Isaiah 12, and oh, the Friday Quick 5

1. I'd promised myself I was going to start using more pictures on my blog.  However, I don't understand the whole photo-sourcing things on blogs when I look at the Wiki sites where you can pull pictures.  It doesn't work like MLA or Turabian, therefore I don't understand.  My photography skills aren't good, but at least the images are all my own.  However... I'm really bad about actually getting the pictures taken.  You see the downward spiral, don't you?

2. The kids have been getting up early again.  Just a few blessed weeks, they slept in until 7am or later.  Now it's all early mornings.  It's seriously cramping my style.  But then, I can't complain when the early morning is filled with laughter and squeals as they play "Lion" with Daddy.  (Basically, Lion consists of Nick roaring and chasing the kids, then suddenly running off to hide for them to come find him, where it starts all over again with the roaring.)  Yesterday was a particularly happy morning as I made his sandwiches for work and they played for several minutes before he had to go out the door.  I love this life as a family.

3.  P90X really is kicking my butt.  I've lost so much of what I gained last time.  Let it be a lesson to me.  Today is the first day I haven't woken in a great deal of muscle fatigue and pain, and that's because I could do very little yoga yesterday.  My muscles just won't support me.  4am is kicking my butt, too.  Nick has a vacation day today, so we're working out during naptime, and we slept in.  Suddenly, 5am isn't such a bad time to get up.  Unless, of course, your not-yet 2 year old is crying to get up....

4. Can I just say that it's been a rough week?  I'm trying very hard not to complain or go on about the bad things, but to focus on the good things.  Still, it needs to be said: it's been a very rough week.  So much on the heart.  One of the young men in our congregation is in ICU with a blood clot on his brain; please, please pray for him.  My grandfather was in the emergency room, unresponsive, yesterday.  He's ok now, but we are realizing more and more that his remaining time here on earth is coming short.  Our congregation lost a very sweet lady this week.  I think she was ready to go.  From those closest to her (my parents are among those; my mom greatly misses her friend), she'd begun to take on that look, deep in her eyes, like she was really in another place, that her heart and mind were already in heaven.  It made me think about the way we should really live.  Shouldn't we all be so heaven-minded that our hearts are already there?  Not so much, obviously, that we forget to live, as Paul admonished the Thessalonians.  But how often, how many of us are still so focused on this earthly life that our coming after-life is a bit of a foreign concept?  As rough as this week has been, I'm reminded that it's only temporary.  The other side of the coin is apparent, too: as much as I sigh at night, grateful that the day is done, time is fleeting.  There is so much kingdom work to be done. Am I about the Lord's business?  Am I so heaven-minded that I see the gaps of the people who do not yet have one foot in the door, i.e. know their Lord?

5.  After such a weighty question, I'd like to leave the Quick 5 on a high note.  Isaiah 12 is such a beautiful chapter.  If I were a painter, I'd want to paint something like that.  If I were a singer, I'd want to sing an aria worthy of it.  I'm just a humble "writer", and not even one good enough to truly pay it homage.  It's like the first warm day of spring, after a cold and dry winter, that day when suddenly you feel like you've come alive again, just like the flowers and fields and trees.  It's the refreshing shock of cool when you jump into a pool on a hot sunny day, or the soothing warmth of a hot chocolate, sprinkled with marshmallows, after a day in the cold and snow.  It's like that. The passage gives us a picture of restoration, of a person and a people once estranged from God and brought close again.  Once, they were under God's wrath, and now they are wrapped in His comfort and salvation.  Instead of cursing, they sing praises to His name. This is the difference between holding onto our sin and surrendering to His good will.  Isaiah wrote it to Israel, but it is true for anyone who would declare Him Lord.  Please, take a moment to read it here and to meditate on the rich goodness that comes from the Almighty Lord God.  May it fill your day with comfort and peace and the beauty of our LORD:

Isaiah 12, from the NASB:

Then you will say on that day,
"I will give thanks to You, O LORD:
For although You were angry with me,
Your anger is turned away,
and You comfort me.
"Behold, God is my salvation,
I will trust and not be afraid;
For the LORD GOD is my strength and my son.
And He has become my salvation."
Therefore you will joyously draw water
From the springs of salvation.
And in that day you will say,
"Give thanks to the LORD, call on His name.
Make known His deeds among the peoples;
Make them remember that His name is exalted."
Praise the LORD in song, for He has done excellet things;
Let this be known throughout the earth.
Cry aloud and shout for joy, O inhabitant of Zion,
For great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel."


