The Geography Of Promise

“Thus the Lord gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers. And they took possession of it, and they settled there. And the Lord gave them rest on every side just as he had sworn to their fathers. Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the Lord had given all their enemies into their hands. Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.” – Joshua 21:43-45

Slogging my way through these last few chapters in Joshua feels a bit—laborious, to say the least. It’s like reading a map without a map, as someone who isn’t all that interested in maps to begin with (unlike Dave, who looks at maps for fun). But then these golden verses tucked away at the end of chapter twenty-one tell us what the last nine chapters were about: they were God spelling out in exacting detail the fulfillment of every word of his promise.

Boundaries matter a lot when it’s your land it involves. When we were remodeling our house in Palo Alto, there came a point late in the pre-construction phase when we realized there was an issue with one of the setback lines: the entire thing had to be scratched, which set us back quite some time and endangered our ability to move in before the school year started. Imagine if the land didn’t just affect your house or school year: imagine if it was the actual embodiment of all God’s promises to you. All you had hoped for as a wandering pilgrim without a true home. Imagine if it was the rest you longed for after suffering, labor, and war. Every single word of these chapters would matter.

But that is what it means to us. We are wandering pilgrims on this earth, sojourners looking to our true home. God is not going to remove us from this earth, but remake it and give us an inheritance in it one day. Jesus will lead us to the true rest that Joshua could not make last (Hebrews 4). There are so many promises of God I live by, that are sometimes the only things helping me put one foot in front of the other, and all these chapters of Joshua are saying, in the language of geography, through the detail of nomenclature, that God keeps all his promises. He does not miss a single one.

When God Commands Destruction

“So Joshua struck the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes, and all their kings. He left none remaining, but devoted to destruction all that breathed, just as the Lord God of Israel commanded.” – Joshua 10:40

We can’t really read through Joshua and Judges without addressing the elephant in the room: how could God give his people the promised land by commanding the destruction of all who were already living in it? This is far too large a topic to be addressed in one post, but here are at least some points worth considering. 

The mission of Israel to occupy Canaan was unlike any military operation, before or since, in several important ways. It was not carried out on the basis of race and cannot be a warrant for ethnic cleansing: in fact, God later judges the Israelites themselves through military defeat and exile. It was not carried out on the basis of imperialistic expansion, to expand Israel’s power or wealth: unlike most military invasions at that time, the Israelites were commanded not to plunder or enslave anyone. It was not carried out because the Israelites were intrinsically superior to the Canaanites: in fact, the need to evict the Canaanites only testifies to the Israelites’ spiritual weakness in the face of temptation.

The war is carried out as God’s judgement upon the Canaanites, through direct verbal revelation (Joshua 1:1-9, 23:1-16; Judges 1:1), for the purpose of breaking down idols and evicting pagan worship. This was a specific category of warfare that, in Deuteronomy 20, God makes clear is different from war conducted outside the promised land, where total destruction is not commanded. This was a specific act of judgment that occurs after God had given the Canaanites four generations for their sin to reach “its full measure” (Genesis 15), upon an unrepentant people who persisted in practices like child sacrifice, temple prostitution, incest and adultery. Despite the commands, there are provisions for salvation as we see with Rahab and the Gibeonites, again making it clear that the point of judgment was not ethnicity but rebellious unbelief. The war protected Israel’s theocracy: a union of religion and government unique to that time.

One theologian, Meredith Kline, calls this an “intrusion ethic”: a time when future judgment “intrudes” on the present. God, who alone knows who will be condemned on Judgment Day when Jesus returns, is in these instances bringing down judgment upon those people early, the same way the blessings of the gospel are also intrusions of the future grace into the present.

And that brings me back to this question: why should God’s intrusions of judgment bother me more than his intrusions of grace? One interesting thing I’ve noticed about our children is that two of them tend to be justice-oriented: they need to hear, “you can’t do whatever you want to get whatever you want.” The other two tend to be grace-oriented: they need to hear, “sometimes being kind is more important than being right.” The point is, however our inherent personality, personal experiences, or cultural milieu may make us lean, God is a God of both justice and mercy. Jesus came from the Father, full of grace and truth. Both. Not one without the other. In fact, without judgment, grace would be meaningless. The disturbing parts of the Bible arrest our attention for good reason. They point to gaps between how we like to think of God, and who He really is. How we like to think of sin, and what sin really means. How we like to think of grace, and how costly that grace really was to Him. 

God Moves In A Mysterious Way

By William Cowper:

God moves in a mysterious way

His wonders to perform;

He plants His footsteps in the sea

And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never failing skill

He treasures up His bright designs

And works His sov’reign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;

The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy and shall break

In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,

But trust Him for His grace;

Behind a frowning providence

He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,

Unfolding every hour;

The bud may have a bitter taste,

But sweet will be the flow’r.

Blind unbelief is sure to err

And scan His work in vain;

God is His own interpreter,

And He will make it plain.

Naming Our Longings

“And when he came near, he asked him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ He said, ‘Lord, let me recover my sight.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.’” – Luke 18:40-42

Jesus’ question to the blind roadside beggar seems obvious. Why in the world does he ask it?

In our consumeristic society, we think about what we want people to do for us all the time on a superficial level: customize our coffee a certain way, give a certain gift or bonus, provide a particular service at a particular time. But that is not what Jesus is asking. The blind man did not make a public disturbance for a trivial reason. This is in some ways the most important question of all. It is the same one Jesus asks us when we are brought into his presence, because it forces us to confront our true desires, the ones so easily masked by superficial attainments. It invites us to peel back layers of pretense to expose what is truest about us, to face our vulnerability and need. It invites spiritual hunger and honest reflection. It legitimizes desire. God asks us this, and it’s okay to answer it. 

“Jesus doesn’t grant requests like a genie in a bottle,” writes Ruth Haley Barton. “He works with people allowing their desires to draw him into the core conversations of life… Why did Jesus ask such pointed and personal questions? Perhaps because he knew that such questions open up a world of possibility—the possibility of actually making choices that are congruent with what we say we really want.  He seemed to understand that being in touch with our true desire can be catalytic for one’s spiritual life because it is the most powerful motivator for a life lived consistently with intentionality and focus.”

