"Man at War with Man Hears Not"

For more than two decades now, I have sought to learn something new every Christmas season. A wise former missionary, now with the Lord, made that challenge during a Christmas Eve service in 1999 and I have learned so much by praying that this familiar season will be fresh to me annually. Sometimes, the "new" has been a reminder. Other times, it has brought about a major shift in how I approach the season. Many times, a song or phrase becomes the catalyst for that year's "new" thing. 

This year, listening to a Christmas worship playlist, I kept hearing a lyric in an old hymn that jumped out to me as if I'd never heard it: 

Yet with the woes of sin and strife,

The world hath suffered long;

Beneath the angel-strain have rolled,

Two thousand years of wrong;

And man, at war with man, hears not,

The love song which they bring:

O hush the noise, ye men of strife,

And hear the angels sing.

"And man, at war with man, hears not/The love song which they bring."

Am I the only one who is tired of man being at war with man? Whether wars fought with weapons or with words, whether the battleground is a war zone or a website - I'm just tired of the conflict. Sadly, Christians are not exempt. Ask any pastor how united his or her church was this year, and you will quickly get an earful. Divisions and even judging another's salvation on secondary or tertiary (or even lesser) issues has become increasingly common. 

The question that must be asked is - why? Why, in a world that has "suffered long" beneath the angel-borne Gospel cry of the Good News, does man continue to be at war with man? Edmund Sears captured the theological reason profoundly in his hymn, "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear": Because we don't hear the love song the angels bring. As Augustine write, we have "disordered loves". We worship the wrong things. 

Church, we have the most amazing story ever told. For those of us in Christ, we hold the treasure of the Gospel in these jars of clay - these imperfect and yet fully redeemed earthen vessels of our bodies. When we accept the call to salvation, we are given a call to mission, to proclaim this message. In the stations where God has us live out our lives, and in the fields of service where He asks us to meet the practical needs of others with help in one hand and hope in the other, we are to live Gospel-saturated lives. 

And yet we settle for so much less. Too often, we drown out the beautiful music of "angels, bending near the earth, to touch their harps of gold" with the noise of the world. We elevate the "good" to be the ultimate. We celebrate short-term gains at the expense of the Gospel. We face legitimate problems with natural, human solutions instead of spiritual, biblical ones. And before we know it, we find ourselves "at war with man" - sometimes even other believers, often within our own churches or our own homes. 

So this Christmas season, let's just STOP. Let's listen not to the noise of the news media or social media or people with agendas - let's listen to the voice of the angels proclaiming Emmanuel, God with us. The song singing of a King who left His throne, whose birth was heralded by lowly shepherds and wise men. The One who came to tear down dividing walls to allow us to listen, really listen, to each other.

Let's "hush the noise, and cease the strife, and hear the angels sing" - as if for the very first time. 

Aiming in the Dark

  

Recently, to celebrate our five-month wedding anniversary, my husband and I went to a local archery range. We had a lot of fun and learned a lot about the sport - but I wasn't anticipating the biggest lesson that has been working its way deep into my bones ever since. 

The photo on the left represents my best effort; the one on the right, my husband's. Not that surprising - unless you know that my husband is legally blind, and was shooting  from the same distance as me. While he could generally see the target area and the colors, he was unable to "take aim" by sighting along the arrow as I did. He's also not significantly more experienced than me. While he did do archery at the academy for the blind he attended in middle school, he hasn't fired an arrow since. I shot with my brother during his Boy Scout years. We were both essentially newbies. 

Yet I watched in amazement, hearing his solid "thuds" piercing the target while many of mine landed on the floor. I soon realized the difference: While I was focusing on lining up with the target, he was of necessity focusing on the fundamentals. He had absorbed quickly every lesson on how to hold the bow, align the arrow, position his hands, and fire. I had to be reminded multiple times of each basic lesson. 

As I processed this, a spiritual truth began to emerge: When we have times of darkness, of uncertainty, of a lack of clarity about what to do, we will have much better aim when we are solid in our fundamentals. Not every problem we face will have a "chapter and verse" answer from Scripture. Sometimes we have to take what we know to do, line up the "shot", take aim, pull back, and make the decision. Sometimes we will go in a direction and realize we are off target; the fundamentals will help us line up and try again. 

