Beef and Noodles

A few years ago, I attended a family reunion. As my mom and I stood around in the kitchen talking about what food we should take, she laughed a little and said, "I thought about making up a big pot of beef and noodles." 

I laughed, too. 

Then, we showed up at the reunion and saw the spread all across the table. Deliciousness as far as the eye could see, and the host was firing up the grill. As we stood around talking to a couple of cousins, my mom made the comment that she thought about bringing beef and noodles. 

A cousin laughed and said she was going to do the same thing. Another one chimed in with a chuckle and said she was, too. 

A couple more cousins walked up and joined in the conversation, and when they found out what we were talking about, each one of them said they'd had the same thought - definitely beef and noodles. By this point, we were all laughing. 

See, my great-grandmother was known for her beef and noodles. Made from scratch. It's a dish that is a hallmark of our family, something everyone knows, and something everyone knows how to make. Just the way that grandma made it. 

Everyone knew, just knew in their hearts, that there would be beef and noodles at this reunion, and so everyone thought about it, then brought something else. 

I think about that, and I think about this Table with Jesus. 

We all know what's at this Table. Every single one of us. We know, when we come, that there will be bread, which is the body of Christ, and there will be juice, which is the blood of Christ. We stand in our kitchens and think about it. We kneel to pray and think about it. Whenever we think about this Table, we think about the bread and the juice. We can't help it. 

At the same time, we all bring something different, too. We all bring with us whatever it is that we have to bring, whatever we've got in this season. We bring our hurts and our hopes, our trials and our triumphs, our sickness and our health, our brokenness and our healings, our weariness and our zeal. We bring our everything. 

And when we look out over this table, there's quite the spread. There's something on this table for everyone, something that anyone can connect with, that anyone can nourish their souls with. There's something about the gathering of the whole family of Christ around this Table that just fills it to overflowing with a veritable smorgasbord of human experience. 

And it is good. Boy, is it good. 

But talk to any one of us, and we'll all tell you the same thing, even while we're poking potatoes and hot dogs and alligator cake into our mouths - 

Every single one of us is thinking about the bread and the juice. 

As we should. 

A Love Story

And then...life. And we're left trying to find God all over again, trying to learn to love Him all over again, trying to learn His love for us all over again. 

And I'm thankful for this. 

I think back to some of the first things I ever knew about God - or thought that I knew about God. Some of the earliest experiences that I had of Him, some of the first moments that I knew for sure His love. I think about the wonderful memories that those things hold in my heart, the solid foundation that they have created for every bit of faith that has come afterward. 

But I also realize how many seasons of my life I have had since then that I simply wouldn't have made it through with my faith intact if that was all the faith that I had, if that was all I ever knew of God. 

I would still love Him, I think....maybe...but it wouldn't be a meaningful, intimate kind of love. It'd be the kind of love you have for a relative you only see once or twice a year who doesn't ever seem to know what's been going on in your life. Who seems to care, but hasn't stayed connected. Who you love, but you come to find out that you don't really know. Not in any way that matters. That's not really love. It's something, but it's not really love. 

The truth is that I have needed every little thing I have learned about God, every little thing that I've had to fight for. All of the things that I've come to know after being almost sure that I lost Him again, that He didn't follow me into whatever season I just entered into. The truth is, He entered into every single one of those seasons with me, and He invited me into a deeper faith in each of them. 

He invited me to find Him anew, to discover something different, to take that firm foundation block on which I had set my faith and start building on it, start strengthening it, start stretching it out to accommodate more of the inevitable human experience - love, loss, victory, defeat, sickness, health, questions, confident assurance. All of it. 

And every season has given me more to draw on in the next one. More to trust in. More to hope in. More to know for sure. Every season has made me more unshakable, no matter what comes next. 

Some persons try to live forever on whatever little bit they know about God. They try to cling to that, no matter what the season is. And that leads them to sometimes think that God has probably changed, or disappeared, or doesn't love them any more. 

But that's simply not true. 

The God I have known in seasons past is still good. Always has been, always will be. But if that's the kind of goodness He brought to this season, I would, at the very least, think it strange. In fact, I think sometimes about the little things of God that I have loved so much from seasons past, and I realize that if those little things were to pop into this season, they would worry me. They would concern me. Because the challenges I face in this season are not the challenges He was answering in that one, and I realize that to see those signs of His love today would make me wonder whether those challenges were coming back, too. 

No, I love the God that I find in every season. I love knowing more of Him. I love having the chance to grow my faith every time I move. To have a God to hold onto while at the same time, having one to keep discovering, too. 

It is the most amazing of all love stories, and I get to be right in the middle of it. 

It's so cool.  

Manna

And then...life. And then, you wonder if you still love God or if He still loves you or if you even know anything about Him at all. 

As we saw yesterday, God hasn't gone anywhere, but He's different in every season. Different aspects of His heart and character manifest themselves in different ways according to where we are and what our needs are and what our eyes are open to. 

The simplest way to say this is: you only need manna in the wilderness. 

When Israel left Egypt and set to wandering, they got hungry along the way. God gave them manna from heaven, this new sort of thing they had never seen before that appeared on the ground for them every morning. And they haven't seen it since. 

In Egypt, God showed His love by drawing a distinct line between His people in Goshen, who were never touched by frogs or gnats or blood or death, and the people of Egypt, who are probably still cleaning frogs out of their houses. 

There has never been a ram in a thicket anywhere in Scripture except on Mount Moriah when Abraham needed a sacrifice. 

In the Tabernacle, the Levites were responsible for carrying all of the things of the tent, but when the Temple came along, they moved into the cities of refuge and became the ministers of God's justice and protection. 

The list could go on and on. As we read through the Bible, we continue to see all of these different examples of God's love and goodness depending on where His people are, what kind of season they are in. 