Amen.

I am a dusty Israelite.

I have a confession: I have not often been respectful of the Israelites, especially in their wilderness wanderings.  In fact, during d-group when we have discussed their wandering my comments have bordered on downright disrespectful for slight comedic affect.  It seemed such a simple thing to me: after seeing God's amazing power in the plagues of Egypt, in the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea, of the provision in the manna and the quail, in water coming from a rock, they should have realized that God could overcome the Canaanites and lead them into the Promised Land with smooth sailing, right?  So simple!  Yet they never got it right, and they spent a great deal of time during the Exodus complaining about their lack.  Oh, the irony.

Currently, my husband and I are facing some financial trials.  For someone who grew up feeling safe and secure, this is rather difficult.  I know there were definitely some financial dry spells for my parents when I was growing up, but I never felt the strain myself.  Maybe I was too immature or just didn't care, or maybe my parents were really good at not allowing our finances to diminish our family life; maybe both.  But feeling precarious like this is new to me.  And I don't like it.

It isn't that I haven't seen the Lord provide.  In fact I can name a number of answered prayers.  My daughter is healthy and growing.  I have a good marriage. Once, I saw God quiet the wind after a communal prayer with my camping buddies so that we could have a campfire.  And then He broke our tent and sent us home amidst thunderstorms to avoid sleeping at our campsite which saw a lot of SNOW that next night.  (And yes, we were highly unprepared for that, seeing that it was Memorial Day weekend...)  And yet I am complaining about my lack.

I have a number of prayer requests, all of which I know would ease our financial burdens.  But some have come up with a direct "no" and others we are still waiting upon.  Of course, my timing means NOW.  Immediately.  25 seconds ago.  But God isn't working in that way, and I find myself petulant, worried, stressed, and anything but expecting a miracle.  A few times people have said to me, "The Lord will provide," and I have responded, "I know He can."  But I haven't always had the faith that He will be willing to.  Just as the Lord purposely led the Israelites into the wilderness to avoid a confrontation with the Canaanites that would have sent them screaming back to Egypt, I know that the Lord has directed our steps into this rather scary situation.  He has indeed provided for all our basic needs: we have a car (each, actually), we have a roof over our heads, and we have food.  What more could we want, right?  But I look at the medical bills, doctor visits with (at this time) no insurance, various debts we've been working so hard to pay off (like school loans) and I worry if we'll be able to meet them.  And what this will do to our credit.  And how that will affect us being able to get a home of our own.  And I worry.  And I complain.  Like the Israelites, I don't look back at past miracles of provision (and you can't tell me that the wind quieting in a Colorado-wind-tunnel of a valley just as we say "Amen" is not a miracle!).  I look at the future, where I can't see what's coming next and what the Lord might do, and I get tetchy.  Nervous.  Growly.

The Lord is teaching me a lesson here.  And maybe He's even testing me.  If God conducted His tests the way the schools do, I'd be failing and that just might be the end of it.  But thankfully, He is a Teacher who keeps teaching until you get it.  And will likely review at some future point.  Lord, I'm trying.  Thank You for your patience!

The joy of background knowledge

The opening line of Hebrews is really dramatic, at least in the ESV it is: Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world.

Wow! Beats George Lucas' opening line, "Long ago and in a galaxy far, far away..." or something like that. At least to my mind.

The thing is, I find that opening line all the more powerful knowing what the writer referred to as "spoke to our fathers by the prophets". I do not claim to have any expertise in Biblical Old Testament prophecy. The farthest thing from the truth. I have, perhaps, a slight acquaintance with it. But because of this acquaintance, hundreds of years of history weighs upon that statement for me. God spoke to His people by thousands of prophets, some of whose words we have passed on to us today. And they all say something close to the same thing: follow God. He's going to fulfill His promises, just which ones do you want fulfilled?

