Today, I had another one of those reminders about why I need to read slowly. Especially the Bible.
Psalm 147 is one of those great psalms we like to read at worship services because it talks about how wonderful and awesome God is. But embedded in this psalm are these words:
3 He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.
4 He counts the stars and calls them all by name.
If we don't read slowly, we will miss how amazing it is to find these two verses side by side. With the one hand, we have a God of infinite knowledge and power who is counting every star flung throughout the galaxy. With the other hand, God is stooping down on one knee like a gentle mother and putting band-aids on our scraped knee.
I have heard it said that most of our trouble with God stems back to our inability to hold these two contradictory ideas about God together. He is unfathomable greatness. He is uncomfortable nearness. He is mighty beyond words. He is personal beyond reason. He is holy mystery and wholly other.
And somehow today, I am finding great comfort in this mystery. A god that I could understand would quickly become a god that I would control or twist to my own ends. But a star-holding, band-aid wielding Master makes me pause and simply say, "Wow."
May you live today in the tension of a God who is far beyond you. And yet, right here with you. May this tension bring you to a deeper definition of faith; faith in one you cannot ever fully explain. And that's okay.
Journey on-
Nick
Monday, January 31, 2011
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Wouldn't You Like to Be a Broadway Stage-hand?
I sure would! I heard on the radio yesterday on my way to work that the top Broadway stage-hand makes over $400,000. No, that is not a typo for $40,000- the best stage hand makes over four hundred thousand dollars. (They also get a meager $107,000 in deferred payments annually) Wow, that's a nice paying gig. The radio announcer was lamenting that this was just one example of how Broadway unions were controlling the market, driving theater ticket prices through the roof, and creating an unsustainable future. The announcer likened this situation to Social Security and lamented that we as Americans regularly get ourselves into difficult situations because we fail to grasp that we have limits.
This got me thinking about the goodness of limits. God, in his wisdom, created you and I to have a limited capacity. From the very beginning, in the creation of mankind, we had limits. God placed Adam in a garden, defined it's boundaries, gave him a tree that was off limits, defined suitable partners (Eve) and unsuitable ones, among other natural, God-given constraints. Throughout history, we humans get ourselves into trouble when we start believing that we have no limits. And like Spiderman on Broadway, we create a system that is doomed to come crashing down. We mortgage the future to pay for today, and hope that when that future comes someone else will bail us out.
Today I am trying to accept that I have limits, and that this is a good thing. I have a limited amount of time, so I must choose wisely where to spend it. I have a limited amount of money, so I must use discernment in how to spend it. I have a limited amount of energy, so I must expend it in places that truly matter.
How about you? Are you constantly trying to push beyond your limits, or are you accepting that by God's grace He has made us to be people who can only do so much? I believe that as we accept our limited state, we find true freedom to depend on God for all the things that lie beyond our abilities.
May we all know the joy of limits on our journey today-
Nick
This got me thinking about the goodness of limits. God, in his wisdom, created you and I to have a limited capacity. From the very beginning, in the creation of mankind, we had limits. God placed Adam in a garden, defined it's boundaries, gave him a tree that was off limits, defined suitable partners (Eve) and unsuitable ones, among other natural, God-given constraints. Throughout history, we humans get ourselves into trouble when we start believing that we have no limits. And like Spiderman on Broadway, we create a system that is doomed to come crashing down. We mortgage the future to pay for today, and hope that when that future comes someone else will bail us out.
Today I am trying to accept that I have limits, and that this is a good thing. I have a limited amount of time, so I must choose wisely where to spend it. I have a limited amount of money, so I must use discernment in how to spend it. I have a limited amount of energy, so I must expend it in places that truly matter.
How about you? Are you constantly trying to push beyond your limits, or are you accepting that by God's grace He has made us to be people who can only do so much? I believe that as we accept our limited state, we find true freedom to depend on God for all the things that lie beyond our abilities.
May we all know the joy of limits on our journey today-
Nick
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
He Did It His Way
Have you ever been in a conversation with someone who just doesn't "get it"? I find this extremely frustrating. So did Jesus.