Should we say, then, that God is ever-changing? Of course not. We understand that all of these things are just aspects of His one being, of the one consistent reality that is the very heart of God. We understand that you only need manna in the wilderness, you only need carriers in the desert, you only need a sacrifice on the mountain. We understand that God met His people in exactly the way they needed at exactly the time they needed Him in exactly the place where they were.

The same is true today. 

It's hard when our life changes because it feels like our God changes. It feels like everything we thought we knew about Him is called into question as the experience we've had of God starts to fade in a new place. But...it has to. Some other aspect of His love is coming. We are about to encounter Him in a new way. We are about to deepen our relationship, if we can just hold on and keep looking for the new way that God loves us here. 

A Distant God

And then...life. And transition. And all of a sudden, you don't know if you love God any more. You don't know if He loves you. All of the signs and wonders and assurances that you've grown accustomed to - grown to depend on - have vanished, and the God who was once so near now feels so very far away. 

Because He is. 

The experiences you've had of God have all been dependent upon the places in which you've found Him. So it's only natural that when you come into a new season and find yourself in a new place, you have to discover God all over again. Not because He's really distant, but because the ways in which you've known Him are far removed from your new situation. 

If you were to move to a new town, you could not expect that driving the exact same path from your home - a left turn, two rights, a mile straight down the road and into the parking lot - would get you to the local grocery store in your new town. That would be weird. 

At the same time, you would also never convince yourself that just because the same route doesn't get you there, your new town obviously doesn't even have a grocery store. That would be just plain silly. 

In the same way, we so often move from one season of life and expect to find God exactly where we left Him - a left turn, two rights, a mile straight down the road and there He is. Then, we're surprised to find that that's not where God is any more. That's not how we get to Him from here, not from this new place. 

What's interesting is that most of us will then go through this period of wondering whether God is even here at all, then. No matter how sure we were of taking this step, of making this move, of entering this new season, there comes a moment - usually when we realize that we can't find God the same way we're used to - when we wonder whether God really wanted us to be here at all. 

Was He really calling us to move? Did He really prepare this place for us? Is our faith strong? Did we hear wrong? Maybe we didn't hear at all and just made it up because it's what suited our hearts. 

The questions don't seem to stop. 

We long for a taste of the God that we have known, the One we have loved, the One we were so certain loves us. We ache for the signs and wonders and assurances that brought us this far, just a little one. Just a piece of one. Just a reminder of one. We struggle because He seems so far away, and it doesn't seem like we'll ever find Him again. 

But...we will. 

Because He's not that far away after all. 

He is, as He has always been, right with us. Right here with us. We just have to find the new way. 

And yes, a lot of us are going to step out of our houses and turn left just like we've always done, even for awhile after we've realized God isn't over that way any more. It's just habit. It's just natural. It's just the way we have lived. 

But eventually, we'll remember. We'll take a right. Or maybe even go straight. Wherever He happens to be. And the new route will become the old standard, and it will be just as natural to us as anything ever was. 

We will know, as we have always come to know, that God is in this place, too. He's not so far off as He seems. He's just...different here. 

And that's okay. In fact, it's good. 

Seasons

There are seasons in my life in which I love God deeply. Inevitably, these are followed by seasons in which I can't figure out if I even know who God is anymore, let alone if I love Him. 

Let alone if He loves me. 

It's a tough place to be in. Always questioning the faith. Always missing those things that made me so sure in a season that seems both not that long ago at all and yet, somehow, an entire lifetime away. 

When I stepped into ministry more than a decade ago, I felt the love of God deeply. I felt it in the way that He poured into me when I was pouring myself out, every day. I felt it in the way that the worship music thumped deep in my soul like a bass boost during my hour-plus commute each way. I felt it in the way that I stood a little taller (literally - I gained an inch in that season), in the way that I found the strength to look in the mirror, in the way that I saw the tenderness in my own hands. There was something unquestionable about God in that season. 

Then...life. And I entered a new season. A season marked by more questions. By roadblocks. Not so much by wandering as by wondering - wondering where I go from here. What the next step is. What the last season meant in this season. Why the God I had grown so close to had suddenly become what felt like so quiet, so distant. 

This season was a season of struggle. Deep struggle. Physical, emotional, financial, spiritual struggle. Not for any particular reason except that, well, the things I had been so sure of didn't seem so certain any more and I was wrestling in that place that pulls us between what God says and what the world allows. I was certain I knew where God wanted me, but I was running up against a world that seemed committed to making sure I could never get there.

At some point in this season, I found God anew once again in the weirdest of all ways. In a time when I was worried about where I was going and what I was doing and how I was going to make it, let alone survive, God started meeting me in the most unexpected places with provision. Weird provision. Opportunities. Gifts. Blessings. Poured out like I had never experienced them before in my life...and haven't since. And I came to understand that God was loving me even then, and I began to rely on these provisions to nourish my soul in those places that kept questioning. Until...one day, I realized I wasn't questioning any more. 

Ah, yes. God is still God. God is still good. God still loves me. Things are okay. 

Then...life. Another transition. Another new season. One that has been blessed from the very start of it, only to come into a sort of rough patch of growth later. A season that was clearly God's next good thing for me and yet, there's something empty about it. Those little provisions that I had come to love, to rely on, to use to fuel my soul...they're gone. Those things haven't happened any more. Much as the thump in the depths of my soul that I felt to the worship as God poured into me hasn't really happened since two seasons ago. 

And it's hard. It's hard because I know I still love God. At least, I think I do. But there are all of these questions again. This weird gnawing...emptiness where all the things that made me solid in seasons past don't work here, and there are days that I wonder...is the love still there? Is it still deep? Am I losing something? Is this what drifting away feels like? Will those things I always loved about my special relationship with God ever come back? In the same way? In a new way? 