Psalm 86 was also on our reading list for the same day, and it struck me that the entire Psalm is an answer to this very question. The entire Psalm presupposes this question was asked, and is itself a litany of expressed desires and longings that pierce through to the deepest longings of the Psalmist’s heart. “Incline your ear to me, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy,” he begins. Preserve my life. Be gracious to me. Gladden the soul of your servant. Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer. Teach me your way. Turn to me. Be gracious to me. Show me a sign of your favor. But mingled in are descriptions of God himself. There is none like you. All shall worship you. You do wondrous things. You alone are God. Great is your steadfast love toward me. You have delivered my soul. You are merciful and gracious. You abound in faithfulness. You have helped me and comforted me. Within the very answering of this question, he encounters God. That’s the difference between asking this question of ourselves without God’s presence, and hearing God ask it to us within his presence. It’s the difference between self-help and true healing.

In the end, I think our longings are what motivates us on our spiritual journey, far more than duty or obligation. And our encounters with God are what heals and changes us in those very places of longing. What do you want Jesus to do for you?

Rash Words And Healing Words

“There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” – Proverbs 12:18

Atul Gawande shares a story he heard from a fellow surgeon about a young guy who came into the emergency room with a stab wound after getting into an altercation at a Halloween party. He was stable, breathing normally, not in pain. After cutting off his clothes and looking him all over, the only thing they could find was a small, pouting two-inch red slit in his belly. A thin strip of omental fat protruded out of it: they’d need to take him to the operating room to make sure his bowel wasn’t injured and sew up the gap. No big deal. They left him on a stretcher while getting things ready. Then a nurse noticed he’d stopped talking. His heart rate had skyrocketed, his eyes were rolling back in his head, he stopped responding when she shook him. The trauma team rushed back to find his blood pressure barely detectable. They intubated his airway, poured fluid into his veins, and still couldn’t get his pressure up. They raced him to the operating room. The surgeon sliced down into the abdominal cavity and an ocean of blood burst out of the patient. The knife had gone more than a foot through the man’s skin, through fat and muscle, past the intestine, and right into the aorta. Apparently the guy he got in a fight with was dressed as a soldier, with a bayonet, a detail in the history no one had managed to obtain.

In fencing, a thrust is defined as a quick attack wherein the sword moves parallel to its length and lands with the point touching the opponent. Medically-speaking, these are worst kinds of knife wounds, worse than larger lacerations because the extent of internal injury can be much greater than it appears. The Hebrew word for “rash” here is an onomatopoeia: bata. Bata bata bata—it almost sounds like the sword thrust it is being compared to. It means “to babble, to talk idly, to speak rashly or inconsiderately.”

Bata is only used three times in the Old Testament: here, in Psalm 106:33 when describing the words Moses spoke at the waters of Meribah after which he could not enter the promised land, and in Leviticus 5:4 when describing rash oaths leading to unintentional sin for which specific sacrifices should be made. In both these instances, words were spoken unintentionally, without premeditation. In both cases, they resulted in serious consequences.

I think of this verse as many of us spend time with family this holiday season, because somehow rash words happen most easily with those closest to us. We may be the ones deeply hurt by careless words spoken by parents or relatives. We may be tempted to gossip with words that wound reputations, or to speak rashly in frustration ourselves. Contrast this with the wise tongue that brings healing: these aren’t just nice words. This isn’t placation or flattery. This is to speak in a way that recognizes there is a wound, or a culture or habit of unhealthiness, and seeks to heal it. Sometimes healing comes through observation and time, and this may mean speaking less and listening more than you naturally would. Sometimes healing means supportive treatment for symptoms, and this may mean words that comfort, encourage or build up. Sometimes healing involves pain, like the draining of an abscess or suturing of a wound, and your words may be ones to rebuke or set boundaries. Regardless, there is forethought and intention, with the purpose of restoring health and life. May our words be wise words, wherever we go and whomever we see.

Wealth In Poverty

“One pretends to be rich, yet has nothing; another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth.” – Proverbs 13:7

I kind of laughed when I came across this in our reading, because it seems so Bay Area. It’s like that scene from “Always Be My Maybe,” when Marcus says, “I thought this was a high-end restaurant. Why am I the only one wearing a tux?” and Sasha replies, “Oh, sorry, I should have told you. Rich people are done with fancy clothes. Now it’s all $4,000 T-shirts that look like they were stolen off the homeless.”

There is some debate regarding the translation of this verse; some suggest it reads closer to “one makes himself rich, yet has nothing; another makes himself poor, yet has great wealth.” Regardless, the point is that true poverty, and true wealth, does not always meet the eye. We ought to be wary of judging anyone based on how wealthy they appear. We ought to be wary of judging our own conditions based on how propitious or inauspicious they may seem. Jesus says the poor in spirit will have the kingdom of heaven, and the meek the earth: nothing is what it seems, or perhaps we need to learn how to look anew.

This is part of the hope Christmas offers us: the most wonderful thing in the history of the world happened in an insignificant stable in an insignificant village.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it well in a letter he wrote his fiancé, Maria von Wedemeyer, from prison on December 13, 1943:

“Be brave for my sake, dearest Maria, even if this letter is your only token of my love this Christmas-tide. We shall both experience a few dark hours—why should we disguise that from each other? We shall ponder the incomprehensibility of our lot and be assailed by the question of why, over and above the darkness already enshrouding humanity, we should be subjected to the bitter anguish of a separation whose purpose we fail to understand… And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives.” 

Receiving A Child, Receiving The Kingdom

“Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.’” – Luke 18:17

“It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.” - Charles Dickens

Infants in Jesus’ day were viewed more expendably and less sentimentally than they are in ours. It was common practice at that time to place a newborn at their father’s feet: if the father stooped and lifted the child, that meant he wished to keep it. Otherwise, the child was thrown out. Infant boys were not named until their eighth day of life, girls until their ninth; up to fifty percent of children died before their tenth birthday. It was not unusual for adults to have little to do with children, much less a single Jewish adult male, much less a leader on his way to Jerusalem with disciples waiting with bated breath for the establishment of his kingdom. But Jesus stops to say, this is the kingdom. 

I had always read this as: we must receive the kingdom of God like a child receives it. With humility, dependency, openness, unquestioning faith and uncluttered simplicity. I’m sure it does mean that. But I wonder if it could also be read: we must receive the kingdom of God like we receive a child. When Jesus came into the world, he came an infant. God didn’t have to do it that way. Jesus could have arrived a full-grown man, like Adam. 

