On remembering God's faithfulness

“Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; 

the book widens and deepens with our years.”

~Charles Spurgeon

I've never been one of those who subscribed to the idea that if I needed some divine guidance on a particular issue, I could simply close my eyes, say a prayer, open the Bible, and voila! There would be the exact passage of Scripture I needed for whatever challenge I was facing. And if not, I could just keep turning pages until I found the answer I was looking for.

OK, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, because I doubt anyone really believes that's how it works. It's Holy Scripture, not a Magic 8-Ball. 

Lord, should we sell this house now or wait a few more years?

:::opens the Holy Book to a random page:::

Reply hazy... try again.

But I absolutely do believe God's Word is alive and active and, as the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, that "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16)... and so, when I find myself led to a certain passage of Scripture over and over again, perhaps I should sit up and take note.

That's exactly what happened today. Twice in less than an hour, I found myself in Psalm 61. And I found in Psalm 61 an outline for what to do when I feel overwhelmed, fearful, isolated, or under attack. And let's face it. Who hasn't felt one or more of those emotions lately during these -- brace yourself, I'm about to write that overused phrase we've all come to hate -- unprecedented times? 

In these "unprecedented times," we still can't attend church for corporate worship. Well, actually -- we can now in my home state of Alabama, but our church was limiting the number of worshippers and you had to "sign up" for one of the services and we didn't realize that until it was too late and all the seats were "sold out" for this Sunday... so all that to say, it was another day of online church for us. 

We decided to tune in to the live streaming service of a church we attended eight years ago when we lived in New Jersey. We enjoyed the exegetical preaching of that pastor and figured if we were going to have to do remote church again, we might as well "visit" one of our former churches. And yes, I'm sure you guessed this: The message was based on Psalm 61.

Later, as I was getting ready for the day (what? don't you do online church on the couch in your pajamas at your house? #dontjudge), I was listening to my "Read Through the Bible in a Year" plan and y'all... today's reading was Psalm 61.

OK, Lord. You have my attention.

First of all -- who can't relate to David as he expresses himself in the Psalms?!

It's OK to not be OK... and based on many of the psalms he wrote, David was definitely not OK during various seasons of his life. And yet, in the midst of his pain, fear, confusion, grief, and isolation, he wrote beautiful, heartfelt prose to God. 

(Oh, that I could learn from that right there! More often than not, when I am feeling pain, fear, confusion, grief, or isolation, I turn to everything but God. But I digress.)

Look, I am no Bible scholar, and nothing I'm going to share about this particular Psalm will be that... revelatory. But maybe -- just maybe -- God took me to this Psalm twice today not just for my sake, but because He knew I would be moved by the experience and feel the need to share it and maybe -- just maybe -- it's something you needed to hear today, too. 

Or maybe I just needed to record it for myself, because a big part of this is remembering God's faithfulness. 

First, take a quick read of the psalm here (don't worry -- it's short): Psalms 61.

The takeaways for me today:

1. Call out. No matter how "lost" you are, no matter how far from God you might feel you are -- you can call out to Him and He will hear you. You may be far away -- but He is not. (Psalm 61:1-2a).

2. Remember His faithfulness. During times of struggle, remember all the times He has been faithful to you in the past. (Psalm 61:2b-3).

3. Know that He is your refuge. He will bring you under his wing; you belong to Him and will be with Him forever! (Psalm 61:4-5)

4. Believe His promises. Remind yourself that "all the promises of God find their 'Yes' in Christ" (2 Cor. 1:20) and recall specific promises of God to help you remember what He has done, is doing, will do for you. (Psalm 61: 6-7) God's promises for us include (among many):

• He will not leave you or abandon you. (Joshua 1:5)
• He will give you abundant and eternal life (John 10:10)
• He will be with you always. (Matt 28:20)
• He will set you free from sin. (John 8:36)
• He will bring goodness form every broken and twisted thing. (Rom 8:28)

5. Praise His name. Do the work He has called you to do, and glorify Him! (Psalm 61:8)

This probably spoke to me primarily because of #1 and #2. I, too, found myself a long way from "home" a while back, and frankly, I wasn't sure if God could -- or would -- hear me if I called out. Remembering His past faithfulness was a challenge, in part because I hadn't journaled it like I wished I had and in part because my own unfaithfulness made me wonder if I'd "used up" my allotment of grace and mercy.