There are a thousand questions, and I don't know the answers to them. But then, I realize that at the beginning of every other season, I didn't know the answers, either. But they came. And they were good. And they were wonderful. 

So maybe it's about just holding on.  

Strong and Happy

Our God is a God of bread and wine. If you read through the Scriptures with an eye for it, you'll find this meal in a thousand little places where you never expected it. 

One such place that I recently found this Table was deep into the psalms. 

In Psalm 104, the psalmist declares that the Lord has given us "bread to make us strong, wine to make us happy, and oil to make our faces shine." And I love this image of the meal. 

Bread has nutritional value. It is full of carbohydrates, which the body uses for energy. It does something to the physical system to eat bread; it enables us to do other things, things that God has called us to do. The bread nourishes our bodies. 

Wine...doesn't really have nutritional value. You aren't getting a lot of good energies from wine. You aren't giving your body much fuel at all. But..it does something to the soul. It's intoxicating. It captivates something inside our spirit and makes us lighter, more carefree. More prone to dream wild dreams. The wine nourishes our soul. 

I think this is important when we think about the meal that Jesus prepared for us in the Upper Room and, just a few hours later, on the Cross. He told us this was His body and this was His blood; He told us it was the bread and the wine. 

And I think the only conclusion we can draw from that is that the Lord was telling us that He was feeding our bodies and our souls. That in His sacrifice, there was something for every part of us. Something for the part of us that connects to the world (the body) and something for the part of us that connects to the Lord (our soul). 

Sometimes, it's too easy for us to forget about this. To think that God only cares about what we can do or about how much we love Him, but not really the two of those things together. We tend to tip the scales one direction or the other and convince ourselves that God only cares about one thing - whatever we have decided that one thing is.

I'm telling you - it's very infrequent that we decide that God cares at all about our happiness. 

But here it is, right there in the psalms - the purpose of the wine is to make us happy. 

Of course, we are talking about a happiness of soul, not a satisfaction of the flesh. We're talking about a true happiness, not a temporary glee. We're talking about abiding joy, not momentary ecstasy. But it's there - happiness. God cares about our happiness. 

And if you ever forget that, then this Table is here to remind you. 

For on it, forever, there is bread to make us strong and wine to make us happy, the body to give us strength and the blood to give us joy. This is the gift.  

God Acts

How long, O Lord?

They are words most of us resonate with, as we have spent so much of our lives praying desperately for the Lord's intervention and wondering when - or sometimes, even if - He will move. When will He do something? When will He set things right? When will He answer us? How long, O Lord, must we wait?

We have come up with all kinds of ideas to satisfy our souls when we don't think God is moving quickly enough. We have told ourselves that we just don't know what is truly good, so what we are asking for is actually not what's good for us. We have told ourselves that the timing is wrong, that God will act when it is time for Him to act and not a second sooner. We have told ourselves that God simply doesn't care, that this isn't the kind of thing that He's interested in. We have told ourselves that God is testing us, that we have to get through this to "pass." We have told ourselves that God is punishing us, that we deserve whatever bad things He's not seeming to rescue us from. We had told ourselves that God is strengthening us, that this is going to prepare us for something else He wants us to do later. We have told ourselves all kinds of things, ad nauseum, to try to make ourselves feel better, but the truth is...none of these things do.

Rather, all that these things tend to do is to call into question everything that we think we know about God until the only logical conclusion we can reach is a nagging question that we can't quite let go of - is God even good?

But the Bible tells us who God really is - that He is good, yes, and that He answers us. He is coming. He is doing something. 

Solomon reflected this knowledge in the prayer that he prayed over the Temple when its construction was finally complete. If you remember this prayer, it takes up the entirety of the very long chapter of 2 Chronicles 6, and in it, Solomon mentions several groups of persons by name. Israelites, non-Israelites, the faithful, the repentant, the backsliders. Seekers. Everyone. And the structure in each breath of the prayer is the same:

Lord, when You hear, act. 

When You hear this person, respond. When someone prays this way, answer them. When we turn to You, let us see Your face. 

The only reason that Solomon prays a prayer like this one is because he knows this is who God is. He knows this is how God responds. He has learned, through his own journey of faith and the story of his people, that this is a God who answers. Whenever He hears His people, He can't help but come. 

In the Garden. In the wilderness. On the mountain. In the Temple. On the shores of Galilee. In the streets of Jerusalem. Over and over and over again, the Bible tells us that we have a God who hears...and acts. Who moves. Who comes. And Solomon takes all this wisdom to heart and prays to this God...the God he knows the Lord really is. 

So if it doesn't seem like God is coming, He is. If it doesn't seem like He's answering, He is. If it doesn't seem like He's acting, He is. He can do no other. Our God is a God who hears...and acts. 

May we pray with such confidence. 

God's Fullness

If you've read the Old Testament, then you know that the Temple (and the Tabernacle) were somewhat complicated designs. There was a courtyard, an inner place, a holy place, and a Most Holy Place. All of the accoutrement of the Temple had its specific place, exactly where it had to be, in one of these spaces, and entrance into these spaces was limited to certain classes of Israelites - for example, only the high priest was allowed in the Most Holy Place. 

And the Most Holy Place was the place where the Ark of the Covenant, covered by the Throne of Mercy, dwelt. It's where Israel kept the tablets that God Himself had written on, a sampling of manna from the wilderness, Aaron's blooming staff. It's where all of the most powerful symbols of God's promise and presence remained for all time. 

We are told, as well, that the very presence of the Lord dwelled in this Temple (and in the Tabernacle). We are told that He came in a smoke so thick that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. 

We are told...that His glory filled the Temple. 

This is so like God. This is exactly the kind of thing that He does. 

