The Great Reversal

“And all the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord; I bring low the high tree, and make high the low tree, dry up the green tree, and make the dry tree flourish.” – Ezekiel 17:24

Someone once wrote about how people of our generation grow up in an “approval bath,” constantly being told how special and extraordinary we are, as we mark our progress from station to station in life. And medicine is one of the more structured careers out there. It never really stops, going from test to test, program to program, accolade to accolade. One has to decide to step down into obscurity. And even then, there is a self-consciousness that has to be unlearned.

Thomas Merton writes, “We must… be content with the good will and the work that are the quiet expression of our inner life. We must be content to live without watching ourselves live, to work without expecting any immediate reward, to love without an instantaneous satisfaction, and to exist without any special recognition.”

This is the opposite of how most of us have been taught to live. But God is always going about reversing things: he chooses the eighth son, the marginalized woman, the form of a carpenter. He blesses the poor, mournful, meek and hungry. Nobody the world would approve of. He does this because that is how we know he is Lord. And knowing him is how we answer the questions the escalators and accolades can never answer: not only what do I do, but why do I do it? Not only who do people see me as, but who am I really? Not only how am I performing, but how is my inner life? Not only what is my prescribed career, but what is my true vocation? These answers are not found in the self-conscious life but the God-conscious one, in the knowing of a God who is Lord. 

Behold

“Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” – Psalm 119:18

The first year of ophthalmology residency is probably the most difficult year of training. Here you are, a full-fledged M.D. who has finally gotten the hang of general medicine and life on the wards, and you are plunged into a world you know nothing about. No physician outside of the field knows anything about the eye, so no one has really prepared you for it. The courses you took in medical school are largely useless. And my program followed a “sink or swim” strategy in which we were thrown into the deep end and expected to figure it out. 

One of the most nerve-wracking things we had to do as first-years was present every week at Grand Rounds, where all the faculty would gather to scrutinize us as we reviewed interesting cases we had handled. Most of us kept a list in our white coat pockets of anything remotely interesting we found in desperate hopes that we would have something to present. One of my co-residents always seemed to have a longer list than mine. I finally realized during our morning rounds that we could do the same eye exam, but he would catch all kinds of rare findings that I missed, simply because he read more. “You see what you look for, and you look for what you know,” he shrugged. 

It’s like what Sherlock Holmes says: “You see, but you do not observe.” The issue was not whether the interesting exam findings were there, but whether or not I had the ability to see them. The word for “open” here is galah, “to uncover, to reveal”: the picture is of something that is always there; it’s only a matter of whether or not we can see it. 

And there’s a tone of wonder and intimacy here. Galah is often used when speaking of uncovering nakedness, of showing something that is typically veiled or clothed, and the word for “wondrous” is repeated twice, for emphasis. It’s a word that means “marvelous, surpassing, extraordinary, beyond one’s own ability.”

I remember feeling like that the first time I saw the optic nerve in stereoscopic view. Here was someone who was letting me look through their cornea, past their dilated iris, into their very brain. I was seeing their neural tissue, in all its three-dimensional topography and pulsating color, as no one else could. It was beyond anything anyone could have engineered. It was wondrous.

God’s law is shot through with wonder. With marvelous things quite beyond ourselves. And the more we see, the more we know and suspect that there is more to see, if only we have the eyes to do so. The psalmist’s words may as well be the prayer of our Bible-reading journey: open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. 

Patience

“Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts.” – James 4:7-8

It is difficult to bear the waiting of this time. There’s so much we don’t know. There’s so much we can’t have. We have to wait longer for smaller things like package deliveries and library books, and bigger things like schooling details and career plans. We are constantly having to defer longings or readjust expectations. And that is hard. The word for “patient” here is literally “to bear suffering long.” Suffering is implied.

French author Simone Weil wrote in her notebooks: “Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.” James here is talking about the coming of Jesus, but sometimes I think all of life is that waiting. In my waiting for everything else is my waiting for Jesus: for the consummation of the hopes, expectations and desires that I can’t help but have. Learning how to live in the already-but-not-yet.