Thankfully, "the glory of God's faithfulness is that no sin of ours has ever made Him unfaithful." (Charles Spurgeon) A recounting of His faithfulness -- even when we have NOT been faithful -- helps us to remember that. 

In a world of uncertainty -- and regardless of your situation, this is most assuredly a world of uncertainty -- we can turn to God's word for assurances that He hears us when we call to Him... that He is faithful... that He is our protector... that He keeps His promises... and that He is worthy to be praised.

On cleaning up cobwebs

I used to always think, “Wow! What an amazing coincidence!” when the pastor’s Sunday morning message corresponded with a devotional I’d read that very day, or when a topic I was reading about for a weekday Bible study class ended up being discussed in our Sunday morning small group... and then I wondered, why am I surprised by this? God’s Word encompasses and is applicable to every area of our life, no matter the topic; His Word is never contradictory; and much of His divine plan for our lives and wisdom for living is repeated over and over again (just in case we missed it the first time, which we usually do) throughout the Bible, in various passages, books, subtexts, and parables.

Yet, I still get tickled when I read a blog and it just happens to coincide with the passage of Scripture I’m studying, which is exactly what happened (again!) this weekend. My friend, and worship leader (er, I mean, lead worshipper) at our church, wrote about the evidence of self-examination. If we claim to have examined our way of living, and profess to be making a change… well, we might convince some folks just by our self-proclamation, but those closest to us will know the truth, for they either will or will not see the evidence of the change.

Our Sunday morning small group has been studying the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. These books not only provide a fascinating history lesson, but are also rich with application for right living (specifically, how to overcome fear and obstacles in our quest for obedience).

After some fits and starts in their attempts to rebuild the city walls, Nehemiah comes in, gets them organized, and, under his strong leadership, they rebuild the wall in 52 days (which they’d been working on for some 70 years at this point!).Upon its completion, Ezra the scribe reads from the law, and the people have an incredible revival – a six-hour worship service that culminates in one of the greatest prayers in history (see Nehemiah 9). They are so moved, so convicted, so determined to live right, that in Nehemiah 10 we read that they signed a covenant, promising to keep God’s commandments.

As I prepared to help lead the discussion on this, I turned to Warren Wiersbe’s most excellent commentary, Be Determined. He opens his discussion on Nehemiah 10 with the following story:

In a certain church, there was a man who always ended his prayers with, “And, Lord, clean the cobwebs out of my life! Clean the cobwebs out of my life!”

One of the members of the church became weary of hearing this same insincere request week after week, because he saw no change in the petitioner’s life. So, the next time he heard the man pray, “Lord, clean the cobwebs out of my life!” he interrupted with, “And while you’re at it, Lord, kill the spider!”

When I read that, and then read my friend’s post on self-examination, I thought, “How true this is for us!” We take a look at the superficial messes in our life, those pesky cobwebs, and ask God to clean them up, all the while ignoring the true source of the problem – the spider!

When we pray for God to help us tidy up the messes in our life, are we serious about making the changes necessary to keep it clean? So often we try to keep that spider as a pet. We wipe away the cobwebs and try to destroy the evidence of the spider, but can’t quite seem to bring ourselves to remove the spider itself.

As my friend points out, some people will think we’ve exterminated the spider. We get ourselves ready for our guests by cleaning the cobwebs out of the corners and off the chandeliers, and they come in and think, “Wow! You really have it all together!”

But our family, the ones who spend the most time with us, who live with us day after day… they know that the cobwebs keep coming back. They know the truth.

So, as I thought about that, I wondered about my own sticky webs of deceit I’ve been spinning… the ideas that the spiders I have hanging around aren’t all that bad, not really a problem, only occasionally bite me and leave their venom coursing through my veins…

Hmmmm, on the other hand, maybe it’s time to finally call in the Orkin man.

___________________________________________________________

These spider pictures were taken in our backyard, around our AC unit. This friendly little orb weaver had made quite a home for herself and her two huge egg sacs, right under my oldest son's window. He's no pansy, but the thought of hundreds of little spiders hatching and possibly crawling into his room was more than he could handle.