We are a people who are prone to think that if God is going to move into the Temple, He's going to move into His room. The Most Holy Place. Where the Throne of Mercy is. He's going to move into the place that is set up to be most suited for Him. And, of course, we live a lot of our Christian lives believing this, as well - that God is content to dwell in the space we have created for Him, the little room that seems most fitting for Him in our lives. 

But the Bible tells us over and over again that this is not what God does. The Bible doesn't tell us that God came to dwell in the Most Holy Place. It doesn't tell us that God's glory covered only the Throne of Mercy. It tells us that He came to dwell in the Temple and His glory filled the place. 

Every nook and cranny of it, overflowing even to the outside. So thick and so clearly present that you couldn't ignore it. 

And this is still what God does. 

He comes to fill this place. He comes to fill our lives. He comes to fill our hearts. He comes to dwell in a glory so thick and clearly present that you can't ignore and that's so clear to everyone because it overflows a little bit and just sort of...seeps out of us. 

He's not content to dwell only in the Most Holy Place, even if that is the place that looks most like His sort of thing; He comes to dwell in every place and make it holy. 

This is our God. 

God Overflows

You don't have because you don't ask. 

Have you ever heard that? We live in a world where it seems you have to not ask, but beg, for just about everything you can have. Beg for a good job. Beg for a raise. Beg for a decent car and for a loan to get a place to live. Beg for friends. Beg for forgiveness. We spend our lives having to ask, and beg, for everything because "there's no such thing as a free lunch." 

Of course, at the same time, we seem to resent those who do ask. Those who are always asking. Those who seem to expect the world to give things to them because they are always asking the world to do just that. 

It's no wonder, then, that we approach our relationship with God the same way. We ask and we beg and we end up asking and begging for every little thing because it seems like nothing just comes our way and right in the middle of what is our big, earnest, honest ask from God, we remember all the little things that we also kind of want, and we throw those in, too - because if we don't ask, God's not going to give. The world certainly doesn't. 

At the same time, we resent asking. We resent having to beg. And we think God resents our asking and begging. We think that God, much like the watching world and all the keyboard warriors, is sitting out there judging us and looking down on us for asking at all. 

But He's not. 

Our God is a good God. He is a gracious God. He is a loving God. He enjoys giving us things, giving us what our hearts want and little bonus gifts on top of that. He enjoys delighting us because He is, at heart, a God of delight (and not just His). 

Remember Solomon's most famous prayer (which was actually a dream)? God asked Solomon what he wanted, anything in all the world, and Solomon asked for wisdom. God then said, "Great! I will give you wisdom. I will also give you things you didn't ask for - like wealth, health, and a long life. This is so good. I am so happy to give these things to you." 

Solomon didn't have to ask for that other stuff; God was happy to give it to him. Solomon might have considered those things when God asked him what he wanted, but he didn't settle there, and he didn't even throw them in as side prayers, as "if You have extra." He didn't ask, and he certainly didn't beg.

And yet, God gave him all of it, beyond his wildest imagination and deepest longing. 

Because that's who our God is. 

He delights in giving us more than we asked for. He loves blessing us beyond what we think our measure is. He cherishes the chance to love us, without us having to beg or even ask. It's simply who He is. Who He has always been. Who He will always be. 

God the King

For much of their history, the people of God had no human authority. Certainly, they had their prophets and their judges, but there were many years in between the rise of these folks where there was no one really in charge. 

And there didn't need to be. When the people had their hearts set on God and were worshiping Him properly, He led them. He was their leader. 

When they started to beg for a king "like all the other nations," Samuel told them what a king would require from them - and the things the king would take from them were the things they were currently giving to God. Their service, their offerings, their tithes. Of course, having a king doesn't exempt you from serving also your Lord, but the prophet needed them to understand that their king would require just as much, or more, of a portion of the same type as their Lord. 

They went with a king anyway. 

Just two kings later, they've had wonderous, glorious, fabulous years with David, the man after God's own heart. David has led them truly graciously and generously, not to mention honorably and well, as He followed the Lord and sought to not impose himself upon the people too much, trusting God to provide for him as He always had. 

At the end of David's life - two generations into the monarchy - he is giving a speech about his son, Solomon, preparing the people for the new king to take over and for all of the wonderful things Solomon is going to do. And in his speech, David says something that we should not just gloss over. 

He says that the kingdom is the Lord's. 

He says that the throne he sits on, that his son is about to sit on, belongs to God. 

He reminds the people that it is God who is their king; he, David, is just a shepherd boy. 

It's important to not lose sight of this fact, even for those of us who don't live with a king. Because we're just as tempted as Israel to put our trust in human leaders. 

For some of us, it's our government. Especially those of us who are blessed to live in well-governed, relatively stable countries/states/cities. Sometimes, we put the burden of the Lord's leadership on those we have elected. 

For others of us, it's our church leadership - our pastor or pastors, elders, deacons, teachers, preachers, etc. Anyone who holds a position of "authority" within the church is likely to be held as the Lord's elect, at least by some. Even in the most egalitarian of church families. 

Sometimes, it's pure age or experience or seeming wisdom that leads us to declare that someone is the leader by the grace of God. 

But let us never forget, as David reminded his people, that no matter who sits on the throne, it belongs to God. No matter who wears the crown, it is God who is our king. 

Forever. 

Feeding Thousands

I've been thinking about the feeding of the five thousand. And the feeding of the four thousand, for that matter. You know the story. 

A large crowd had gathered to listen to Jesus teach, but it was getting late and they were far from home and the disciples were worried about everybody going hungry, so they came to Jesus. Andrew, who always knows what's going on but also seems completely clueless at the same time, mentions that there's a little boy who brought his own lunch. It's true, but...

Then, Jesus takes the little boy's lunch, raises it, blesses it, breaks it, and starts passing it out. And...there's plenty. 

Actually, there's so much that there are leftovers. 

But Jesus didn't break five thousand pieces off that loaf. And this is important. 