But he didn’t. Actually, he arrived as an embryo, a morula, a blastula. He was carried for nine months. Caryll Houselander writes, “Working, eating, sleeping, [Mary] was forming His body from hers… Walking in the streets of Nazareth to do her shopping, to visit her friends, she set his feet on the path to Jerusalem. Washing, kneading, weaving, sweeping, her hands prepared His hands for the nails. All her experience of the world around her was gathered to Christ growing in her.” 

How do we receive children? Just like that, with every step of our ordinary lives. We receive with intention and preparation, from baby showers to receiving blankets. We receive with thoroughness: more than anything, parenting transforms every other area of our lives. We receive with unavoidability: we can’t ever un-parent; it doesn’t ever stop. We receive with wonder: so much of conception and growth is a mystery. We receive with sacrifice and through weariness. 

Athanasius of Alexandria writes: “The Lord did not come to make a display. He came to heal and to teach suffering men. For one who wanted to make a display the thing would have been just to appear and dazzle the beholders. But for Him Who came to heal and to teach the way was not merely to dwell here, but to put Himself at the disposal of those who needed Him, and to be manifested according as they could bear it, not vitiating the value of the Divine appearing by exceeding their capacity to receive it.”

A baby is something we have the capacity to receive, isn’t it? An infant is within our hold. An infant invites our hold. And so it is with Jesus’ quiet ushering in of his kingdom on earth. This is his very grace to us, to come not with dazzling display, but in a way we could bear, in a way we could understand, and in that very way we see his love for us.

In My Heart A Highway

“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.” – Psalm 84:5

We’re now in the thick of the holiday travel season, with more Americans than ever (over 110 million) traveling this year, according to the AAA. We ourselves are girding up for a flight back East: no small thing for six people in terms of cost and hassle, but going back to their grandparents’ house is probably the thing the kids are most looking forward this winter break.

The Psalmist here longs for a house, the temple of God. A day there, he says, is better than lifetimes elsewhere. If I stop long enough, I realize this is the longing underneath all my longings. What I long for in the latest Star Wars movie, heart-to-heart catch-up conversations with old friends, meeting a new nephew, returning to my childhood home, and everything else that may happen during this trip—all of it is really the longing for the epic glory, the intimate understanding, the wonder and belonging I find in the presence of God. 

The journey to God’s presence is pictured here as a pilgrimage, one with obstacles, of which Palestine had its share. The geography there was rugged, with central hilly spines, desert regions with twisting narrow valleys, unpassable sandy dunes along coastal plains. Getting from one place to another was not straightforward, and the importance of highways like the Via Maris and the King’s Highway were well known.

Happiness, says the Psalmist, the meeting of my longings, comes when there are highways to Zion in my heart. Open, level, protected, oft-trod ways in my inner being that lead me to the strength of God’s presence. What are these highways? Perhaps attending to the integrity of my inner mental life. Maintaining spiritual routines that tend to get thrown off during travel. Being fully present to unexpected experiences of God’s presence and glory. Actively resisting distractions and temptations. Looking back on the roads of the past year. Whatever it is, it is something inside us; it involves knowing well and navigating wisely the inner topography of our hearts and minds.

In the ancient near east, being constantly in a diety’s presence was a privilege much longed for, expressed by Babylonian kings and hymns to Marduk. Some worshippers went to great lengths to find their gods. According to one footnote, “in the third millennium BC, Sumerian worshippers tried to accomplish this objective by placing statuettes of themselves in the posture of prayer in the temple.” The revolutionary thing about the Christmas message is that Jesus came to us, not the other way around. When he did, the words that came to John the Baptist and the writer of the gospel of Mark were these from Isaiah: “make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed” (Isaiah 40:3-5). Jesus himself said, “I am the way.” The obstacles are removed. There is raised up for us a way, straight through to the happiness and strength our hearts long for.

Power And Word

“And the angel answered her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.’” – Luke 1:35

Luke, who wrote both the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, begins both with an account of the power of the Holy Spirit: in Acts, with Pentecost, and in Luke, with conceptions. The Holy Spirit comes upon Elizabeth and Mary, two people who, as Eugene Peterson puts it, “stand at the extremes of impossibility regarding conception: Elizabeth a barren post-menopausal old woman and Mary a young virgin.” The Holy Spirit is mentioned seven times in the first two chapters of Luke (1:15, 35, 41, 67; 2:25-27), and each of those times are related to pregnancy and birth: an unconventional way to describe power. Pregnancy is slow, initially invisible. Birth is messy, wondrous. All of it is markedly intimate and utterly ordinary. This is a power that is the opposite of impersonal, flamboyant, or forceful. A power that works within the ordinary, everyday framework of our lives.

Laced with mentions of the Holy Spirit are five prayers within these first two chapters of Luke: the “Fiat Mihi” (1:38), the “Magnificat” (1:46-55), the “Benedictus” (1:68-79), the “Gloria in excelsis” (2:14), the “Nunc dimittis” (2:29-32). The first is Mary’s response to Gabriel: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” The last is Simeon’s response to holding the forty day-old infant Jesus: “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word.” The Holy Spirit is mentioned within the context of both prayers. Mary and Simeon both call themselves servants of the Lord. They both say kata sou rhema: “according to your word.” We see that the power of the Holy Spirit acts through the prayers of a young girl who begins in submission to God’s word, and an old man ending in submission to God’s word. 

The power of the Holy Spirit is a power that is received, that is deeply personal, that works sometimes slowly and invisibly—with the kind of growth that one can only see in the rearview mirror—and sometimes immediately and powerfully, like the moment an infant comes into the world. It is a power we experience in submission to God’s word, which the Holy Spirit himself reveals to us. May we think on what it means to receive and experience Him, as much as we think on receiving the Christ-child this Christmas week.

Christmas Prayer

by Gerard Manley Hopkins:

Moonless darkness stands between.

Past, the Past, no more be seen!

But the Bethlehem star may lead me

To the sight of Him who freed me

From the self that I have been.

Make me pure, Lord: Thou art holy;

Make me meek, Lord: Thou wert lowly;

Now beginning, and always,

Now begin, on Christmas day.

Entitlement

“So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” – Luke 17:10

During a physician training session at Stanford, the head of a surgical department shared about the challenges of clinical care in this area. “They basically see me as a technician,” he said. “They come in and say, ‘I’ve read about this. I want you to cut here, radiate here.’ I have to tell them, ‘well, I’m actually the expert here…’” Patients tell their doctors what tests they want ordered, what visual acuity they expect after surgery. This rises beyond optimization and control into a kind of entitled consumerism: a belief that we do not only know what is best for ourselves, but we deserve to have it. I see this in myself, when I lapse into self-pity about not having what I want, or complain about some first-world problem. I see this in my children, who expect food or laundered shirts or packed bags to be provided when they want it, and wonder if my good intentions to care for them have backfired. I see this in the consumerism of the holidays. We are like Sally in the Charlie Brown Christmas special, when she dictates her endless list of toys to Charlie. “All I want is what I have coming to me,” she tells him; “all I want is my fair share.”