So what are these fundamentals? Certainly, they include the basic doctrines of our faith. Settling questions in times of clarity can help us hold firmly to truth in times of struggle. Those who know me know I don't shy away from these questions - and I don't think you should either. Long ago, I dealt with basic questions about the authority and inerrancy of Scripture; from there I delved into the deity and humanity of Jesus, the Trinity, the attributes of God. To be clear, I didn't have all these questions answered when I started walking with the Lord. The moment of salvation for me was the beginning of a process of knowing and understanding Him. But I did spend several years digging into these questions to settle the fundamentals. If you haven't done so, I urge you to ask the questions. My Bible 101 series is designed to help you gain confidence in God's Word so you can dig in to deeper questions like these. 

Beyond doctrine, however, there are fundamentals that should be part of our Christian walk. Daily communion with the Lord through prayer, worship, and Scripture helps to orient me. I can't even attempt to aim in the dark if I'm not facing the right direction! The dailyness of my relationship with Him keeps me heading in the right general direction, and positions me to receive from His Word general principles or specific truths relevant to my situation. Regular gathering with other believers, sitting under the preaching of a Gospel-centered pastor, keeps me from veering off to one side or the other. Those deeper relationships that develop within the body act like the instructor at our class, reminding me of the fundamentals, encouraging or correcting me as needed, and celebrating my successful aim. They can't pull the bow for me, but they can do everything possible to help me aim well. They help me know truth by which I can better discern error. 

As we grow in our relationship with the Lord, the times we feel we are "aiming in the dark" may actually increase. I am convinced this is one way that He helps us understand we are progressing with Him. Just as a parent provides a toddler much more explicit guidelines in decision-making ("you can pick this shirt or that one") than they do a teenager ("what electives do you plan to take?"), so God grows us in our ability to discern and sense His guidance. However, no matter how mature we become, we will never lose our need for the fundamentals. In fact, as our archery class taught me, the dimmer my view of the target, the more important the fundamentals become.

Older Brother Syndrome

“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’  The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”     - Luke 11:25-32

I have to confess that some days, it feels like the older brother gets a bad rap. 

All older siblings (like myself) know the inherent "unfairness" associated with being our parents' guinea pig. They get to learn on us ... and mess up on us ... and get a do-over with our younger siblings. In our fallen human nature, it's hard to watch as our siblings have it "easier" than we do. (Of course, sometimes that very "ease" leads to its own problems, since God has created us in such a way that difficulties become part of what shapes us.)

I don't know about you, but I can go for weeks in my normal routine, my typical "responsible" mode, and then come up against one of those days ...

...when somebody drops the ball and it lands in my lap

...when I am "unfairly" judged for something others do all the time

...when it feels like I alone am indispensable

...when everyone else says "no", and my inner sense of responsibility pushes a reluctant "yes" out of my lips

Suddenly on those days I realize, as the words of a song I couldn't find said, "Some days I'm the prodigal/some days I'm the older brother." On my "older brother" days I realize I have more in common with the Pharisees, to whom Jesus was directing this parable and who the older brother represents, than I really want to admit. I find myself seeing the logic of the earlier workers in Jesus' parable of the vineyard workers - of course they should get paid more, having worked hard all day and not just a couple of hours! 

And then the truth hits me like a ton of bricks: I realize I am nullifying the grace of God, not living by faith but living in my own sense of right and wrong, my own strength, my own righteousness. As much as I hate to admit it, there is still some Pharisee in me to be purged out. It might not come out in the form of legalism like we see in the Gospels, but it does rear its ugly head in the form of "older brother syndrome". "I'm the responsible one, I deserve better" is just a subtle form of spiritual pride. 

Ouch! Talk about conviction! Oh, but the wonderful news, as a speaker at a conference once said, is that when we realize something is sin, we know what to do with it! Turn to Jesus in repentance, and allow His love to fill me to the point that I give of myself to others out of love instead of duty. Then walk in a lifestyle of repentance by resisting all forms of that spiritual pride that is characterized by impatience with others who are in a different place than me, by nitpicking small errors, by always having to know or be able to find the answer, by feeling that I am indispensable. Walk in grace, remembering that I could have all knowledge, but without love, I am nothing. 

You came for criminals

And every Pharisee

You came for hypocrites

Even ones like me

Thank you, Jesus. "The cross meant to kill is my victory" - even over older brother syndrome.

