Wednesday, July 21, 2011

Sleep hung over me heavily like a wet blanket as I felt it first in my spirit and then in my senses. At first I thought dark smoke rolled and hissed around the room just out of reach of my bed and then I stiffened as the spiritual presence thickened. The single word “demons” bolted through my mind. Here? In my room? What did they want? Did they think they could claim me for my sins? Did they think the holes in my heart bid them entrance? Who had sent them and how had they gained admittance to my room?

A finger of fear stroked the back of my neck, but it was chased away almost immediately by a powerful Name. Say it, the depths of my heart urged. Say the Name.

Aloud, I said, “Jesus keeps me sleeping or awake.” His righteous wrath and vindication sprang to my mind. “He will bind you and cast you into eternal torment. You know that.”

Beside me, Lydia slept soundly.

The darkness in my room thinned as my muscles unknotted. I rolled over and whispered into my pillow, “Thank you, Jesus.” Then I went back to sleep and slept like a baby.

I have no idea whether it was dream or reality, but the truth stands like a powerful sentinel. Jesus keeps me sleeping or awake.

Monday, January 24, 2011

“How idle it is to call certain things God-sends! As if there was anything else in the world” ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827

“You have to shake it,” Lydia giggled, shaking out her wet toothbrush. We were swapping stories from the day. She told the tale of a Wal-mart adventure, picking out cottage cheese. A simple task, usually. Ahead of her, a little old lady intently read the label of a cottage cheese container, then deliberately put it up to hear ear and shook it. Lydia selected her carton and was just ready to move on when the lady halted her. “You’ve got to shake it,” she declared. “You can’t tell if it’s good unless you shake it. It could be all dried up and hard in there. Shake it until you hear it sloshing around.” Politely, Lydia answered, “Okay.” “Now,” Madam La Shaker urged, “Let me see you shake it.” Obligingly, Lydia shook the cottage cheese and nodded her head. “Good girl,” her instructress beamed and moved away. Later, Lydia spotted her tapping fruit.

I’m afraid hers were far more entertaining than mine.

“The church is God’s graduate school for angels,” suggests William MacDonald. We’ve seen it in Ephesians, as Papa has taught, that God demonstrates his multi-faceted wisdom to the heavenly hosts through these helpless, erring, ignorant little people He calls by His name. Peter echoes a similar sentiment when he proclaims that the gospel which was given through the prophets was something into which even angels long to look. And Hebrews tells us that God assuredly does not give help to angels—but He does give help to the sons of men.

I’ve been pondering the subject of God’s invisible servants lately. It’s awesome to think of the Almighty God dispatching these holy, sinless beings as our servants. Not because we are greater than they. David says we are a little lower than the heavenly beings. But because God is greater than they and He has so decreed it. These faithful ministers who valiantly fight to protect the elect, to defeat the enemy in territory he would feign claim, are being taught God’s wisdom through His mercy toward us.

I wonder what it is the angels see. Without a doubt, I know I must be completely ignorant regarding the battle that rages in the spirit realm, while I float glibly through life, whining when I don’t get my own way, sobbing because God feels distant, wondering where is the answer I asked from the Lord, trying to grasp circumstances and see God’s plan in them and suddenly being amazed when God breaks through and celestial light pours over the scene of broken human life. Behind the scenes of my tiny existence is raging a cosmic battle.

A shining moment in the hallway of my memory stands the moment I discovered a portal into the spiritual world. Daniel, a man the angel Gabriel said was greatly esteemed by God, fasted and prayed for an interpretation to a powerful vision. For twenty-four days. Twenty-four silent days in which it seemed God had overlooked him. Then suddenly one day, Gabriel stood before him, saying, “Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty-one days; the behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia. Now I have come…”

And shall I reveal what I understand from this passage? Almost nothing. Except that battles rage in the heavens and our souls are kept and God’s purpose is not thwarted.

So be it.