These verses in Luke seem offensive to the modern reader: and if anything, the English translation has softened the original Greek, in which “unworthy servant” means literally “unprofitable slave.” We ought to understand, though, that slavery in Jesus’ day was different than slavery in the United States: slaves were not distinguished by race, could become highly educated and work in many sectors of the economy (as accountants, professors, physicians, chefs, craftsmen), and could be freed to become Roman citizens through several means of manumission. In fact, freedpersons would sell themselves into slavery knowing they could later regain freedom, and for this reason the word for slave (doulos) is sometimes translated “bondservant.” 

Slaves in that context were not worthless or of no value, but they were not owed anything. They were not indispensable; their service did not merit thanks or favor. And Jesus is saying that this is our spiritual reality. How easy it is for us to become spiritually entitled, to forget that God does not owe us anything. He does not “need” our aid, the grace to do his will comes from him alone, and we do not through our service deserve any favor. We have merited nothing.

Martin Luther was recorded to say once in response to the Church dispensing the merits of the saints: “Merit! What merit can there be in such a poor caitiff as man? The better a man is, the more clearly he sees how little he is good for, the greater mockery it seems to attribute to him the notion of having deserved reward.” I find the rest of his diatribe a bit humorous: “Till we are seven years old, we do nothing but eat and drink and sleep and play; from seven to twenty-one we study four hours a day, the rest of it we run about and amuse ourselves; then we work till fifty, and then we grow again to be children. We sleep half our lives; we give God a tenth of our time; and yet we think that with our good works we can merit heaven. What have I been doing to-day? I have talked for two hours; I have been at meals three hours; I have been idle four hours! Ah, enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord!”

Jesus came into this world in a manger. The king of all kings, laid in a feeding trough for animals: a far cry from the sterile fields and personalized birthing plans of our day, or even what was normal in his day. I can’t think of anything less entitled than that. The one to whom everything was due did not demand it. Neither should I.

The Parable Of The Dishonest Manager

“The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” – Luke 16:8-9

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” – Jim Elliot, October 28, 1949 journal entry

This parable, found only in Luke, can be confusing. In it, Jesus tells the story of a manager who, on finding out he is being fired for wasting his master’s money, rewrites the contracts of his master’s debtors to decrease their debts so they might help him after he’s unemployed. The master then, surprisingly, commends him for this. Of note, “unrighteous wealth” refers to worldly wealth—earthly wealth that is part of this unrighteous world—not wealth gained through unrighteous means. Some have speculated that the manager reduced the debts by cutting out his own commission or interest, which would explain why his manager praised him. 

Regardless of how dishonest or not the manager was, the main point of the parable is the same: we “sons of light” need to be at least as shrewd about how the kingdom of God works as the “sons of this world” are about how the earthly world works. The word for “shrewd” here, Greek phronimos, is only ever used this once in the Bible, and is translated in some versions “wise.” Jesus commends not potentially dishonest means, but the kind of shrewd wisdom behind it. And being wise means understanding that, like the manager about to lose his job, worldly opportunity and wealth is fleeting. Most of us who are relatively young don’t think on this, but it is a sure thing: Jesus says “when it fails,” not if. The most intelligent plan we can make is to use our earthly money to buy what will last eternally. 

How do we do this? Jesus goes on to explain that we earn “true riches” in eternity by proving ourselves faithful with worldly wealth (Luke 16:11). If fund managers are not using money the way their clients want, or are taking more for themselves than was agreed upon, they’re not being faithful with the money given them—one could even say they’re stealing, and the same is true for us. We manage, but do not own, all we have in this world. In our meritocratic culture, this can be difficult to work into our hearts, but it is no less true. What matters is being faithful to the intent of our master in stewarding what we have. One day we too may hear, “turn in the account of your management” (Luke 16:2).

But this parable has something more specific to say about how to invest in what lasts. It comes right after the parable of the prodigal son, and if you layer them together, a similar parabolic narrative emerges. Both the younger son and the manager squander money; the same Greek word diaskorpizo is used. But both learn that money is not as important as relationship, whether between father and son, or between friends. Michael Wilcock puts the point of the parable in Luke 16 this way: “Although these things—your property, ability, and time—belong to this life only, Jesus says, what will happen to you then, when you pass into the afterlife, will depend on what you were doing with them here and now. Make sure that the use of your money brings you into a fellowship of friends which will survive beyond death.”

Thinking on this, I keep recalling the last scene in Monsters, Inc., the way Sully’s entire face lights up as he opens the door to another dimension of reality, not because of any object or reward, but because he sees his friend. Which friends will welcome me home in eternity? In the end, none of the material things around me will last: but the souls around me will. This parable is a good reminder that it is always worthwhile to invest in building eternal relational capital, to deepen and widen that fellowship of friends which will survive beyond death.

Stones Of Memory

“And the people of Israel did just as Joshua commanded and took up twelve stones out of the midst of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, just as the Lord told Joshua. And they carried them over with them to the place where they lodged and laid them down there. And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the covenant had stood; and they are there to this day.” – Joshua 4:8-9

If I asked you to think back on a time when you most experienced God’s power in your life, when you knew without a shadow of a doubt that what was happening was due to God’s might and not yours, when would that be? Would it be easy to remember, or difficult?

As at the shore of the Red Sea, here God has led his people to an illogical location before an untraversable body of water under a new leader. The traditional crossing point for the Jordan River was the city of Adam, 17 miles north of God’s chosen crossing point. Near Adam, the Jabbok River joined the Jordan from the east, and Wadi el-Fara from the west, making anywhere south of that point difficult to cross, and the riverbanks were already swollen that time of year from the winter rains. But as with the Red Sea, God moves the waters of the Jordan River for the people to cross on dry ground, in perhaps a more orderly and militaristic fashion this time, but again to establish His power, the people’s belief in their leader, and fear of God himself (Exodus 14:31, Joshua 4:24).