In Mark 8, a group of Pharisees (ie, really religious people) came up to Jesus and demanded He show them a sign- perform a miracle as a way of proving He was indeed from God. At first glance, this seems rather innocuous, until you note the three stories preceding this one. In them, Jesus has driven out a demon from long distance, healed a deaf/mute by using spittle, and fed 4,000 people with a few dinner roles. I don't know about you, but this seems like a pretty good run of ministry to me.
And yet, here are the high and mighty religious guys asking for a sign. "Um, excuse me," I'm thinking, "are you paying attention here? Have you seen what's going on? Why don't you get it?" Granted, the Pharisees probably hadn't been personally present at any of these miracles, but there was more than enough evidence for them to realize that Jesus was the real deal. But it wasn't good enough for them. Jesus had to do it their way, in their timing. With this as their mindset, the Pharisees missed Jesus altogether.
Sad. Even more sad when I think about how often this is MY experience. I want God to do things a certain way- show up at certain times, fix things a certain way, "prove" himself to me with a certain sign. Rarely, if ever, does God work this way. He is doing his own thing, and if I have the eyes to see it, His ways are far more wonderful and beautiful than my own.
Nowhere do we see the brilliance of God's plan more than in the Christmas story. If it were my way, I would not send a child to change the world. But God's way was to take on human form, become one of us, and proclaim through our humanity, "I am with you." His ways are not my ways, and thank goodness for that. Through Christ, His way continues to change and shape the world today.
"Our God is in the heavens, and He does as HE wishes." (Psalm 115:3) May your eyes be open in this Christmas season in such a way that you can trust this God. He is good, and his plans are good. Celebrate with great joy in Him.
Peace-
Nick
In Mark 8, a group of Pharisees (ie, really religious people) came up to Jesus and demanded He show them a sign- perform a miracle as a way of proving He was indeed from God. At first glance, this seems rather innocuous, until you note the three stories preceding this one. In them, Jesus has driven out a demon from long distance, healed a deaf/mute by using spittle, and fed 4,000 people with a few dinner roles. I don't know about you, but this seems like a pretty good run of ministry to me.
And yet, here are the high and mighty religious guys asking for a sign. "Um, excuse me," I'm thinking, "are you paying attention here? Have you seen what's going on? Why don't you get it?" Granted, the Pharisees probably hadn't been personally present at any of these miracles, but there was more than enough evidence for them to realize that Jesus was the real deal. But it wasn't good enough for them. Jesus had to do it their way, in their timing. With this as their mindset, the Pharisees missed Jesus altogether.
Sad. Even more sad when I think about how often this is MY experience. I want God to do things a certain way- show up at certain times, fix things a certain way, "prove" himself to me with a certain sign. Rarely, if ever, does God work this way. He is doing his own thing, and if I have the eyes to see it, His ways are far more wonderful and beautiful than my own.
Nowhere do we see the brilliance of God's plan more than in the Christmas story. If it were my way, I would not send a child to change the world. But God's way was to take on human form, become one of us, and proclaim through our humanity, "I am with you." His ways are not my ways, and thank goodness for that. Through Christ, His way continues to change and shape the world today.
"Our God is in the heavens, and He does as HE wishes." (Psalm 115:3) May your eyes be open in this Christmas season in such a way that you can trust this God. He is good, and his plans are good. Celebrate with great joy in Him.
Peace-
Nick
Saturday, December 18, 2010
A Grammatical Mistake?
My devotional thought from tonight's candlelight service...
Nick
Saturday Night Devotional
So much of life is never finished- dishes, laundry, garage cleaning, tasks at work- on it goes and we wonder sometime why we bother. It will just need doing again later. At times, it’s more serious than that- we can feel that same about parenting our kids, working on our marriage, or even our faith- prayer, reading the Bible- sometimes we wonder what it will accomplish.
Luke 1:68- there’s something wrong with this verse. It reads, “Praise the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has visited and redeemed his people.”
The tense is wrong, isn’t it? We would expect it should read “and he WILL redeem His people.”
But instead it says, “redeemed”- past tense. Over and done.The NAS makes it stronger still- “accomplished redemption”- a finished work. In the Greek, it’s the aorist tense- which means a SINGLE action referred to typically in the past.