Jesus broke the loaf into twelve. He gave a chunk of it to each of the disciples, and through His blessing on it, it continued to produce (just like the widow's oil continued to pour) until everyone had enough to eat. Jesus did the first miracle; His disciples did miracles #2 - #5,000. 

That's the miracle of the meal. 

The same is true with this Table we share today. So often, I think that we think of this Table as a rest stop for our weary souls, a place to come and get filled up, a place where Jesus breaks the bread - breaks His body - just for us. We think of it as our private moment with Jesus before we get back to the hustle and bustle of our daily lives, and it's this thing that Jesus gives us just for us. Just to fuel us. 

But there are 4,988 other persons on this hill. 

Do you get that?

There are thousands of other persons around us who are hungry. Thousands who are waiting for a piece of bread. Thousands who need the gift of Christ that is raised, blessed, broken, and given for us. ...raised, blessed, broken, and given through us. 

What if the cracker isn't just a single cracker, but a small part of what we are meant to keep dividing? To keep breaking pieces off from? To keep giving out? To use to feed the hungry around us? 

What if the Table isn't for us just to come, but for us from which to go? 

What if Jesus is still doing this same miracle and we're missing it because we're so busy just taking our chunk of bread and going on our merry way without continuing to break it and share it and feed the hungry around us? 

This is a beautiful Table, a breathtaking moment. But it's not just for us. 

It's for every other person on that hill who could be fed by God's blessing continuing to produce through us. 

Brother, can you spare a bite?  

Facing Fear

The conventional wisdom is that the answer to fear is courage. All it takes is just "20 seconds of insane courage." Or maybe 10. But I swear, I love that movie. 

This wisdom tells us that we just have to set fear aside and do whatever it is that we're afraid of, step into the unknown. Jump out of the plane. This, the world says, is the way to overcome our fear. 

Except...it isn't. 

If I jump out of the plane this time - or if I give someone permission to push me - then I have acted against my fear and I have done the thing that I am afraid of, but I am no less afraid of it the next time. Put me right back in the plane, and I will have the same hesitation, the same apprehension, the same fear. I will come to the same precipice when that plane door opens, and I will have to choose, again, to act against fear in some way. 

There is no struggle in this world for which "just doing it" solves the complication that made us hesitate in the first place. It may accomplish the task, but it doesn't resolve the tension. Faced with the same scenario, we will have the same questions. 

And you can't make a life by always forcing yourself to act against your instinct. It's not healthy and, despite what the world might tell you, it's not wise. 

The answer to fear isn't really courage. It isn't really finding enough strength to push through and force yourself to do it anyway. It isn't "choosing with your head and not your heart," as it is sometimes presented. 

The answer to fear is confidence. 

It's knowing who you are, knowing who God created you to be, knowing who God is. It's knowing the truth about the situation, about all of the facets of it. Yes, it may be true that you are who you are, but there is another truth that you are fallen to some degree and so there is a real you and then, there is a real you. 

The answer is trusting that God is who He is, that He is good, that He loves you. The answer is knowing that you are fearfully and wonderfully made, that you are created in His image, that you are beloved. The answer is knowing that your greatest enemy is your own brokenness, which is the only thing that stands in the way and convinces you of things that only look true but really aren't. Not in the grand scheme of things. 

That's not to say that practical wisdom doesn't have its place. Of course you don't go running into a swamp with an alligator and declaring there's no reason to be afraid; there are times to be cautious and to be cognizant of the very real dangers of our world. You don't look a carjacker in the face and stare down the gun and declare your belovedness as some kind of protection from something bad happening to you. 

But insofar as something is in your control and you're in a position where you just have to choose between doing something that makes you feel some fear or not doing it because you're afraid, the answer to the tension you feel...is truth. You don't need courage; you need confidence. 

Because I'm telling you - if you can just for half a second believe what God says about you, another 19.5 seconds of insane courage isn't necessary. There's just something about knowing who you are - and believing it - that makes you stand a little taller, stand a little firmer, and step out a little bolder and do it. Because you know you can. 

What We're Really Afraid Of

If, sitting alone in a comfortable space, I am not afraid of anything, but if, in the moment, I seem to be afraid of everything...what am I really running up against? 

Am I secretly a person just full of fear? Am I really someone so terrified that I cannot function as a human being anywhere but in the private of my own sacred space? I keep saying that I am not lying when I say that I am not afraid of things - and I believe I'm not - but...am I really lying after all?

Am I lying to myself?

I'm not - and that's exactly the point. The thing that really drives my fear, most of the time, is the very real truth that I know about myself. It's the track record I have of certain tendencies and behaviors that have firmly demonstrated themselves throughout my life, without much conscious thought (most of the time). 

Back to the skydiving example I was using on Monday. There's nothing inherently scary about skydiving, provided all of the mechanics work. In my head, I can convince myself of the safety and security and relative non-weirdness of jumping out of a plane. Thousands of persons, at least, do this every day, and our headlines are not filled with catastrophic failures on a routine basis. It is a safe activity. (Relatively.) 

What makes it scary at the moment that I have to decide whether to jump out of the plane is not the nitty-gritty of skydiving itself; it's all of the things that I know about me that make it scary. 

It's knowing my propensity toward motion sickness, whether I like it or not. It's knowing that sense of vertigo that honestly, is already taking over by now. It's knowing how sometimes, I can get lost in a moment and forget to do the things that I've even been thinking obsessively about doing - like pulling a ripcord. It's remembering when I tore the ligament in my ankle and wondering if it's strong enough to withstand the landing.

The basis of fear is never really whether or not a thing can be done; the basis of fear is always whether or not I can do this thing. Me. With everything that I know about myself from a lifetime of living with me. 

The basis of our fear is always the things we think we know about ourselves. 

And generally, the conclusion that we come to is that whatever we're facing is indeed quite possibly, but not for me. 