This time, God asks them to take a souvenir. One man from each tribe hefts a stone from the bottom of the river and sets it somewhere it never would have arrived naturally: up on dry land. Unasked, Joshua also marks the place where the priests’ feet stood, like an invisible memorial to say, we were here. Our feet touched the bottom, and because God made a way, we rose up from the water to walk into new life in the land of covenant promise. It was all by God’s power. These water-stones, these land-stones, they hold that memory, the memory of salvation itself. 

One would think it would be hard to forget an experience like that, walking across ground no person in recent history had trod, the only thing between you and certain death the hand of God holding back a wall of water to your right, passing by an ark with the fearful presence of that very God along the way. Yet we forget. We forget the magnitude and reality of God’s saving power. We need prompts to remember. And the remembering is to be done together: brother to brother, parent to child. They all crossed together. God’s power stayed death and provided a way for their loved ones as much as for them. They didn’t all heft one big rock, but each tribe brought their own, the memorial they created an amalgam of shapes and sizes. 

How do we remember? How do we remember together? What memorial stones have we set up in our lives? What do we leave for our children that is so obvious, so unavoidable, that they can’t help but ask about it?  Maybe our memory reads like a journal, tastes like the eucharist, sounds like song. Maybe it’s found in liturgy, testimonials, stories, holiday traditions. Our memories are fickle, but our God is unchanging, and the point, I think, is that God’s power works not only during the moment but in the revisiting of that moment, in the stories told of that moment, and it is worth some labor to make sure that happens.

The Manure Story

“‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.” – Luke 13:6-9

“The greatest temptation of our time is impatience, in its full original meaning: refusal to wait, undergo, suffer. We seem unwilling to pay the price of living with our fellows in creative and profound relationships.” - Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

Dave and I wrote letters for months before we first met in person: he from California, I from Boston. After we finally met in person (and I told him I felt “neutral” when he expressed interest), we began talking on the phone. One day years into our marriage, I found an old notebook of his from med school, and scribbled into the margins, next to “basic immunology functions and disorders of the immune system,” were notes for our phone conversations: “be silly. Have fun. Flirt.” At the bottom of the page, below “septicemia, Hep B, TB, meningitis,” a paragraph: “Don’t expect too much, or demand any promises, affirmation, time, attention—it’s a free gift from her to me, God’s gift of companionship, fellowship, and friendship. Don’t think too far ahead.”

Nowadays, he and I are more liable to text than write letters or call, sometimes even from one room of the house to another. Back then, neither of us had text, much less whatever dating app is trending, and I can’t help but think there was something valuable in the slower pace that forced us to take. We live in an instant society, and I appreciate certain conveniences as much as the next person, but it can cause changes we hardly realize. Rather than allowing more time for rest, our efficiency increases what we’re expected to produce. Boundaries between home and work blur. I find myself getting upset if someone drives below the speed limit, when I see the rainbow pinwheel on my computer, or when I can’t get anything in the world shipped to my front door within two days.

Dropped cold into this chapter, without any kind of context or prelude, is this curious parable, which Eugene Peterson calls “the manure story.” He writes, “Manure is a slow solution. When it comes to doing something about what is wrong in the world, Jesus is best known for his fondness for the minute, the invisible, the quiet, the slow—yeast, salt, seeds, light. And manure.” Manure is dead or unwanted organic matter, which works into the soil to fertilize it, adding nutrients, increasing microbial growth, making it richer so it can bring life. It doesn’t require anything but strategic placement and time. It is unhurried. It is silent: as Saul Bellow writes, “The more you keep your mouth shut, the more fertile you become.” It is a submission to the workings that bring death to life.

It is completely contrary to our impulses, this kind of working. We are more like the man who says, cut it down! And less like the vinedresser who says, let it alone. This word for “let alone,” Greek aphes, means “to let go, let it be,” but interestingly, is also translated “forgive,” as in the Lord’s prayer in Luke 11:4: “and forgive us our sins.” Not long after Jesus shares this parable, we see it playing out in the events of the cross. We hear another violent indictive: “Crucify him!” And we hear a similar bid for life in Jesus’ words: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

God is a God who acts, but he is also the God who waits. His purposes, the workings of the gospel and of resurrection life, the delight and gifts he gives us, can sometimes only be realized and received when we are willing to let it all work slowly into the soil of our lives. We tend to want to control, to direct, to act, when what we really need to do is listen to the vinedresser. And sometimes the answer is to let it alone. To let the manure work. To give it more time.

Holy Hope

“And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering.” – Deuteronomy 31:16

Some have called Deuteronomy the first sermon series, and Moses has just finished. He’s preached the longest sermon in the Bible, the last sermon of his life, there on the plains of Moab. He’s led them all these long and wandering years, and just before he is about to climb a mountain and die, God tells him this: the people he’s given his life in ministry to are about to turn their backs on everything he’s just said. How would Moses have not felt utterly crushed? We tend to gloss over this, because well, it’s no surprise to us, and we know how the story ultimately ends, but consider how it would have felt to hear that, at that time. Eugene Peterson puts it this way: “He dies, by all human accounting, a failure, and knowing that he is a failure, knowing that everything that he has worked for in leading, training, and praying for this community will unravel as soon as the people enter Canaan.”

We have hopes for the people we care for. The closer they are to us, the more we invest in them, the higher and dearer our hopes are—and the more potential there is for us to be hurt or disappointed if our hopes aren’t met. I’ve had this conversation several times with various women: how do I have hopes for my husband without expecting too much? How do I see what I think is good for him, pray for and encourage those things, without being frustrated if I see no change? And the same could be asked elsewhere. How do we continue to strive and serve in ministry when people don’t respond or show up? Parent children who make life decisions that pain us? Honor parents who disappoint us yet again? Be open to new friendships or communities when we feel hurt or abandoned by past ones?

We know now Moses is no failure, yet the world would say he was one that day. His story teaches me that, in so many ways, my hopes come with an expectation of timing or outcome that are influenced by personal or worldly perspectives, and that is not how God works. It simply isn’t. He works with the eternal view in mind. He may disappoint my hopes for my own sake, to show me that they are rooted in some amount of selfishness, pride, insecurity, or idolatry. He may disappoint my hopes because it is ultimately better for the whole body of believers, or for the sake of spreading or illustrating the gospel, or for the sake of the very people I hope it for.