We’ve passed a lot of farms in our travels lately: unending fields of wheat, onions, potatoes, corn. There is rarely anything happening that we can see. But the promise is there, I suppose. And there are small signs of activity: sprinklers going, tractors driving. Patience is not passive, but active. It means, as Nouwen writes, “to enter actively into the thick of life and to fully bear the suffering within and around us. Patience is the capacity to see, hear, touch, taste, and smell as fully as possible the inner and outer events of our lives.”

This is hard. I mostly want to flee or to fight. To escape the wait by distracting myself from my hopes or abandoning them altogether, or to rail against it and batter out my own way. But that is not Jesus’ way. His life, one long wait for the cross, was full of activity. He entered fully into the suffering around him, in such a way that it all became a part of what he eventually did at the cross and in his resurrection. Our waiting too will one day become part of the joy. But until then, we must be patient.

Fire Danger

“How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life.” – James 3:5-6

Throughout various national parks, we’ve seen signs labeled “TODAY’S FIRE DANGER.” Below that title is a colorful semi-circle with an arrow pointing to one of five levels of danger: low, moderate, high, very-high, and extreme. “Fire danger,” writes the national park service, “is a description of the combination of both constant and variable factors that affect the initiation, spread, and ease of controlling a wildfire on an area.” It is calculated by analyzing fuel, topography, and weather: things like relative humidity, fuel moisture, and lightning activity levels. A moderate rating, for example, means routine caution should be taken; a high rating means that outdoor burning should be restricted to early morning and late evening hours. An extreme rating means no outdoor burning is allowed.

The fact that an entire field of science has been dedicated to studying the risk of fire spread and ease of its containment, and then been translated into rules which must govern everyone’s behavior, points to one truth: it only takes a spark to destroy an entire forest. This, James says, is how our words work. They are never spoken in a vacuum. There are constant and variable factors that affect the reception of our words, the spread of their effects, and the ease of controlling their outcomes. These factors may include the emotional milieu of individuals or the group, state of hunger, level of fatigue, pretexts and contexts, connotations and verbiage, triggers and past patterns, tones of voice, non-verbal cues and postures, and more.

James’ point is simple: we must learn to control our tongues and be aware of the effect of our words. Before you speak, think: what is the fire danger? What are the conditions right now? How is someone likely to respond? How is it likely to affect the group? If something blazes, do I have the ability to devote what it takes to contain it? When in doubt, exercise caution. The tongue can set the whole course of someone’s life ablaze.

Resurrection, Everywhere

“Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.” – Ezekiel 37:11

These words could be describing me right now. The announcement that schools will be doing distance learning came out recently, and for some reason it’s been a difficult prospect to face. I feel petered out from the ongoing childcare, unable to grasp the inspiration I need to resume the zooms, online assignment schedules, and supplemental lessons involving in doing education at home. My bones feel dried up. This was to be the fall all our kids began full-time school, leaving me space for the first time in ten years to consider spending more time in career or ministry, but my hope for that is lost. And we are still cut off physically from so much of the in-person community that makes life meaningful.

I wrote in my journal this morning, God, I need your resurrection power right now. I need you to renew my vocation as a mother and teacher. I need you to give me new hope in my personal life. And then I opened up my Bible and read this: “And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live… I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.” I also happened to read in 1 Samuel 2, “The Lord… raises up… He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy.” Resurrection, everywhere.

Do I believe God can do this? Yes, I do. I believe this is the essential movement of the Christian life: realizing our limits, dying to ourselves, and receiving new life in Jesus. I believe God is a God who promises the world to those who are poor in spirit, who comforts those who mourn. Who makes an army out of dry bones.

Courage, Faith and Hope

from Thomas Merton:

“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” 

Deception and Desire

“Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” – James 1:16-17

For the first time, I noticed this short sentence that could be applied to either of the two well-known verses which sandwich it: do not be deceived, beloved. Don’t think that you can nurture some hidden sinful thought without it getting the better of you eventually. There is an element of deception at work here: by definition you will think you can manage it, you will think it harmless, when all the time it is leading you on a path straight to death. And we know how this works, right? Roots of bitterness that lead to hatred, annoyances that lead to anger or contempt, sexual fantasies which lead to infidelity. Sin is never static. It gestates.

