimed the name of Christ were surrounded by neighbors and authority figures who wanted them dead, exterminated with no memory of their existence. The pressure had begun to wear on the faithful of God, inciting rage and resentment toward their enemies and causing tension even among themselves.

Rather than giving in to such feelings, Peter urged the beleaguered Christians to uphold a higher choice. By responding to attackers with anger, they merely fueled the hatred directed toward them, proving the accusations of their enemies. Instead they were to be respectful of their haters, remaining free of the trap in which their enemies had already fallen. They were simply to live their lives, keeping God in focus and demonstrating His love. If a slavemaster bullied them, they needed to be sure they had given no excuse by rebellion or poor work; the slavemaster was wrong, but they should not be. If a woman followed God but her husband did not, she was not to create a wall in their marriage over it. Instead she was to offer him all her love and trust, be a quiet irresistable strength for him. Men were not to be tyrants over their wives, even in spiritual matters, but were to be gentle and respectful of their partners in life.

If they were to hold such character toward their enemies, their relationship with each other as the followers of Christ was to be infinitely more precious and protected. They were to live in harmony with each other. Harmony in music is something that nearly everyone understands; it requires many different notes being played together in such a way that each is beautified and enriched by the others. These Christians were individuals with different cultural and religious backgrounds, different preferences and styles, different experiences, and often different understandings of spiritual matters. Instead of arguing about their differences, they were to use them to create a beautiful melody that could not be ignored even in the face of great terror. Their love and compassion for each other, and for their enemies, would provide the strength to stand for truth without rancor against an onslaught of suffering.

This approach is difficult for most. Human love is often limited by an instinct for self-preservation and exaltation. We want others to sacrifice for us, become what makes us comfortable, believe what we tell them without question, and so on, while the same asked of us is offensive. There is no room for understanding of or compassion for another’s struggle when that struggle makes us uncomfortable, yet the example of our Savior is weighted heavily in the opposite direction. To follow Him each one of us must be willing to wear another’s shoes. Respect between us as humans must be mutual, regardless of human differences. Sacrifice for other humans must be mutual between God’s faithful, and weighted against ourselves when dealing with lost souls.

The love of our Savior sacrificed everything to show hope to the hopeless, peace to the raging, love to the hateful. It did not seek to condemn souls, but to change them. It challenged them, pushed them, even rebuked them sharply when necessary, but most of all it called them by its very existence. It, He, understood the depth of human failure and used the deepest horror of it to display perfection. To display love. How can we do otherwise?

“You Don’t Know Me”

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“Truly, I tell you, we speak what we know and we testify to what we have seen… No one has ascended into Heaven except the one who descended from Heaven – the Son of Man.” John 3:10, 11

“You don’t have his word residing in you, because you don’t believe the one he sent. You pore over the scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, and yet they testify about me.” John 5:38-39

Between the recording of the prophets’ messages and the coming of Christ, the Jews learned to avoid the obvious false gods and maintain temple worship. Admonished by God’s judgement of insincerity, they sought to ensure never to deserve such an accusation again. Rather than passing off whatever they didn’t want, they micromanaged offerings down to calculating tithes even down to the smallest grain of spice. Rather than complain about observing inconvenient laws, they argued and fought over who could be the most specific about how to obey. Synagogues were built where copies of the law and prophets were housed in state and teachers drilled endless litanies of rules into the heads of the general population. Factions and subfactions developed as pride and ambition led leaders to insist on their own interpretations and specifics to laws that God had expressed only broadly. Resentment of unchecked oppression by enemies of God was transmuted into rabid insistence that God would raise up a warrior king to crush them and form a Jewish empire to rule Earth.

When, after centuries of relative silence from God, miracles greater than any performed by former prophets began to flood Judea, these pedantic and self-absorbed leaders could not face the admission that they had been wrong. Every shred of their status and power had been built upon their micromanagement of God’s precious gift, and the sight of God in the flesh flouting their entire national structure was too much for them.

They looked the Lord and Savior of all in the eye and challenged his right to perform the miracles they could not deny. They wrapped scrolls of copied scriptures in the trappings of deity but denounced the source of those words as a criminal for not meeting their mortal expectations. Rather than argue with them, he simply and sadly acknowledged that they didn’t know him. How could they? Blinded by human concerns, they had never seen him; determination never to be rebuked again, to be completely in control of their earthly presentation, had killed any possibility of recognition. Their own version of God had become their new idol; obedience to Christ meant disobedience to that idol, and they killed him for it.

“Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in Heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?” Then I will announce to them, “I never knew you.” Matthew 7:21-23

God Culture

As an avid devourer of all things historical I have always loved learning about other cultures, both past and present. I am fascinated by all the different ways that humans find to express themselves and to celebrate their unique environments and backgrounds. Whenever I read about any particular culture being destroyed due to invasion or shifts in power, I always feel a sense of loss; an important part of human experience is lost in such a transition, often never to be remembered. On the other hand, watching a culture change as its environment and story develops is exciting; nothing is lost, only built upon.

Humans have an unfortunate tendency, however, to confuse culture with humanity, turning differences into the banners of annihilating armies. This tendency has prevented humanity from working together since the Tower of Babel, when the confusion of language intended to humble mankind instead was developed into an excuse for hate by the resentful and rebellious.