The very next thing God tells Moses is to sing. It’s hard to sing without it changing the way you feel; singing is talking pitched to the soul and sentiment. He turns to these people he knows now will disappoint him, and sings them a song. Maybe he sings it to himself as well. What does he sing about? God’s perfection. His greatness, his past grace and faithfulness, his just vengeance, his power. Moses’ song goes back to God. While we hope for those we love, our faith is not in them. Our faith is in God, whom we know has our and their eternal good in mind. This makes our hope not feebler, but stronger and higher. This is a holy kind of hope: a hope that is purified in motive and content. A hope that is held together with faith in a mighty and good God. A hope that is therefore able to have a loose grip on outcomes and timing. A hope that strengthens my labors rather than cripples them. 

Would Moses have still preached those sermons with all the force of will and heart he did, if God had not waited until the end to tell him what would happen? And yet I’m glad Moses did. Despite the immediate outcome, think how meaningful his sermons still are, how precious the time he took to preach them and have them written down, because they bless us today. Our labors are not lost, and that too is part of the lesson he leaves us, part of the promise we have in Christ.

Gloom And Gladness

“Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.” – Proverbs 12:25

There’s this moment in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship Of The Ring when the fellowship, having been blocked at the pass of Caradhras, reluctantly enter the Mines of Moria, a place “vast and intricate beyond the imagination of Gimli, Gloin’s son, dwarf of the mountain-race though he was.” Gradually the passageways descend, the air grows hot and stifling, and the group is forced to wait as Gandalf tries to decide which way to go, evil forebodings and utter darkness all around them. 

Tolkien writes: “‘Do not be afraid!’ said Aragorn. There was a pause longer than usual, and Gandalf and Gimli were whispering together; the others were crowded behind, waiting anxiously. ‘Do not be afraid! I have been with him on many a journey, if never on one so dark; and there are tales in Rivendell of greater deeds of his than any that I have seen. He will not go astray – if there is any path to find. He has led us in here against our fears, but he will lead us out again, at whatever cost to himself.”

At the heart of this proverb are two words, each repeated twice for emphasis: shachah shachah, samach samach. A minor change and reordering of consonants provide an example of the antithetical parallelism we see so often in Proverbs. Shachah means “to bow down, to sink down.” When you have young children, you realize how different everything is when you’re operating at half the height of an adult: they can’t see where something is on some counters; they can’t reach up to turn on some faucets. When we’re sunk down, our point of view and capacity to function is altered. We see and respond to reality differently. But it goes deeper: our desires and motivations change. Our feelings change: it’s interesting that we use altitudinal language to describe feeling “down” or “low” or “depressed.”

In contrast, samach means “to be glad, to rejoice.” By contrast, this is a kind of lifting up: a difference in view and ability and feeling. I think of Aragorn’s words in the dark: their circumstances had not changed, but the way those circumstances were framed had. It can turn on a word. A good word today can gladden and cheer my husband, my children, a stranger or friend. This can be a family exercise or birthday tradition where we go around and share what we appreciate about someone. A thank-you card. A letter to encourage your child, taped where they can find it. A note slipped into your spouse’s work bag to let them know you appreciate their labors. A timely word of kindness.

We talk a lot about rejoicing at this time of year. Jesus is the good and kind Word, after all, born into a world of anxious cares. He came to show us the “immeasurable riches of his kindness towards us” (Ephesians 2). He, like Gandalf, leads us out of darkness at great cost to himself. There’s a limit to how much we can manufacture joy: ultimately, we must find our gladness in Jesus. Interestingly, shachah is most commonly used in the context of worship, as in Genesis 27:29: “Let the peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you.” We worship what we bow down to, and the more we worship Jesus, the more we posture ourselves under His good kindness, the more we will be lifted up to do the same for others.

Of The Father's Love Begotten

Written by Aurelius C. Prudentius (best heard sung):

Of the Father’s love begotten,

   Ere the worlds began to be,

He is Alpha and Omega,

   He is the source, the ending He,

Of the things that are and have been,

   And that future years shall see,

      Evermore and evermore.

O ye hights of heav’n, adore Him;

   Angel hosts, His praises sing;

All dominions, bow before Him,

   And extol our Lord and King.

Let no tongue on earth be silent,

   Every voice in concert ring,

      Evermore and evermore.

Christ, to Thee, with God the Father,

   And, with Holy Ghost, to Thee,

Hymn and chant and high thanksgiving,

   And unwearied praises be;

Honor, glory, and dominion,

   And eternal victory

      Evermore and evermore.

Scripture Memorization

“But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.” – Deuteronomy 30:14

The single most transformative spiritual practice I have experienced is memorizing extended passages of Scripture. It has changed my life more than any Bible study, mentoring relationship, sermon series, or podcast. You can’t keep the word of God near you, and not be changed. And there is no better way to keep it near than to memorize it.

Memorizing Scripture is highly encouraged, if not implicitly commanded, by God, and Jesus modeled it. It allows us to meditate on every word from the mouth of God, a practice on which our very spiritual existence depends. It sanctifies us by both convicting us of sin and giving us weapons with which to fight temptation. It transforms our worldviews. It gives us wisdom for counseling and the ability to share the Word at any time. It comforts us during trials and sorrows. 

And it’s not as hard to do as it seems. Mostly, you just have to want to do it. It takes more desire than skill. More methodology than natural aptitude. In his book An Approach to Extended Memorization of Scripture (free online), Andy Davis walks you through why memorizing books is better than memorizing individual verses; how to choose your first book or chapter; how to make your plan. His method involves memorizing one verse a day using the following steps:

1. Recite yesterday’s verse out loud ten times, looking at the text as needed.

2. Recite all previous verses together out loud once, up to and including yesterday’s verse.

3. Read today’s verse out loud ten times looking at the text. Then cover the text and recite it ten times, looking back as needed.

The whole thing takes maybe 10-15 minutes, longer of course the more verses you collect, and there are various modifications once you get farther along. After the entire section or book is done, you recite it daily for 100 days, and if you want to keep it within memory’s reach, once a week thereafter. I’ve found a great time to do the once-a-week recitations is while running: gives my mind something to focus on, is an undistracted time, and I can measure how far I’ve run by how many chapters I’ve recited.

If I could share one exhortation for the new year, it would be this: keep the word near you. Memorize an extended portion of Scripture. You will understand it in entirely new ways and it will change your life. 