Obedience

After all, you have not yet given your lives in your struggle against sin. - Hebrews 12:4

Recently while getting ready for work I was captured by lyrics to a song I'd never heard before: 

How in the garden He persisted

I may never fully know

The fearful weight of true obedience

It was held by him alone

    ("Your Will Be Done" by CityAlight) 

I couldn't stop thinking about the truth of this fact: I'll never know the full weight of true obedience. As I sat down for my quiet time that day, Hebrews 12 immediately came to mind. I read the context and remembered afresh the truth the author is communicating: Jesus is better than what has come before. As part of that, we are called to live out our relationship with Him in specific ways - ways that can feel hard. This section (Hebrews 12:4-13) is primarily about discipline and obedience in the life of the believer. It is instructive that before getting into those exhortations that the author tells us we have not yet resisted to the point of bloodshed.

What does that even mean? In the context of verses 1-3 exhorting us to keep our eyes on Jesus and the cross He endured, the author clearly is calling us to focus on HIS sacrifice for sin. We haven't given our lives to fight against sin - but HE did. This of course refers to the cross, but also brings to mind His suffering temptations. Many wiser than me have pointed out that Christ's deity and perfection doesn't mean His temptations were weaker than ours - they were stronger. He endured every temptation to the fullest extent possible, because the temptations do not get easier as we resist, they get harder.

As I reflected on all of this, I thought of the contrasts between my obedience and His. My best obedience is imperfect and mixed with impure motives; He was perfectly obedient with perfect motives. All of my obedience is carried out in God's presence; His ultimate obedience on the cross was carried out with the Father's face turned away. All of my obedience is covered with grace; His was covered in wrath. And as Hebrews 12:4 says, all my striving against sin doesn't reach the point of bloodshed - but His did.

This life of faith is not an easy one. Don't get me wrong, there are blessings and joys and happiness and incredible benefits of intimacy with God and others that come as we walk in faith. But if we are truly committed to growing and maturing as believers, we will find ourselves constantly challenged at various points to go deeper in our faith. Sometimes that might mean we face a crisis and have to decide how to deal with it. Other times it might mean a challenging ongoing relationship. At times God reveals something in us that is not in alignment with the image of God in which He created us, and challenges us to see things differently and live accordingly. All of these are hard things.

One of my favorite scriptures is Deuteronomy 29:29, "The secret things belong to the Lord our God,but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law." My faith is inextricably connected to the fact that God has revealed things that we can seek and know, that He does not hide Himself from us but that He makes Himself known to us, often to the degree that we seek Him (though being God, he does love to surprise us when we are not even seeking Him!)

This video captures some of what I've learned about leaning into the hard things of faith and obedience. We face a challenge or an obstacle and we have to choose whether to keep going or not. We have to choose whether to model our walk on someone ahead of us or pick out our own steps and only focus on what's immediately in front of us. We have to decide if it's worth the continued climb... If HE is worth the continued climb. We have to decide whether to keep going or give up. Ultimately, we have to decide how much we can know and how much we have to just trust into His hands, trusting his character in the "secret things." I can guarantee that there'll be surprises along the way, we will slip and sometimes fall, sometimes we will become strong enough to catch ourselves before we fall and sometimes we won't. The important thing is that we are continuing to walk it out with him, getting to the place where we can look at where we've come from and know that only He brought us from there, and that He is worth it all.

I don't get it right all the time - but I am increasingly learning what it means to walk in the Gospel and prioritize relationship with Him, to love Him and others well. This imperfect believer is falling more in love with Jesus every day. As a result, I'm learning to lean in to the hard beauty of obedience - and when I do, I find myself enjoying unexpectedly beautiful views.

Habakkuk 3:17-19

Though the fig tree does not bud

and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails

and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen

and no cattle in the stalls,

18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign Lord is my strength;

he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

he enables me to tread on the heights.

Longing

 

We, however, are free citizens of Heaven, and we are waiting with longing expectation for the coming from Heaven of a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:20, WNT)

Wait. 

There is something in our fallen human nature that doesn't like that word. I don't know about you, but I'd rather hear "no" from God if I can't hear "yes", because "wait" feels Way. Too. Hard. 

I've written about waiting before on here, in a different context. I still believe there is much to be learned in general while we are waiting on answered prayers, or guidance, or any number of waitings in life. But these days, I've been walking through this more personally, as I am doing plenty of waiting in light of our upcoming wedding - waiting on wedding appointments, waiting on the day to get here, waiting to experience biblical oneness, waiting on the day we begin our lives together and no longer say goodnight from separate residences. I am learning anew that waiting really is hard! My fiance and I have intentionally chosen to use the phrase "eagerly anticipating" rather than "can't wait" - we want the reminder that this is a positive process, and that we can wait in His strength. But it's still hard. 