The thing we are most afraid of, then, is...ourselves. It's our own failures. It's our own shortcomings. It's the questions we carry around in the depths of our souls, the things we can't un-see when we look in the mirror. It's the stuff we think everyone else must be just as sure of about us as we are about ourselves, even if literally no one else on the planet would ever had known it. Or had any way of actually knowing it. 

At the moment at which we must decide whether or not to do something, whether or not to go for it, whether or not it's do-able, the only thing we really have to decide is whether we can. The only thing we're really up against is ourselves. The only thing that really scares us...is us. 

Fear in Action

Ask me if I'm afraid, and I will tell you that I'm not - and I won't be lying when I say that. Fear, as in the type of fear that just sits around being afraid of anything, is a pathology. I do not spend my life sitting around being afraid. 

But put me in the moment that requires action, and...well, ask me again. 

Fear is not really something that can (or should) be disembodied. Again, that would be a pathology. We might call it neuroticism of a sort. The truth is that overwhelmingly, most of us are not spending our lives afraid in our neutral moments. We're only afraid at the moment that action is required. 

I'm not afraid, in my head, of skydiving, but put me in a plane with a parachute strapped to my back and all of a sudden, I'm a bit scared. 

I'm not afraid of driving through the mountains, but put me on the edge of one behind the wheel and all of a sudden, I'm nervous.

By the way - do you do this, too? I'm trying to find words that indicate a bit of anxiety or nervousness that go just so far, but not all the way to fear. We say things like "nervous," "anxious," "timid," ... anything but "scared." Anything but "afraid." We label our emotions as literally anything but "fear" because for some reason, fear seems so stupid to us. 

And it's because we think that fear is so radical. It's so extreme. In fact, it's so extreme that it really only gives us two options in response to it - shrink entirely backward and fall into ourselves or find some kind of superhuman courage and barrel through it. Fear doesn't leave us, we don't think, with very many "rational" responses, so...anything but fear. 

It's so strange, this thing called fear, though.

I can sit here and tell you I'm not afraid, and I can be honest in that. Then, you put me in the moment, and I'm very clearly afraid. So afraid that perhaps I don't even take the opportunity that the moment gives me. Maybe I back out completely, give up, turn around, go home. But as soon as I get home, where I have the space to process the idea in my head, I come very quickly to the conclusion that I am actually not afraid. And I am still not lying when I say that. 

In all of the courage that I have in myself, in all of my rational mind that understands the world as it is, in all the faith that I have in the goodness of God, in the quiet of my own home, I am not afraid. 

But take me to do it again, and I'm just as likely to back out the second time as I was the first. I'm just as likely, on the edge of doing whatever it is, to declare that I can't do it. Something in the pit of my stomach stops me just the same. 

It sure seems like fear. It sure feels like fear. 

But...I am not afraid. 

And this is why fear is so silly. This is why it's so hard. Because it doesn't seem to matter all the time what we know or what we believe or what we trust or how sure we are in any of these things; put us in a moment to choose against fear, and...we're unlikely to do so. 

And then spend our lives justifying why we didn't, with the top of our justifications being that, actually, we weren't afraid. 

No matter how many persons saw us nearly wet ourselves. 

Do Not Fear

Christians talk often about what is considered the most frequently-repeated command in the Bible: Do not be afraid. 

It seems that no matter what you're facing in life, some well-meaning Christian will come out of the woodwork to tell you not to be afraid. I confess that I, too, have said this from time to time (although I never leave it as a standalone statement - let's talk about the goodness of God, shall we?). 

I am a human being. As a human being, I have some things that I naturally fear in life. As a human being who has lived in a broken world for all of my days, I also have some things I unnaturally fear in life. Such is the nature of being human. None of us can escape it. 

There are some folks who say they aren't scared of anything. And maybe they aren't. But my guess is that even with most of those folks, if you dropped a snake or a spider unsuspecting on their head, they'd scream and jump and maybe even run a little. Which means, if nothing else, they at least have a startle response - and startle responses, when not properly managed, can often turn to fear. 

Can I be honest with you, though? 

Fear isn't something I think about a whole lot. 

When I'm sitting around doing nothing or when I'm engaged in a meaningful activity or when I'm thinking about virtually anything, I don't consider fear as a factor. It is entirely possible for me to sit around and plan a whole skydiving excursion for myself, everything from what kind of route I might travel to get to the little airport to what it might feel like to strap on the backpack to how to open the door to the plane and so on and so forth. I can go through every single detail in my mind without an ounce of fear popping in. Not one.

I'm very good at fooling myself that way. 

Because the truth is that I don't travel very well, not even in a car. And I have no idea what a parachute pack feels like. And I'm even worse with airplanes. And, oh yeah, I get vertigo around heights.

There are a dozen reasons, at least, why my little parachute adventure isn't ever happening, and not one of them is fear. At least, not in my head. 

Go ahead. Ask my rational mind whether I'm afraid of any of this or not. I will confidently tell you that I am not, and I will not be lying when I say that. 

Fear just isn't something I sit around wallowing in. (Yes, I realize there are folks who do; often, that's a clinical pathology of some sort - for most of us, it's just not a reality.) In my head, I can do anything. In my head, I do do anything. Unconstrained in my daydreaming or my scheming, I'm completely capable of anything and know, functionally, how things work (okay...as I write this, I realize that perhaps it is my neurodivergence that makes this possible - do all you neurotypical persons sit around all day think about how afraid you are of everything? or anything? I don't know. Maybe you do). 

The point is...I would not consider my life a life of fear. So when you tell me these good, lovely words - do not fear, do not be afraid - no problem. 

But tell them to me when the plane reaches altitude, and that's a whole different ballgame.... 