My words, my meaningless words, they falter,

Here before Thy heavenly altar

How can I praise the Ancient of Days

In a way that will honor Thy Masterful ways?

The angels surrounding Thy eternal throne,

Cover their eyes, crying “Holy, holy.”

Heaven is lit by the light of Thy face,

Yet none can gaze full on Thy infinite beauty.

I let my words fall to the ground at Thy feet

And trust that their silence is ever so sweet

As a fragrance that flows from the love Thou bestows

On a weak-kneed scribe with no skill to compose.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

“Around God is awesome majesty, the Almighty—we cannot find Him; He is exalted in power; and He will not do violence to justice and abundant righteousness. Therefore men fear Him; He does not regard any who are wise of heart.” Job 37:22-24

The sun rose today, bright and clear, and I snuggled under the covers, enjoying my morning off from making breakfast, while Lydia reluctantly slid out of bed. These cold mornings dawn and I long, every one, for Tuesday and the luxury of staying curled up in a cocoon for just so much longer.

I made the acquaintance of Lydia’s snowmen and admired their stately six-inch tall forms. I loaded mountains of laundry into the washing machine and, for once, courtesy of the snow-covered ground and chill air, passed them on to the dryer. Lydia cracked herself up by listening to Michael Card on high speed dubbing and made fun of me. Apparently, she spoke to me and I continued on in my own world, but when Freckles came scampering up to the window and she greeted her with a “Hi Beautiful!” I responded. I caught up with Tabby while exercising the treadmill belt and Jacindarella while stirring together a pot of chili and a tossed salad. I marked off to-dos and avoided to-don’ts.

These are the days when little of value seems to transpire.

We spread out on Mom and Papa’s bedroom floor to finish reading “Exploring Planet Earth”. A little below my age-level, I know, but an interesting read non-the-less. I surprised myself with how much I knew and remembered, especially of more recent history--air and space travel. But then, my Papa did work at the Kansas Cosmosphere in my wee days and I vividly remember much of that. I found the contrast between believing astronauts and unbelieving astronauts to be so distinct. Believers recounted that they couldn’t imagine how a person could not look back at the earth from space and be in awe of the Creator. Unbelievers puffed themselves up. The Russians said something like, "We were up there and never saw God so He obviously doesn't exist." Just how small of a God were they looking for? Because the God they didn’t see is the God who sprinkled the stars like dust from His fingertips and unrolled the heavens like a mantle and holds all things together by the word of His power and dwells in unapproachable light. They were staring at a universe He humbles Himself just to look at and marveling at its vastness. Did they expect Him to fit inside His creation?

Each moment, each pondering, reveals to me again how powerful, how eminent, how huge is the Lord God Almighty. He teaches the Monarch butterfly to migrate from Canada to Mexico where it lies dormant all winter. He equips the ant with wisdom, ability and teamwork. He instructs the grete to swim and the flying fish to soar. He provides nectar for the bee and dung for the beetle.

Yet at the end of each day, I feel forsaken.

No one can shake my trust that an all-knowing Creator has left His fingerprints around me. No one can prove to me that He is empty air. No one can cause me to forget His care of me in the past, His mercy, His grace, His joy poured out on me. Those truths are fixed in time and space with the certainty of gravity and the necessity of air.

But at this moment, I see the natural world around me, awash in His care, guided by His wisdom, basking in His touch, and I weep. Because I am pleading His wisdom. I am begging His guidance. I am seeking His truth. I am craving His presence. I am starved for His filling. I only want to know, Divine Judge, if I am doing right.

I am lonely. I am pining for Yahweh.

For an answer, I hear profound silence.

And in my tears, I am wrong. For I have suggested that I am a more devoted Lover than God. That I have sought Him with more passion than He has sought me. That I have sought to battle for right and have been forsaken by the righteous King. That I have tirelessly sought an audience from an ever-hearing Lord and have been refused admittance to His presence. That while I have emptied my resources and provisions, He has withheld from me the strength to continue. I have supposed that because He is so huge as to overflow all time and space, that He is distant from me. That while He is tending the sparrow, He has forgotten that I cannot fly.