But Jesus is just a baby. In fact, Jesus is still in the womb of Mary at this point! How has redemption been accomplished?
The coming of the Messiah set in motion a whole new era of God’s Kingdom, and the final outcome of this plan is guaranteed. The old has gone, the new has come! The coming of Jesus represented more than the birth of a single person, but the in-breaking of all God’s promises that would forever change history. It was the beginning of the New Covenant that prophets had pointed to for a thousand years. Zechariah realized that when his son had been born, the whole plan had been set in motion. And because God was behind it, the new covenant era was unstoppable. God was going to finish what He had started.
We are living in that time! It is now! So what is our mindset? Do we still live in the attitude of “one day, he WILL redeem”. Is it just a future hope? NO- he has come and he HAS already redeemed. It’s certain. Live in this certainty! Live in simple trust that in EVERY area of your life, REDEMPTION has been accomplished. It’s done. Because Jesus has come.
Peace, and goodwill towards all, as you journey on...Nick
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Grumbling Causes Blindness
One of the simple truths in this life is that when we're busy looking at ourselves, we become blind to everyone else, including God. How unfortunate, because usually we are very boring while God is doing great things.
In Mark 6, Jesus does an amazing thing. He walks on water. He defies the laws of nature, which He created, and finds stability where everyone else sinks. As He is cruising past His friends in a boat, they see him and shriek in terror, believing it is a ghost. Jesus calms them with His voice and He climbs into the boat with them. As He does, a ferocious storm that had been raging around them suddenly calms to nothing.
Now here's the real kicker- this is what it says about the disciples reaction, "They were totally amazed for they still didn't understand the significance of the miracle of the loaves. Their hearts were too hard to take it in." So, Jesus was bringing down the power of heaven all around, and the disciples reaction was basically, "Huh?"
Which got me thinking- remember last week how I said the disciples were tired and worn out when Jesus performed the miraculous feeding of the 5,000? He took a few fish and a few rolls and fed everyone with 12 baskets of leftover food on the ground. If you put the disciples tired condition together with their hard hearts, it leads me to believe that when they were picking up the left-over bread, they were grumbling. They were complaining about the extra work they had to do. Jesus had just done something absolutely amazing, and it is entirely possible that all the disciples could see was the inconvenience it caused them.
So, grumbling can cause blindness. We can get so focused on our needs and what we don't have on a personal level that we miss incredible displays of God's power all around us.
I don't want that. My guess is, neither do you. So pray for a soft heart. And open eyes. Pray hard that when heaven opens and God's power falls, you won't miss it because you're focused only on yourself. Ah, a hard prayer, but a good one.
May you have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts that understand what God is doing around you!
Peace-
Nick
In Mark 6, Jesus does an amazing thing. He walks on water. He defies the laws of nature, which He created, and finds stability where everyone else sinks. As He is cruising past His friends in a boat, they see him and shriek in terror, believing it is a ghost. Jesus calms them with His voice and He climbs into the boat with them. As He does, a ferocious storm that had been raging around them suddenly calms to nothing.
Now here's the real kicker- this is what it says about the disciples reaction, "They were totally amazed for they still didn't understand the significance of the miracle of the loaves. Their hearts were too hard to take it in." So, Jesus was bringing down the power of heaven all around, and the disciples reaction was basically, "Huh?"
Which got me thinking- remember last week how I said the disciples were tired and worn out when Jesus performed the miraculous feeding of the 5,000? He took a few fish and a few rolls and fed everyone with 12 baskets of leftover food on the ground. If you put the disciples tired condition together with their hard hearts, it leads me to believe that when they were picking up the left-over bread, they were grumbling. They were complaining about the extra work they had to do. Jesus had just done something absolutely amazing, and it is entirely possible that all the disciples could see was the inconvenience it caused them.
So, grumbling can cause blindness. We can get so focused on our needs and what we don't have on a personal level that we miss incredible displays of God's power all around us.
I don't want that. My guess is, neither do you. So pray for a soft heart. And open eyes. Pray hard that when heaven opens and God's power falls, you won't miss it because you're focused only on yourself. Ah, a hard prayer, but a good one.
May you have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts that understand what God is doing around you!
Peace-
Nick
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