Through all the changes and wars, the thread of God’s culture can be found. Interestingly enough, this culture never seemed to be defined by fashion, music style, architectural design, economic constructs, or any other temporary arrangement. Abraham first wore the tasseled robes and intricately styled beards of the Chaldeans, then embraced the cushioned, portable tapestry of the nomad life. Joseph, as governor of Egypt, lived in the opulent stone palaces of the Nile, shaved his head, and decked himself with brilliant metal and jewels. Moses, born into the grueling and choiceless life of a slave, grew up in a culture of wealth , information, and power. He ultimately exchanged that for the homespun and weary roaming of a desert shepherd.

David spent a huge portion of his life wandering from cave to cave or fighting for hire, finding peace only in the songs he wrote. Esther wore the finery of a Persian queen and spent her life in a world of women. Daniel embraced the trappings of a culture that valued classical learning and rose as high as anyone could within it. Paul, though born into the Jewish elite and steeped in a social structure so rigid that no one could follow it accurately, excelled at adapting to any culture he encountered. He made tents with laborers, argued philosophy and theology with Greeks, taught in schools filled with intellectual elite, and spoke the language of the Roman ruling class.

In all of these cultures the faithful were acknowledged by God as securely His. Melchizedec, the priest-king of a Canaanite nation, was used to describe Christ because of his own unwavering faith. All of these cultures were mere physical constructs, born of shared experiences. The faithful didn’t exist outside of the cultures around them, they merely participated in a different kind of culture in addition.

God culture is also born of shared experience, but not physical experience. It is born of awareness of spiritual identity, of a purpose that transcends the mundane or even dramatic concerns of the physical universe. God culture does not conflate any specific culture with humanity; to God, our differences are what make us all beautifully human. Our creativity and capacity for identity are a direct inheritance from our Father, the One Who Is and Creator of all things. Those who participate in God culture cannot fathom using human differences as excuses to control or eradicate portions of humanity. God culture reaches with delight into the human experience, whatever it may look like, and demonstrates God within it. God culture embraces all human cultures, blending them into one shared experience, one superceding and absorbing identity as God people.

Spirit of the Tiger

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“Tenzin! Tenzin!” Dorji’s sandals slapped the floor of the quiet chamber as he nearly careened into his teacher. “You must come quickly! The cave!” He clung to the old man’s robes, panting wildly.

“Calm yourself, boy!” Tenzin surveyed the young acolyte with a mildly disapproving frown. “What has happened?”

“I wanted to pray where the holy Rampoche meditated, but I could not go in!” Dorji tugged on the monk’s robe urgently. “Red heat fills the chamber, and a demon’s breath echoes from the walls!”

Tenzin blanched. “Evil has returned! Ring the bell and gather every monk. Rampoche’s spirit has left us, and we must battle once again!”

Dorji stared with wide eyes. “But the holy man himself meditated for three and a quarter years before the demon was vanquished! And he was blessed by the spirit of the tiger! What blessing do we have? We will burn!”

Tenzin’s eyes flashed. “Then you will feed us while we pray. Perhaps three years or more of solitary service in the presence of holy battle will make you worthy of Rampoche’s mantle. Now ring the bell!”

To Whom Do We Answer?

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A pagan king with a bloated ego set an ultimatum. Pay homage with deep obeisance to his self-monument or burn alive. Three teenage boys stood their ground in a sea of groveling sycophants. They told a rage-maddened king that they didn’t answer to him, knowing full well the mortal consequences of doing so. The petty selfishness of a human ruler had no power to bring them to their knees because they served the King of kings. That King could have brought their enemy to his knees, destroyed him and set the boys up as kings in his place. He could have rained down His own fire on the misguided people who submitted to the despot. Instead, He merely stood in the fire with three teenagers, a shield that made rage impotent.

The great council of elders, appointed by Rome to judge matters considered beneath the empire’s notice and beholden to empirical favor for any authority they wielded, held its own people in a dictatorial vice. Independent thought threatened council members’ precarious position and status; developments not specifically approved by them exposed the lie in their carefully crafted image of themselves as the hands of God. When two fishermen gave sight to a blind man under their very noses at the gate of the temple and declared the council’s guilt of murdering God rather than serving Him, the council used its most drastic measures in retaliation. No longer allowed power over life and death, the members imprisoned the outspoken fishermen and sought to intimidate them with threats and posturing. The fishermen stood their ground in a sea of desperate faces, knowing that the consequences might well involve long-term imprisonment or even being handed over to deadly Roman discipline on false charges, calmly informing the power-crazed council that they did not answer to it. The conviction of the fishermen and their impossible healing paralyzed the council, exposing its true focus and stripping from it the fear it had cultivated in the people it ruled. The fishermen were released and their message flooded the city with hope and courage.

An egotistical man imposed his will on a group of faithful men and women. Unwilling to bend his will to any authority, he twisted the words of God and maligned any who challenged him. He isolated the group from outside influence, refusing to offer welcome to faithful visitors and ostracising any who defied his refusal. The same fisherman that faced the great council wrote to a faithful member of that beleaguered group, setting the example of conviction and encouraging the faithful to remember that they did not answer to any arrogant man. Their joint refusal to comply would sterilize his threats and free them to do the work of God.

Evil has many tricks to confuse our attention, to trick us into answering to the wrong demands. Not only does it launch open attacks from the outside, it creeps in through the chinks to sow doubt and confusion. A misguided sense of respect for human prestige, fear of temporary consequences, and overprioritization of human desires all result in forgetting the Authority above all authorities. Of what are we truly convicted? To whom do we truly answer?