He has not.

If Thou art silent, God on high

When I cry out for reasons why,

When I weep, lonely, hungry here

Thy voice, Thy Word, Thy pow’r to hear,

If Thou art silent, when my heart

Is rent and broken, torn apart,

When understanding flees my breast

And sorrow haunts me in my rest,

If Thou art silent, when I weep

And doubts o’ertake me like the deep

When everywhere Thy smile seems laid

Except the dust of which I’m made,

If Thou art silent, though so strong

When morning seems to tarry long

And joy has fled my heart and mind

And truth seems vagrant, hard to find,

If Thou art silent, as Thou art

And speakest not within my heart

Then teach me, in Thy silent face

To read pursuing, haunting grace.

Monday, January 10, 2011

“Have you ever in your life commanded the morning, and caused the dawn to know its place; That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it?” ~Job 38:12-13

I feel very small.

've been reading Job the last several days--just enjoying and marveling at God's power, recounted so eloquently, and none so eloquent as Himself. We marvel at the expanse of space. I think of the astronauts who said, "We went to space and God wasn't there. I guess He doesn't exist." Do they really think they could rocket out only as far as earth's own moon and expect to see God on a level with His own creation? He humbles Himself--He has to bend down--just to look at the things going on in heaven and earth. Ah! But He still is attentive to the cry of the humble. The rebuke Elihu gives Job was very fitting for me--"Do you think you are more just than God?" As I feel frustrated and cry out to God to know why He is doing some of what He is doing--a reminder that why isn't the point. The point is that He is right. So much wisdom! So much creativity. So much unanswerable sovereignty. Why'd He make the ostrich so dumb? It doesn't matter. That fact is that He did. And I LOVE all the scientific evidence in Job--that the earth was round...that the equater existed...that the heavens are stretching farther and farther apart...the science of ice...that lightening strikes one spot...the tides...I needed to just be reminded that God is completely out of my mental range of understanding and that He can't be far from me because I can't escape Him. I'll confess that, in the secret places of my heart, I've felt very lost and unfocused for the last several months. Like I've been caught in a time warp--not really connected to the present in this world, yet so distant from a God who does such things as I can't grasp. They hurt. They don't make sense. They seem pointless. They seem wasteful. I know that He is big and it is His prerogative to do what He wishes. And I know His purpose is His eternal glory. And it seems that small humans can wrestle and struggle and cry and plead to learn something from them, but really? Was it really necessary? Sure He can use them...but did He have to send them? That's when Elihu's rebuke spoke to me. Do I think I am more just than God? Because that is what my heart-cry implies. So much of what God holds up to Job as evidence of His power also seems pointless. Sending storms on deserts where no one even lives? Making the ostrich foolish--but impressive? Wait. Pointless? God used it to declare His power--and man's frailty. And I've felt distant because I don't even know what to pray, what to plead, what to ask that would be in keeping with His purposes. He isn't acting on my perception of ideal. I can worship Him as God. But I've felt distant from Him as my Lover. There is no difficulty honoring Him as Supreme, as He deserves. But He has seemed more terrible than beautiful, more righteous than merciful and more powerful than loving. Sometimes it is good to step back and recognize the Almighty as first and foremost that--Almighty. I am small. I am fragile. I am dying. And so I feel far from Him. Because He does not answer to me, or need my counsel, I feel at a loss for words, for thoughts, for emotions to know Him. But it is His power and His righteousness and the glory of His name that keeps me always under His care. Because He is huge He pursues me, not to destroy me in my weakness, but to strengthen and establish me.

Such is the stream of conscious tonight...

Suitable for me to feel small and fragile and helpless on a night such as this.