Sometimes the wilderness is the better way

In Exodus 13:17-18, we see that God made a decision.  He could have led the Israelites into the land of the Philistines which would have made for a faster deliverance.  BUT, He knew that they would be afraid because the Philistines were a fearsome people. (think Goliath) So instead, he took them into the wilderness.  He TOOK them into the wilderness.  Think about that for just a moment.  They did not end up there, God led them into the wilderness as the better option!

One of the definitions of wilderness in Webster is "an empty or pathless area or region." I think about times in my life that I  define as "wilderness", and I reflect with sadness and heartache.  But what if, just what if, they were the better option?

See, in our society, we want everything fast...fast food, high-speed internet...we are looking for a drive-thru deliverance.  But God wants the best deliverance! So next time I am feeling the emptiness of the path, I am going to try to stop thinking about how long I've been there, and look for the pillar of cloud or the pillar of fire.  Because just like He did for the Israelites, He never stops leading in the wilderness.

It's not EASY being Job's wife!

God has put such a fire in my heart for Job’s wife!  You know the old question….if you could spend time with and talk to any person in the Bible, who would it be and why?  Until recently, my list would have been extensive; a regular Who’s Who of the Old and New Testaments.  Not anymore.  Top of the list – Job’s wife.  First question – what is your name so that I can stop call you “Job’s wife.”  After all, she was a real person; a real woman, just like me, with hopes and dreams and thoughts and feelings…and failures.  But, by the grace of God, let not one failure that I have, one single moment of weakness, be all that I am remembered for throughout the rest of history.  Such is the fate of Job’s wife.

Can we judge her without walking in her shoes? Here is a woman who has lost everything…her home, her comfort, her children, and basically her husband…her provider!  How was she supposed to support herself, and did she even want to?  Imagine the heartbreak of losing a child.  Now imagine that multiplied in losing ALL one’s children. The very lives that you carried in your own body, that you gave life to.  She has no home, she has no money, and she is all alone! Job is in the trash heap outside the city. Where is she to live?  The Law did not allow wives to abandon their husbands! 

“I give up!” Hasn’t everyone said that at one time or another?  But this poor woman is dragged through the mud by every pastor, by every PERSON who reads the book of Job.  “How’d you like to have a wife like that?” Well, I don’t know about others, but my husband does have a wife like that…ME!  Life is hard sometimes, and some days you just have to make yourself get out of bed and tell yourself that you WILL breathe and you WILL put one foot in front of the other.

I know that everyone teaches one lesson that we are supposed to learn from the book of Job - Job’s is the righteous way to suffer, his wife is the not so righteous way.  Yes…maybe…but what if there’s more….

You see, I think that we are missing something, something vitally important.  What they did wrong…they didn’t fight together! Neither one of them combined their faith together. (Matt 18:19-20) Satan’s biggest success was not in taking Job’s things, but in dividing their union.  Job’s wife was hurting…did Job comfort her suffering and say wife, don’t talk like that, we’ll make it through?  No, he calls her foolish and pushes her aside.  Wasn’t he then just as guilty of being so focused on himself that he failed to see her pain?  Eve is blamed for the fall of man, yet it was Adam who had the power to reject her sin, repent on her behalf, and own up and the head of the household.  Here too, we see that Job things started to turn around when he started to pray for his friends.  Did he ever pray for his wife?  We don’t know.  If he would have consoled his wife instead of rebuking her, if he had allowed them to share their pain together, would God have delivered them sooner?  For wasn’t it really about the process that Job took to get to his place of deliverance? Did he honor and care for his wife as the weaker one? ( I Peter 3:7)

So do me a favor, the next time you want to snarl your lip when you mention Job’s wife, take a minute to pause and think about yourself.  What have you done or said that in one single moment you might be remembered for all of history? 
~D

I Believe in....FAIRIES?????

I believe.  Easy statement, hard action verb.   Remember in the The Wizard of Oz, the Lion says that he's not afraid because he doesn't believe in "spooks", only to change his mind when approaching the wizard..."I do believe I spooks, I do believe in spooks!"  Remember in Peter Pan, Tinkerbell was dying and Peter pleads with the audience that they only way to save a fairy is say that they believe in fairies.  Everyone yells that they believe over and over, knowing full well that they do NOT believe in fairies. 

How many times have I said that I believe?  When I did, was it a statement or a verb?  In many cases, I know now that it was a statement.  I mean, if you say it, you do it...right?  I don't think so.  At least in my case.  I mean, I say that I believe that the sun is going to rise tomorrow.  But I don't really believe that, I have no faith that it will, I just assume it will.  Why would I not, it always does, every day on time.  And believing and assuming are not the same thing.  When you assume, you just take it for granted because you have no reason to think that what should happen will not happen.  Believing is having faith and hope in something that in the natural doesn't even seem remotely possible.

In Mark 11:24, it says "whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them."  Do I pray believing that I will receive them?  That is what I had to ask myself this weeekend, and the answer was a resounding no!  I mean, I HOPE that I will receive them, that is enough right, I mean Lamentations 3:26 says that "it is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord." But when we say hope today, we mean it more like a wish. Hope was never a question.  If someone hoped, it meant that they waited with expectancy.  We have separated hope and belief into two different camps, one a wish, the other a fact.