But the deception applies to the following verse as well: the root of the problem is not really believing that we have a Father who gives us every good and perfect gift. There is a tendency for us to feel that God is holding out on us, that he is in some way parsimonious or fickle, but that is a lie. God is completely unchanging in his intent for our good. Rather than allowing our desires to lure us to sin, it is possible to let them lead us to a deeper experience of God. 

How does this happen? Sometimes living with the pain of a desire deferred allows us to more sharply or deeply express and live into faith in God. Sometimes the desire itself is a testimony to a longing which only God can meet, if only we learn how to receive it. We read earlier in Psalm 107, “For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.” Do you believe this? Have you experienced it? C.S. Lewis writes, “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Infinite joy is offered us, and it is found, not in an event or circumstance or possession or other person, but in God. Our desires ultimately all point to this, as long as we don’t become deceived otherwise.

Trust

“O Israel, trust in the Lord!” – Psalm 115:9

One lovely thing about our kids is that they’re still young enough not to be overly concerned about our itinerary during road trips. They don’t complain about where we’re staying or wonder why we decided to take one route over another. They don’t come with their own agendas. They’re mostly happy to be in the moment, riding along, and from what I can tell, the longer the adventure, the better. 

In his book The Pastor, Eugene Peterson discusses the question Jesus was often asked by his followers: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” When is this going to happen? How long do we have to wait? Jesus’ response was, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.” “In other words,” writes Peterson, “it’s none of your business. Your question is irrelevant. That kind of information is of no use to you. It would probably confuse you, might discourage you, and would certainly distract you.”

That reminded me of one time in the car when Elijah asked, “how many more minutes?” When Dave replied, “500,” I’m not sure he knew what to do with that information (he ended up moving on to the more relevant question of whether we could listen to the Frozen II soundtrack again). That’s how I am on the crazy trip that has been this year: God, how long do I have to wait? When will things go back to normal? When are you going to meet my expectations for how things should work?

And what I am slowly starting to wonder is whether I am asking an irrelevant question, one that discourages and distracts me from the very present now God wants me to be in. It’s hard, because this means I have to let go of my own agenda, the way the disciples had to let go of their dreams for the militaristic and political restoration of their people. I feel my agenda is normal and not too much to ask, but then so probably did the disciples. The point is, do I trust God or not? Am I sitting in the car constantly worrying and asking, are we there yet? Or am I willing to trust him each mile of the way? 

The Leaves Are Rustling

“But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” – Hebrews 11:16

I stood the other day at the top of a massive canyon, white cliff walls streaked with pale pinks and browns and topped with pine trees, the river a pale blue frothing ribbon down below. After months of being in the same indoors, the sense of open grandeur was difficult to describe. The canyon itself was too big to be viewed at once from any given point; the dozen or so different lookouts could only give a sense of a part of the whole. The place where I was standing gave perhaps the best sense of scale, gazing down as I could straight into the dizzying depths.

Even then my experience was limited. I saw a bird soaring down through the canyon, and thought, that little creature is part of a space that I can only peer down into briefly before I leave. I can soak the beauty in as best I can to take with me, but I can’t really become a part of it. I thought of what C.S. Lewis writes in The Weight of Glory:

“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it… At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.”

These verses in Hebrews rustle with the rumor that here on earth, we can only see the things we truly long for at a distance. We are still on the other side, and if we’re honest, we feel it. But the place where we belong, the better country, will surely yet come. Part of this journey on earth is to embrace our longings with faith, to see that all the beauties here on earth are but a foretaste of what God has prepared for us. Some day we shall get in. 

Jesus As Intercessor

“Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” – Hebrews 7:25

“The safest conception . . . that we can have of the intercession of Christ . . . is his continual appearance for us in the presence of God.” – John Owen

We often think of Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament sacrifices through his death, and of the tabernacle and temple through his incarnation, but he also fulfills the Old Testament role of high priest—not simply the sacrifice, but the one who through his position offers that sacrifice in intercession. Making the sacrifice was not enough. Someone had to bring that blood into the holy presence of God, and once a year on the Day of Atonement, the high priest was the only one able to do this by entering the Holy of Holies to sprinkle blood on the altar.