Bread for the World

There's a pattern in the Bible when Jesus has food, whenever Jesus has food. The pattern is this: He takes the food, raises it in the air, blesses it, then breaks it and gives it for the nourishment of the bodies around Him. 

This is the pattern with the five loaves and two fish. This is the pattern with the breakfast on the seashore. This is the pattern with the Last Supper in the Upper Room, the moment that we now celebrate as Communion. 

He raises it, as a wave offering, giving it back first to God. 

He blesses it, bestowing it with the sacredness of a good gift. 

He breaks it, apportioning it out to meet the number of needs around Him.

He gives it, a gift to the hungry to satisfy their need. 

We know this pattern; we are familiar with it. Of course, this is a good way to share food. 

But the other day, I read something that said that this is not just what Jesus does with food; it's what He does with us. 

The words that I read said that when Jesus gets hold of us, He does this very same thing - He lifts us up to the Father, blesses us by bestowing a sacred holiness on us, breaks us by letting our challenges press us and mold us, then gives us to the world, a gift to satisfy the needs around us. We are meant to be God's nourishment to a starving world. 

This idea has changed the way I think about my ministry in the world, the small things that I do on a daily basis. These things are the satisfaction of the world's needs. I'm meeting something in someone that maybe I don't even recognize, but God surely knows. 

And this idea has also changed the way that I think about this Table.

As much as I love to share this space with Jesus, as much as I think about the sacredness and sanctity of this moment, as much as I cherish the opportunity to rest for just a moment and be fed, as much as this remembrance of this meal fills something deep within me that is longing...these are the same feelings, the same soul aches, that a moment with me is meant to fill in the life of someone else. This is what others are supposed to feel when they are around me. 

God gave me this Table to remind me of that. To remind me that, as His gift given to a hungry world, I'm supposed to create a space, an encounter, a moment that feels like this one...over and over and over again. And lest I forget what a moment like this feels like, He reminds me every week - every time I have this moment with Him. 

May you be a blessing to someone this week, as the Lord is a blessing to you.  

God's Fairness

Do you have a favorite child? Maybe a better question to ask is, did your parents have a favorite child?

Family dynamics can be a little tricky. Sometimes, it's the oldest who is favored because they are supposed to be a little wiser simply by nature of having a few more years under their belt. Sometimes, it's the youngest who is favored because they are the last and everyone knows you'll never have these moments with another child again after this one. Sometimes, a child in the middle is favored, usually out of an overcompensation because middle children are so often forgotten. 

Quite often, when families are trying to make decisions, it is one child over another who gets the privilege of deciding. Whether they roll the dice, draw a piece of paper out of a hat, take first pick, whatever it is, there is one who sets the tone for everything else that is to come, and everyone else is stuck with the fallout, whatever it may be. (Anyone else always want to be the scottie dog in Monopoly, but always somehow end up as the iron?) 

Certainly, you would think that in ancient Israel, this dynamic would have been even more pronounced. In the culture in which these persons lived, there was a certain favoritism toward the oldest, the firstborn, the one who was appointed by natural selection to carry on the family name and take over the father's...everything. We hear so much about the oldest son in the Old Testament that it seems only natural that the world would let the oldest make the choices and the rest of the family deals with it. 

But that's not the way that God works. 

Whenever God is working among His people, the favor doesn't always fall to the eldest, nor does the power to decide. There's a verse in 1 Chronicles 24 that states very clearly how God deals with families: 

Fairly.

The people are casting lots. Specifically, the priests and the Levites are casting lots, trying to assign duties and services in the Temple. Naturally, you would think there would be some kind of hierarchy to this based on birth order and lineage and whatever else you might want to base this one (dark-hairedness or good-lookingness or well-spokenness?), but here they were, casting lots. 

Casting lots was basically rolling dice. It was an activity of chance, although the Israelites believed that God was determining the outcome of the roll. The practice is so far removed from the kind of faith that I have lived in my life that it's hard to really say; I live in a world so clouded by superstition that the understanding of lots gets more than a little muddled. But it was a process of basically rolling stones and seeing what they turn up, then taking that as God's Will and marking it down. 

And in this particular exercise, in this particular story (as in many others), they cast lots for everyone individually. Every single involved person. If you read the list, the Bible tells us that the first lot fell to...and the second lot fell to....all the way to the twenty-fourth lot, which fell to.... And in our brains, you don't have to roll the twenty-fourth lot because, well, if that's the guy left standing unpicked, then that's the guy who is going twenty-fourth. Right?

Not in God's world. In God's world, you still roll those dice because rolling those dice confirms that the twenty-fourth is still chosen by God. Chosen by God to be twenty-fourth, which in God's world is not "last," but simply twenty-fourth. So you cast the lots for him, too, because that's important. 

The chapter wraps up by saying, "The oldest were treated the same as the youngest." The lots were cast for everyone. No one got the authority to choose for someone else. God treats everyone with the same agency, the same calling, the same individual attention and address. God treats them all fairly by giving them each a lot and never resigning them to the leftovers of someone else's. 

I love that about God. 

God is Merciful

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Famous words in the Christian faith, a song that even much of the non-believing world is at least minimally familiar with. Grace is one of the things we love to talk about most, probably because it's the only thing in this world that is truly free. 

By its very definition, grace must be free; grace is simply the giving of, or receipt of, something that is not deserved. By grace, we have been saved, for there is nothing we could have done to deserve our own saving. 

But there is something else about God that is also true - not just that He is gracious, but also that He is merciful. 

Mercy is a bit of a tougher pill for us to swallow. 

Despite the fact that we often use these words as synonyms, they mean very different things. While grace, as we just said, is the giving or receipt of something we do not deserve, mercy is not giving or not receiving something we do deserve. Like death. 