So today, I make a change, to work on believing.  To work on waiting with expectancy.  After all, it comes with a guarantee!  Believe that you will receive what you pray for (praying in line with His will of course) and you WILL have them.  Those are much better odds than Tinkerbell had.
~D

Pick A Side!

The scene is familiar…a school playground, a group of children…pick a side.  “If you want to be my friend, then you can’t be friends with her! Pick a side!”  Even as we grow older, we pretend that such childish prejudices don’t exist.  And yet when we look around the lunch room and beside the coffee machine, those cliques are just as present today.  Do we mean to break off into these groups and form our little alliances?  Do we consciously make decisions to pull a select few of us away from the others, or is it a subconscious attraction to others that we perceive as like us?

I think what is more important is the motive of the separation.  Are we pulling away to ostracize others or are we drawing a line in the sand and setting a boundary?  Joshua said “Choose you this day who you will serve.”  At some point in our lives, we need to choose a side.  Is it going to be a side of pride and having our own way, or is going to be God’s side?  Will we be like Joshua 3:5 and sanctify ourselves, or separate ourselves for a special holy purpose, so that the Lord can do wonders among us?  No one trusts a person who sits on the fence, indecisive or playing both sides.  Neither does God. 

Like the children of Israel, we have not passed this way before.  I am crossing that line and standing with Joshua.  As for me, I will serve the Lord.  How about you?  Pick a side!
~D

Walking Blindly

I have found that I have a tendancy to stop at the end of a story.  I usually don't read the Postlogue.  In the case of the Easter story, that would be the Road to Emmaus.  I find it interesting that the most detailed account is in the book of Luke.  My reasoning is this, Luke was not a disciple.  He was not even there during the resurrection.  Luke however, was a doctor, which made him intelligent, logical, and well educated.  Probably much more so than the fishermen apostles, NOT that I am saying that you have to be a genius to serve God.  But Luke was hired to research the life of Jesus to prove authenticity.  How did he come by his information?  Eyewitness accounts and interviews.  That is why it interests me that his account is the most detailed.  Did he speak to the actual men that encountered Him on the road?  Maybe.

In this account, Jesus spent hours with these mournful men walking back home after the crucifixion.  He walked with them talking about what had just happened in Jerusalem and sharing the Old Testament prophets and what was foretold of the Christ.  And in all that time, they didn't recognize Him.  They didn't see Him because all they could see was their sorrow.

How many times do I find myself in that same place.  Full of sorrow, full of self-pity, and full of myself.  But you know what?  He is there with me too.  But I don't see Him.  I can be just as blind as those men on the road to Emmaus, walking with the Christ and too caught up my problems to see Him there with me, every step of the long journey.  Until He reveals himself and I am left to reflect on the abundant grace that has carried me through.

Open my eyes Lord, so that I may behold your presence and see your glory!
~D

An Open Door

As always, I am a day late and a dollar short...or in this case, 4 days late.  On Easter Sunday, I was complelled to look at each account of Christ's resurrection and compare them.  Something occurred to me, sitting there in the quiet of the morning with my Bible in one hand and my coffee in the other...the stone was rolled away.  Now, I know what you're thinking, that is the basic principle of the story right?!  And yes it is.  But WHY?  That is what I never thought about before.  You see, pictures all depict Jesus walking out of the tomb with this huge stone on the side.  The stone was moved so that Jesus could get out, right?  WRONG! 

The stone was moved so that others could go in!  What was I thinking that this Jesus of whom I speak would need an angel to unseal him from the grave.  This same Jesus who can walk on the water, talk to the waves, and enter through locked doors would not need anything moved out of His way.  But, if the stone were not moved, no one else could see that it was empty inside.  And that is just what happened.  When Peter and John and the women looked inside, they saw only an angel, and the grave clothes folded neatly where the body had been. (now, I have to be honest, the mom in me REALLY wants to use that as excuse for my own sons. "See Jesus made his bed when he got up!" It would not be the first time I have pulled the Jesus card... "I bet Jesus didn't fight with his brother" "I bet Jesus didn't give his mother a hard time about getting a bath"  Sad I know, but true.)

Will you go in?  Will you enter the doorway that He left open for you?  The tomb is still empty, and He is still ALIVE!
~D

Brokenness…or How to Be A Crack(ed)Pot

We can’t be useful until we are broken.  Until we are, we are too full of ourselves to have any room for Him.  Life is full of hardships that just pound away at our vessel.  When we are strong in ourselves, our vessel does not get damaged.  It can’t, because through each assault, we become harder and harder.  This also means that what is inside of us can begin to ferment and turn sour because through our hardness, it no longer breathes new life into the inside.  So there it sits, stagnant.  If however, under each assault our strength is NOT found in ourselves, each hit weakens that vessel until there are chips, and cracks.  Never enough to shatter it, but enough that it is forever damaged.  But there are differences with that broken pot.  The cracks allow the insides to seep out, draining the level of its contents, allowing it to be filled back up, and keeping the insides new and sweet instead of bitter.  It also allows what is inside to spill out, to be soaked up, instead of being hoarded within.

 Am I hard and broken?  Bitter on the inside, not allowing any drop of myself to be spilled or seen?  Or am I willing to allow myself to be spilled out, soaked up by others? To allow myself to be poured out only be to filled again by what is sweeter, by what is better?  Are you?

~D