The remarkable thing is that this role is ongoing. Jesus’ sacrifice was once-for-all, but his intercession continues forever, and that is part of how our salvation works. Don Carson writes, “the complete salvation of his people turns on the efficacy of his perpetual intercession, and the efficacy of his perpetual intercession turns on the once-for-all sacrifice he has offered, and on his own everlasting life.”

What exactly is this intercession? It is not the intercession of a pleading Son before a reluctant Father; our salvation is the will of Father, Son and Spirit. It is not intercession with any element of uncertainty, as we might pray. It is something far more complex and glorious. To paraphrase the answer to question 55 of the Westminster Larger Catechism, Christ’s intercession is his appearing in our nature continually before God in heaven, upon the merit of his own earthly obedience and sacrifice, through which he answers all accusations against us, quiets our conscience, and gives us continual access to grace. But it is more: Jesus also continually and actively prays for us. To paraphrase John Owen, Christ requests and offers to God his desires and will for us, with care, love, and compassion. 

Our salvation is not static. It does not end with some decision we made in the past. This very day, we are being saved by the eternal intercession of Jesus for us in heaven. Unlike the high priests of the Old Testament, he will never die. He will continue to do this work for us forever and ever.

Unmoored

“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain.” – Hebrews 6:19

I wonder sometimes if there is such a thing as subconscious external points of reference we used in daily living. People we saw, social atmospheres we entered, collective routines we participated in, which gave us a sense of context and well-being. I wonder this because there is something about being at home every day that makes me feel unmoored. It’s more than just forgetting which day of the week it is. It’s a loss of the collective context, of external cues, of the points of reference I took for granted every day.

Being unmoored leaves me tossed by the waves. There are up days and down days. There are up weeks and down weeks. Some days I see glory and grace in some experience unique to this time; others I feel crushed by the smallest repetitive task. I may struggle to respond with equanimity to something I would usually have taken in stride. I may find myself combatting anxiety at unexpected moments. And I am probably not alone in this experience.

It is ironic that this period of apparent monotony has made me realize so acutely how much I am a victim of my circumstances. More than ever, I need to be anchored. Some of that involves intentionally rebuilding healthy rhythms and external cues however I can. But at heart, what I need is to be centered upon something sure and unchanging in a world that has gone askew. In the end, this only comes from entering the inner place of God’s presence, a God who is beyond all time, who guides all things for my eternal good. There I can find a peace that is never shaken, a hope that answers despair, and a “sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.”

Keep On Keeping On

“Many times he delivered them.” – Psalm 106:43

I have concluded that for our kids, entropy is the price of creativity. The more the imaginative play, the greater the resulting level of random disorder in the house. Someone once said that the more kids you have, either the messier or the tidier you become; for us, it’s the latter. Something about keeping our space neat helps me cope with the general chaos. But that means we end up doing a lot of repetitive tidying, cleaning up the same pillows, toys, and craft supplies all day long.

It reminds me of life in general nowadays, which can feel like nothing more glorious than doing again what has been done before. Waking up to days that are all the same versions of each other, with no end in sight. 

But there is something of God in choosing to do again what we’ve done before. That is the story of Psalm 106: “They did not remember… Yet he saved them… But they soon forgot… Many times he delivered them.” Again and again, the people forgot God, and again and again, God saved them. Doing again what he did before. This is what God does, and the daily, repetitive tasks we do live this out in the most granular of ways. 

I like to think about all the repetitive, ordinary tasks done in the Bible: David going through the same routines to tend his sheep, Ruth bending down time and again to glean wheat under the hot sun, Jesus familiar with the same chores in his father’s carpentry shop. God did not work despite these ordinary events, but through them, to achieve his purposes. In some small but important way, they declare the character of a God whose “steadfast love endures forever!” (Psalm 106:1) 

i thank You God for most this amazing

by e. e. cummings:

i thank You God for most this amazing

day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

Rhythm

“So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.” – Hebrews 4:9

One way that Sabbaths differ from vacations is that they occur not as a bolus, but as a regular part of our lives. Wayne Muller writes, “When we live without listening to the timing of things, when we live and work in twenty-four-hour shifts without rest—we are on war time, mobilized for battle. Yes, we are strong and capable people, we can work without stopping, faster and faster, electric lights making artificial day so the whole machine can labor without ceasing. But remember: No living thing lives like this. There are greater rhythms, seasons and hormonal cycles and sunsets and moonrises and great movements of seas and stars. We are part of the creation story, subject to all its laws and rhythms.” 