That's what makes it so hard for us to talk about mercy with the same kind of love that we talk about grace - to talk about mercy is to confess our own failure. It's the only way. We cannot confess there is such a thing as mercy, such a thing as not getting what we deserve, without confessing that we do, in fact, deserve something. And, well, I don't love talking about my failures; how about you? 

Yet the Bible is full of men and women of faith confessing plainly the mercy of the Lord. Of our Lord. 

One powerful example of this is in 1 Chronicles 21, when David conducted an unauthorized census of the people of Israel.

God, of course, is upset that David felt the need to measure the strength of his army when he ought to have known that the Lord was on his side and by this point, been able to trust in that, so there was sin present. There was rebellion present. There was mistrust present. And these things rightfully incur judgment from God. Through the prophet, God sends David a message and allows him to choose the consequences that will come upon the people because of this census. Given the choices of famine, war, or plague, David chooses the plague because he says, plainly, "The Lord is very merciful." 

Let us fall into the hands of God who is merciful rather than man who is not. Let us surrender ourselves in failure and weakness to the Force most likely to not give us the full measure of what we deserve. Let us put ourselves in the hands of the One who will be able to keep all things in perspective - our feebleness and His greatness - and act out of benevolent mercy for the greater good of preserving and prospering the relationship between us. 

Given the choice, let us choose mercy, for we are but sinners in the hands of a loving God. 

And in love, there is mercy. 

Hallelujah. 

God of Joy

Yesterday, we saw the Lord of Armies, who has not only our army, but His; who is fighting not only with us, but for us. And military strength and victory were very important concepts for ancient Israel. In the world in which they lived, it was a matter of personal identity and a statement about the validity of the God they worshiped. They staked everything on their military prowess (as did everyone else in the region, although God would temper His people to start changing their identity as time went on).

What's interesting about Israel's God, though, is that there is more to Him that mere strength.

There is a point in Israel's history when the Ark of the Covenant takes a little journey away from the people. It is captured by the Philistines and wreaks absolute havoc on their land, afflicting them, among other things, with rats and hemorrhoids. The Philistines get tired of the affliction and send the Ark back, but it doesn't make it far before the holiness of it intimidates the people of Israel who saw its return, so it stays for awhile on the farm of a seemingly-random Israelite until David finally brings it to Jerusalem, where it belongs. 

When the Ark arrives in Jerusalem, there is a grand parade and a great festival and David, as he was prone to do and as many prophets and leaders in Israel were known to do before him, wrote a song to celebrate this wonderful moment. 

This song rejoices in the strength of God. It celebrates His power. It reflects on His mighty hand and His victory over His enemies and His goodness in bringing His people to settle in this place, against all enemies. It marvels at the way He has finally come to His own place to live here among His people. 

And...it sneaks in some praise about something other than God's power; it sneaks in some praise for God's joy. 

God, who loves a good parade. God, who delights in a wonderful celebration. God, who is thrilled to hear a song being sung in honor of Him. 

Yes, this is the God of power, but He's also the Lord of joy. He loves to be happy, and He loves His people to be happy. 

For all of the things that we praise God for, I think it's easy for us to leave His joy off the list entirely. We have lived so long with a Christianity that embraces so many of the other attributes of God over and above some of these more basic ones, and most of us have never been taught to be truly happy in the Lord, so we don't consider the Lord to be happy. It's easy for us to forget that He is. 

It's easy for us to forget that the God who created the clouds created the birds who sing their song. That the God who created the lightning also created the gentle wind that blows our chimes. That the God who holds a place apart from Himself for those who choose not to have relationship with Him also holds close to His heart all those who choose to draw near, so close that we can hear His heartbeat. 

We've been taught that God is stuffed-shirt, that He doesn't have a sense of humor, but Jesus cracked a good many jokes of His own. His wit was like no other. 

We forget that our God is a God of joy, but...He is. He loves a good parade, delights in celebration, and sings along with us when we sing of all His goodness and love.

God of Armies

There's no way around it - the Old Testament includes many narratives centered around warfare; it's no wonder, then, that the Israelites often referred to God as "Lord of Armies." 

Specifically, of course, they meant their army. 

This was not a unique belief in the ancient middle east region. Most people groups had at least one god they believed was responsible for their military prowess, victory or defeat, the size and skill of their army. Generally, it was a specific war-type god they worshiped, usually in a pantheon of other gods (their war god might not even be their primary god), but it was common for peoples to believe that their god, whoever it was, was in control of their army. 

Certainly, this might very well be what Israel meant by "Lord of Armies," but then, why is it plural? Why not just Lord of Army? Lord of Our Army? Lord of one Army?

Because the Israelites always recognized that the Lord has more than one army. 

He is responsible for Israel's army, which is one thing. Which is to be expected. We see Him credited with this again and again, in places like 1 Chronicles 12. "Every day the numbers of David's army increased...large in number and justified by God's will." Remember, it was God who prepared, then pared down, Gideon's army. It was God who gave Israel the battle plan at Jericho and the specific instructions at Ai. The Old Testament repeatedly reminds us that God controls Israel's army. 

But that little ellipsis in that verse, that little part I cut out, tells us something even more. In that little ellipsis, what the Bible says is that David's army increased "until it was as great as the army of God." 

Wait a minute. 

The Lord doesn't just have Israel's army? He's got His own, too? 

And of course, the Bible very well tells us this, too. When the angels with the flaming swords are placed at the entrance to the garden. When a warrior of the Lord stands in front of Balaam's donkey on the road. When the prophet is told to look out over what looks like a dangerous landscape littered with an invading people, and his eyes are opened to see the entire army of God on the hills - "those on our side are greater than those against us." 

Oh, yes, the Lord has His own army. And this is very important. 

Because at the very least, what it means is that the Lord who fights with us also fights for us, and He has the resources to do that. 

And it also means that God doesn't need us to fight all of His battles for Him; He has His own forces to do that. 

Aren't these two things good news?