Far As The Curse Is Found

“‘Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’” – Deuteronomy 27:26

“For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them’… Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.”- Galatians 3:10, 13

These chapters in Deuteronomy are fascinatingly horrific to read. We know about the curse from Genesis 3, but here it is fleshed out in detail so terrible and gruesome that it’s hard to keep looking at the page. In family and work, kitchen and field, weather and body, war and love, king and children: this is what God’s wrath upon disobedience looks like. This is what it means to be forsaken by God. This is what the death and disintegration began in Adam looks like. One would think the decision to obey was a no-brainer! And yet, despite this warning that was read to the people every seventh year, we’ll see in books to come that much of the curses came true. 

Paul quotes these chapters multiple times in Galatians 3 to help us understand what it is Jesus redeemed us from. I was under a curse. Jesus became a curse for me. He took my place. He had all my sins laid on him. He received to the full the physical and spiritual suffering of the accursed, in my place. He lifted the curse from me. Question 39 of the Heidelberg Catechism asks, “Is it significant that he was ‘crucified’ instead of dying some other way?”  Answer: “Yes. This death convinces me that he shouldered the curse which lay on me, since death by crucifixion was accursed by God.”

We still live in a cursed world, but one day he will set even that right. As we sing during this time of year, “No more let sin and sorrow grow / nor thorns infest the ground / He comes to make his blessings flow / far as the curse is found…” Written by Isaac Watts in 1719, these words are based on Psalm 98 and are actually about the second coming of Christ. The world will be remade, Revelation 22 tells us. The water of life will flow from the throne of God. “No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.” That is what we’re singing about. Christmas in this world is bittersweet: there is light but still darkness; there is family but still dysfunction and absence or loss; there is holiday but still work looms; there are gifts but still clutter and covetousness. But this first coming of Jesus reminds us too of his second. We have not only the beginning of the story but the end. We know the time will come when blessings flow as far as the curse is found.

Give Me Oil In My Lamp

“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom… the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.” – Matthew 25:1, 4

This passage goes back in our reading a bit, but I thought about it during an Advent retreat this week. This is a story about waiting, waiting in the dark. Those days, the groom and his men would come get the bride and her entourage from her parents’ house, to go with music and dancing to the wedding site. Since the groom often came after dark, the bridesmaids’ job was to provide light for the procession: these could be small handheld oil lamps, or more likely, torches made from oil-soaked rags wrapped around sticks. These torches would have to be refilled with oil and the rags rewrapped every fifteen minutes.

We lit oil lamps at the retreat. Unlike candles, the wick never burns down: it needs to be trimmed to prevent smoking, but it’s the oil that is consumed. Unlike a candle, it has the potential to last forever, but the oil must be refilled; it needs active tending. What separates the wise from the foolish in this story? The ability to anticipate delay. All of them brought oiled lamps; all of them had the same intentions; all of them fell asleep. But only some had prepared for a wait. And when the bridegroom came delayed, at the darkest hour, only some were prepared to tend their lamps. 

Jesus says there is a wise and a foolish way to wait. Waiting well is to wait with diligence, looking forward to something with such expectation and belief that it causes you to live in a different way while you wait. Good waiting is active. It is having the foresight to be prepared for what will matter most when the bridegroom returns. 

In this case, it is coming with not just the oil in the lamp, but oil in the flask. The oil in the lamp is visible, used, obvious. But the oil in the flask is what will sustain us. I’m much better at performing in the moment than at maintaining margin. I tend to give to present needs rather than receive what I myself may need. I tend to be quick to sprint and poor in pacing. But wisdom in the kingdom of God is to tend the oil in the flask. In the Bible, oil is a symbol of blessing, honor, joy, gladness; it is used for anointing of kings and objects in the tabernacle. Jesus himself is the light; we are given the oil of blessing, joy, the very Holy Spirit. But we must be diligent to receive, to receive for ourselves what cannot be borrowed from others. What does receiving mean to you this Advent season? What in your life is evidence that you are not only anticipating, but preparing, for Jesus’ return? What sustains you in your purpose within this dark world?

Bearing Brokenness

“The vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult.” – Proverbs 12:16

I’ve lived in enough suburbs in my life to know that ours is not a normal one, but lately I feel like the veil has been drawn back on some of the brokenness where we live, the anger and resentment, the disconnectedness and withdrawal. At root are systemic issues, like neighboring houses having to deal with an elementary school of nearly 500 kids having only ten parking spots. Paying millions of dollars for a house in such poor condition it’s barely livable. Constant issues finding parking. Heavy traffic in small suburban streets not designed to handle it. Being stuck in a house that, if sold, would not bring enough to buy anywhere else to live nearby. The intense work lifestyles necessitated by being able to afford living here. The constant egress of families to houses with bigger yards and lower mortgages: getting to know people only to hear they’re leaving.

I’m realizing that, when I moved here, I stepped into a somewhat unfavorable narrative. With past moves, I was a favored resident entering an elite program, a welcomed family moving into a suburb looking for homeowners, an esteemed physician entering an underserved area. And while I encountered things like racism routinely, somehow it was so kindly meant that it never hurt as much as some of the open hostility, or simple erosion of common civility, I’ve experienced from strangers here. I’m aware that in moving here I’m one of many coming into an already-overcrowded area. I’m another Asian in a place overtaken by them. I’m someone who didn’t have to go through what everyone else did to live in the house we do.

We did not come here, like most people, to work in tech: we came here because we gradually felt the unavoidable call to live out the gospel in this neighborhood. And part of that, I’m realizing, is bearing its brokenness. I do this often as a parent. When my kids act out, rage or scream terrible things, or simply whine on interminably, and I respond in a calm, loving, consistent manner—I am bearing their sinfulness in a way that costs me. It takes a lot of energy to absorb their behavior. To repeatedly not take it personally. It sometimes leaves me feeling battered or fatigued in a way difficult to put into words. But I do it because I have been called to do it. 

To bear hostility without responding in kind is the very bearing of the cross. It is to absorb the bitterness, the past accumulated hurts and anger and sinfulness of others, as Jesus did ours. It is not without cost to us. But it is the gospel.

The Cross Is Daily

“And he said to all, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” – Luke 9:23

“In Luke’s version of this saying of Christ the adverb daily is added. Every day the Christian is to die. Every day he renounces the sovereignty of his own will. Every day he renews his unconditional surrender to Jesus Christ.” – John Stott

I don’t know that I can really imagine what it was like for Jesus’ audience to hear him say this. Jesus had not been crucified yet. Back then, the cross was not the sentimental, religious symbol it is now. Crucifixion was the most painful and degrading form of capital punishment in the ancient world. There is no real modern parallel, not the electric chair, not the gallows or lethal syringe. The cross represented a protracted process, from scourging to bearing the crossbeam to nakedness to nailing to slow and public death, that was carefully calculated to maximize suffering and humiliation. What would Jesus’ listeners have thought? 