Seeds are dormant before sprouting; animals hibernate; music consists as much of patterns of silence as of notes. There is a rhythm that our culture has lost, and Sabbath is the regaining of that “continually recurring interruption,” as Karl Barth puts it. Just as we tithe as regularly as we earn, we must tithe our time as regularly as we receive it, rest as regularly as we work. We have to regularly remember, because we continually forget. It is this rhythm that allows Sabbath to bleed through to the rest of our week. “Judaism tries to foster the vision of life as a pilgrimage to the seventh day; the longing for the Sabbath all days of the week which is a form of longing for the eternal Sabbath all the days of our lives,” writes Heschel. 

As we’re home more these days, there are more chances for refreshing rests throughout the day. There are more spontaneous conversation, board games, meals eaten together. Are these Sabbaths? They can be, but the question to ask is, do they occur in a perceivable pattern? Do they recur with some level of regularity or predictability? Are they something you can look forward to? 

Contemplate

“For whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.” – Hebrews 4:10

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” – Exodus 20:8

Sabbath is not merely about getting away from work, but drawing nearer to God. At its heart, to Sabbath is to contemplate God. We are entering into God’s rest. We are treading upon God’s time. It is holy ground. We cannot exist within such time without looking for and upon God.

Thomas Merton writes, “Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable; it is true.” Sabbath is a time when we look a bit more for the divine shining through. We notice the gifts and graces that we are usually too preoccupied to see. We appreciate not only their existence, but what they show us about the nature and character of God. We reflect upon how God has been working in our lives. We receive words he may have for us through community. We look for his glory all around. We contemplate his love.

To contemplate is simply to give God our attention. We give so many things our attention, but just as we would with a beloved, we need at intervals to gaze without distraction upon the one whom we love and who loves us. This is that time. Wendell Berry writes in one of his Sabbath poems, “I know that I have life only insofar as I have love. I have no love except it come from Thee. Help me, please, to carry this candle against the wind.”

Refresh

“So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.” – Hebrews 4:9

“It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.” – Exodus 31:17

In that verse in Exodus, the Hebrew word for “refreshed” is naphash, literally “to take a breath.” Walter Brueggemann points out that its most common use is as a noun meaning “self” or “soul”—here, it becomes a verb, re-nepheshed. Re-souled, refreshed, restored to one’s true self. Breathing is not a bad analogy: when we breathe, we take in oxygen to replenish our red blood cells and allow our body to metabolize, to move and grow, in the way it was designed to do. Without that breath, our self as we know it would die.

After we cease and enter, what do we actually do on a Sabbath? “The simple answer,” writes Ruth Haley Barton, “is whatever delights you and replenishes you.” What do you do that is refreshing, that restores your sense of self and joy for life? This is not an intuitive question. In our “work hard, play hard” culture, leisure for most of us comes in the form of entertainment or escapism. We can be as productive in our play as in our work, binge-watching shows or planning elaborate vacations. I don’t know about you, but I don’t generally finish a few episodes of a show feeling more energized than when I began. Sabbath is something different. It is doing what is life-giving, what gives us delight in ourselves and in God.

Perhaps what replenishes your body is a nap, a bike ride, walk, long bubble bath, favorite foods, lighting candles, listening to music, lovemaking. Perhaps what delights your soul is worship, quiet reflection, community, silence, prayer, a meditative walk, a book, journaling, sitting in nature. 

Discerning what restores and refreshes takes time and presence. Sometimes it is not even what we do as much as how we do it: with attentiveness and care. Barton writes, “There have to be times in your life when you move slow… times when you walk rather than run, allowing your body to settle into each step… times when you sit and gaze admiringly at loved ones, rather than racing through an agenda… times when you receive food and drink with gratitude and humility rather than gulping it down… times when hugs linger and kisses are real… times when you let yourself feel, let tears come rather than blinking them back because you don’t have time to cry… times to sit with your gratitude for the good gifts in your life that get forgotten in the rush.” 