As Rich Mullins wrote in "The Love of God" - we are tested and made worthy during life's challenges, but it is all within the love of God. As my fiance and I have intentionally leaned in to the benefits of waiting, we have learned so many things. We have learned that God speaks to us in the longing. We have seen ministry opportunities open up specifically because we were obedient in the waiting. We have learned that it is our flesh that wants to avoid the pain of waiting - just as we tend to want to avoid any suffering - but to avoid suffering means we also avoid the growth. We avoid the very thing that can draw us closer to Him. 

As I have leaned into the hard and studied God's word about waiting, I have learned how deeply connected it is to longing. When we "expect something fully", we wait for it with longing. When my parents lived hours away and would come visit, I would hear every door that slammed, every car that drove by, and run to see if it was them. I longed to see them and fully expected them to show up. In the same way, I "fully expect" to walk down the aisle less than a month from now and take covenant vows in front of our covenant community with my groom-to-be. We know this will happen - and yet we long for the arrival of that day. 

As I studied the words for waiting in both the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament, I was astonished to learn how deeply these words capture the emotions associated with this season of waiting: 

• To fix the eyes and mind on a thing; to "hunt" for it
• To be strong, robust, gathered and bound together
• To wait with patience and trust
• To give unremitting care
• To show one's self courageous
• To be in constant readiness for something
• To expect fully
• To not depart
• To be pained
• To receive to oneself, admit, give access to oneself

All of this boils down to one thing for me: Biblical waiting is inextricably linked to longing. Simply put, we wait with longing for what is worth waiting on. As we have focused on our upcoming marriage as a picture of Christ and the church, we are learning that wrapped up in our waiting is a picture of the longing the church should have for her Groom. We should wait "with longing expectation" because He is worth it. As we wait, we have been drawn closer into His presence - and we're learning that is indeed the point after all.

 

Joy and sorrow are this ocean
And in their every ebb and flow
Now the Lord a door has opened
That all Hell could never close
Here I'm tested and made worthy
Tossed about but lifted up
In the reckless raging fury
That they call the love of God

Blindsided

Anyone close to me knows that near the top of the list of things that I don't appreciate is being blindsided. Unlike some who prefer to know as little as possible until they have to face something, I can handle just about anything if I have a little heads up and time to process, if we can talk about it, if I know it's coming. I want more information, not less. Unfortunately, life doesn't always cooperate with my preferences. 

Most of the time, my good, good Father prepares my heart for hard things. He whispers ahead of time so I'm not blindsided. He gently guides me toward hard directions. He gives me His peace before, during, and after the storms of life. 

Yet there have been times I have been left reeling - from unexpected phone calls that brought tragic news; from a diagnosis that changed everything; from memories that felt like gut-punches; from shocking facts about people that I had trusted; from the realities of life. I know you have as well. But I have come to realize that there are plenty of good ways that I have been blindsided as well. 

I have been blindsided by grace. God's unmerited favor broke through my defenses, tore down my arguments, and embraced me with His love. I wasn't seeking Him, but He came looking for me. It wasn't logical, and it wasn't fair. I call it "weird grace." One of my favorite songs says, "He's not fair, no He's not fair, when He fixes what's beyond repair, and graces every one who don't deserve." The undeserved nature of grace is the very definition of weird, and the most beautiful way I have been blindsided. 

I have been blindsided by mercy. When I was struggling the most, when my faith was limited to just holding on to John 6:68 and getting through the day with Jesus, He never judged me or condemned me. Quite the opposite. His mercy met me where I was, triumphing over the lies of the enemy that screamed at me that my faith was weak. He gave me His Word that told me no, just holding on to Jesus when it doesn't make sense is the victory. 

I have been blindsided by love. When I have struggled the most with sin and simple human frailty, I have felt His love the closest. I have never once sought forgiveness without feeling His arms of love surround me. When I wasn't looking, He brought love near to me and gave me hope for the future. He has pursued me and, "every time I wrestle with His promises He wins my heart all over again." 

I don't think I will ever stop preferring not to be blindsided. But in this new season of life, as I learn to trust that there can be "good surprises," I want to also remember that I have been blindsided in good ways as well. I never want to get over being in relationship with a God who delights to surprise me with grace, mercy, love, and so much more.