In Bible college I had an Old Testament (OT) professor that really opened up the OT for me. (Shout out to Mr. [Dr.] Holmes!!) His big thesis is that all of the OT hangs upon the blessings and cursings of Deuteronomy 28 & 29. (Yes, Dr. Holmes, at least one of your students was definitely listening). And I totally agree: in that passage God promises that if Israel obeys, they will be blessed. If Israel doesn't, they will experience intense hardship until they come back. And you see, for the rest of Israel's history, it's pretty much the case. Judges: they obey, things go well; they don't obey, things go badly. The OT prophets all have the same message: repent, obey God, and escape the coming wrath. You don't do it, you can expect it.

Then skip four hundred years to Christ. Some of the OT prophets also pointed towards a Messiah. This Messiah shows up as Christ and He fulfills the Law and Prophets. (Ah, the Law and Prophets). And this is where Hebrews comes in: the writer of Hebrews is trying to show that Christ is not only the fulfillment of the prophets but the supreme and superior revelation from God. Cool stuff. And that one little statement means so much more to me, being aware (if not having a deep understanding) of what he [the author] meant when he said, "in many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son." It's so cool. Really, all of Hebrews is cool, and it is all the cooler if you understand its background in the Old Testament.

Again, I'm absolutely no expert on the Old Testament, whatever anyone else says. But even a slight familiarity with it really does inform my understanding of the New Testament. The two don't cancel each other out. Rather they are partners, revealing God's plan. Cool.

Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?

In my Sunday School this week, we watched a video of a speaker named Voddie Baucham. I think it's the best Sunday School I've had in a long time. Baucham is a good speaker: humorous, eloquent, concise. He spoke on why the question, "Why do you believe the Bible to be true?" was the most important question a Christian could answer, as it is the basis for everything we believe. His answer, which I totally agreed with, that the Bible is an accurate historical document written by 40 eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eye witnesses in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek on the Africa, Asian, and European continents over the course of 1500 years, is not the point I want to make today. (And, by the way, he said it much more eloquently and concisely.)

During the course of his sermon he mentioned the fact that Jesus made this statement on the cross: Eli, eli, lema sabachthani? Which is Aramaic, and translated into English, means My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Now, over the course of many years I have always heard about how God had to turn His back on Christ, His Son, His own Person, because Christ took our sins upon him in the moment of his crucifixion and God could not be with sin because of His righteous nature. (Hence, our predicament.) But Mr. Baucham brought up something else that I had never put together before, and subsequently left me with a funny expression: the cross between a grin and a hanging mouth.

Mr. Baucham pointed out that chapters and verses in Scripture are only a recent invention: since the Reformation period, or perhaps later (I can't remember the exact time). So, during Christ's lifetime, and pretty much any time before chapters and verses, people referred to a passage by the beginning verse in the passage. He then went on to point out that the words, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me," are the beginning to Psalm 22. The very psalm many refer to as the crucifixion psalm.

In this psalm, written by King David hundreds of years before Christ, before Romans, before crucifixion, David writes of an event he would have known little about. The psalm details the events of Christ crucifixion in startling fashion (at least for those who are skeptical of prophecy). It describes a man delivered to his enemies to be mocked, surrounded by Gentiles and enemies, being poured out like water, his heart melting within him (Christ's heart likely burst during the crucifixion and killed him b/c separated blood and water flowed out when they pierced his side); he thirsts, they divide his garments, his hands and feet are pierced, he can count his bones (they did not break Christ's bones on the cross, unlike the others), and so on. It's actually quite detailed, and fulfilled in the Gospel accounts.

Christ refers to the opening lines of this psalm upon the cross. The Jews among the bystanders, especially males who had been educated under the rabbinical system, would have known that this is the opening line to this psalm. And they should have realized that it was being fulfilled in their midsts.

This is not the first time Christ proclaimed Scripture fulfilled in His Person in the midst of the Jews. In Nazareth, Christ read Isaiah 61:1-2 to the Jews gathered at the synagogue and proclaimed if fulfilled in their midst (Luke 4:16-30). I had never considered it before, had never put it together before, but Christ was still pointing those who would hear them to the truth of His purpose: that He had come to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, not abolish them (Matthew 5:17).

I love red letters

Red lettering for Christ's words in the Bible make it so easy to find one of his quotes. All Bibles should have them.