I read in one article, “the victim was forced to bear the crossbeam to the execution site in order to signify that life was already over and to break the will to live.” Yet Jesus is saying here that we must voluntarily do this, and even more shockingly, that this one-time event was to be a metaphor for our daily experience. Why does Jesus not say, “let him deny himself and be nailed to the cross”? He says, take up our cross. It is the part of the crucifixion process that is the most active. It is a step-by-step journey. It is a leaving of the city, a conscious yielding of the self, perhaps the most thoroughly public part of the process. Jesus says we must do this in a way that is personal to each one of us. To bear our cross each day is to walk every step in surrender, at any cost.

What would it look like if I lived my day with an expectation of surrender? Surrendering my self-centered impulses, my pride or how I look to others or even if they like me? Surrendering my plans, my comfort? That is what Jesus did for me. That is what following him means. This is the great paradox, that to find my life I must walk the road to lose it.

An Excellent Wife

“An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones.” – Proverbs 12:4

Most of us think a good deal about how to excel in parenting, in our careers, in housekeeping, in organizing events, in working out. How often do I think about what it means to be an excellent wife to my husband? My marriage matters the most for anything else I do: as Tim Keller says, “if your marriage is strong, you step out into the world in strength; if your marriage is weak, you step out into the world in weakness.” My parents always say, “the most important give you can give your children is a healthy marriage.” My marriage is also one my greatest callings in life: as Francis Chan writes, “Because I am crazy about Lisa, I want her to have a great life. But more than that, I want her to have a great eternity. I want her to look back at her life without regret. I want her to be confident that the time she spent on earth prepared her for heaven. Most importantly, I want her to hear God say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master’ (Matt. 25:23).”

I know these things, but sometimes the most important things are also the least urgent, the least vocal ones. My work and ministry ask me for things. My kids ask me for things. Dave does not go around asking me, “have you thought about me today? Have you prayed for me today? How are you preparing me for eternity?”

But Proverbs tells me that what I bring to Dave in my marriage will be evident over time. A crown is by nature external and visible. It proclaims and reflects the glory, identity, and worth of the person wearing it. In contrast, osteomyelitis is initially invisible and can take a long time to develop. But bones are meant to support and move the body; they are the very scaffolding of life, and when they become infected, fever, pain, fatigue, immobility and permanent damage results. 

The word “excellent” here is Hebrew chavil, most often translated “army.” It refers to a person of valor and strength, to forces in battle, which lends perhaps a more military connotation than would be apparent in the English reading. Crowns were often given after battle, as we see with David in 2 Samuel 12:30.

I am going to end up being one of two things for Dave: someone who battles with all my strength for his eternal good, who becomes his very crown, his reward and glory—or someone who saps his energy, cripples him for the fight, is a caries in his life. The contrast is drastic, but consider that there is not a middle option described here. I am living towards one or the other of these ends in some way every day in our marriage. I can think of couples who have been together a long time, where the wife has strengthened her husband, proclaimed his worth, and herself become more beautiful by it. I can also think of couples where the wife has immobilized and drained the life from her husband. Where are we on this spectrum? What does it mean for me to be an excellent wife today?

A Hundred Shades Of Green

Excerpt from a Sabbath poem by Wendell Berry:

I leave work’s daily rule

And come here to this restful place

Where music stirs the pool

And from high stations of the air

Fall notes of wordless grace,

Strewn remnants of the primal Sabbath’s hymn.

And I remember here

A tale of evil twined

With good, serpent and vine

And innocence of evil’s stratagem.

I let that go a while,

For it is hopeless to correct

By generations’ toil,

And I let go my hopes and plans

That no toil can perfect.

There is no vision here but what is seen:

White bloom nothing explains.

But a mute blessedness

Exceeding all distress,

The fresh light stained a hundred shades of green.

Specks And Logs

“How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.” – Luke 6:42

My pastor in college used to say, “if something bothers you about someone, ask what same thing God is trying to reveal in you.” It was generally annoying advice. I recall attempting to apply it a few times, but finding it easier to avoid bothersome people. But lately, I’ve been thinking about this in parenting, where one can’t exactly avoid annoyances. 

Have you considered that when your children sin, God is dealing with you as much as with your child? He is showing you something about this sin and its consequences in your life, as much as in your child’s life? He is revealing something about his grace for you as much as his grace for your child?

I’m not sure this is true in every instance, but it seems a principle worth considering. Jesus doesn’t say, just ignore the speck in your brother’s eye: he says, first take out your own log so you can see better how to take out the speck. The prerequisite for communicating the gospel to our children is that we have an ongoing experience of it ourselves, and the more we experience it in a particular area of sin, the more clearly we can show our children the gospel in that area. After all, that is the point. It’s easy just to point our children to the law when they sin. To issue an order, throw out a punishment, and walk out of the room. But that’s not parenting. Our kids sometimes do need negative consequences, but it can’t stop there. The law is not a change-agent. I am not a change-agent. I can only point my kids to the gospel. It is grace that changes them.

For some reason, when confronted with misbehavior in our children, it’s so easy to become self-righteous. To say, “Why did you wait until the last minute?” when we too procrastinate. “Why are you fighting over such a small thing?” when we too lose perspective on what’s important. “Why can’t you just stop and let your brother have his way for once?” when we can be just as stubborn about what we want. But when we see these things in ourselves, it’s easier to come alongside our children. It’s easier to see that the heart of the problem is not only the immediate situation but what that situation reveals about the sin in us. That what we need is not only a situational fix but utter rescue. It’s easier to say something like how Paul Tripp puts it: “I know exactly how you got into this mess because I’m like you. But hear me, son. There’s help for you and me. Because God sent his son to live the life that we could never live on our own, to rise again and conquer sin and death, we can be rescued from ourselves.”

As we ask God to show us the logs in our own eyes, he transforms us too. Through Eric, I’ve seen how self-centeredness and pursuing goals to the detriment of relationships has led to losses in my past, and I’ve asked God to help me live differently. Through Ellie, I’ve seen how I tend to sinfully judge emotional women, and how part of God’s rescuing story is allowing me to experience my own emotions and worries within his loving presence. How have you experienced the sins you see in your children in your own past? What trace of those sins do you find now in your life? How has God revealed his grace to you in these areas?