Enter

“Let us therefore strive to enter that rest.” – Hebrews 4:11

“For we who have believed enter that rest.” – Hebrews 4:3

Sabbaths feel sometimes like fasting: the first thing you notice about stopping your work is how much you work, like how the first thing you notice about fasting is how much your life revolves around food. When we fast, we learn to hunger after God the way we hunger after food. When we Sabbath, we learn to receive meaning from God the way we receive meaning from work. The truth is, we have a distorted relationship with work. In southern Virginia, no one ever asked me about my work, but around here, the most common follow-up to an introduction is, “what do you do?” It is nearly impossible to not let our work come to define us, to be the central source of our identity, purpose and meaning.

When we stop from our work, we start to see all that. We see the work under the work, the “ceaseless striving” for meaning and credibility that drives so much of our working. Ceasing the act of work is not the same as entering rest. When Joshua led the Israelites into the promised land, they stopped working as slaves and wanderers; there was a kind of social and physical rest, but they had not yet obtained true, deep rest. Hebrews says, “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.” We can only enter the deeper rest we need by believing the gospel, by believing that all that we strive for is achieved for us already through God’s work. 

Richard Lovess writes, “If we start each day with our personal security not resting on the accepting love of God and the sacrifice of Christ, but on our present achievements, such arguments will not quiet the human conscience and we are inevitably moved either to discouragement and apathy, or to a self-righteousness or some form of idolatry that tries to falsify the record to achieve a sense of peace. But the Gospel faith that is able to warm itself at the fire of God’s love and what Jesus has done for us, instead of having to steal love and self-acceptance from all these other places, is the very root of peace.”

Cease

“… for whoever had entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.” – Hebrews 4:10

“And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.” – Genesis 2:2

One of the greatest mysteries is that the culmination of creation is—rest. In Hebrew, the word is shabath, which literally means “to cease.” Each new creation is a step towards the completion that occurs on the Sabbath, the act of stopping. To us, to our society, this makes no sense. Why do it all just to stop? Why is stopping so important? Rabbi Elijah of Vilna said: God stopped to show us that what we create becomes meaningful to us only once we stop creating it and start to think about why we did so. As Judith Shulevitz puts it in a New York Times article, “We have to remember to stop because we have to stop to remember.” Sabbath at heart is not about leisure or socialization: it is theater, designed to convey a certain story about who we are. Stopping helps us remember how and why we work. It helps us remember how and why we exist, as image-bearers of God, people who are more than our work. 

But stopping does not come easily. Shulevitz writes, “Most people mistakenly believe that all you have to do to stop working is not work. The inventors of the Sabbath understood that it was a much more complicated undertaking. You cannot downshift casually and easily, the way you might slip into bed at the end of a long day… This is why the Puritan and Jewish Sabbaths were so exactingly intentional, requiring extensive advance preparation—at the very least a scrubbed house, a full larder and a bath. The rules did not exist to torture the faithful. They were meant to communicate the insight that interrupting the ceaseless round of striving requires a surprisingly strenuous act of will.”

Surprisingly strenuous, indeed, especially now, when work and home life blur together. To cease work nowadays may mean not going into your home office, not checking emails or doing work on the computer. It is good to practice stopping as a family, but those of us with kids at home may also be struggling with the perennial question: how does one stop when your work is being a parent? I’ve come to no brilliant answers other than advance planning and resource investment. As a mom, my Sabbaths occur when Dave or a sitter watches the kids and I can stop mothering for a bit: days at a retreat center a few times a year, monthly afternoons out alone. Ironically, the first step to Sabbath requires some work. Stopping requires preparation. But it is important. Before we can learn what it means to enter God’s rest, we have to learn how to cease from ours.

The Jealousy Of God

“Wrath is cruel, anger is overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy?” – Proverbs 27:4

“And I will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood are judged, and bring upon you the blood of wrath and jealousy.” – Ezekiel 16:38

Ezekiel 16 tells the wrenching story of God’s jealousy. Jerusalem is depicted as a woman, one who started as an unwanted child, of foreign parentage, discarded after birth with not even the cord cut, unwashed and unswaddled, wallowing in blood on the ground. “I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’” (verse 6). God made her flourish, then as she grew to be a woman, God covered her nakedness and made a covenant vow with her: “and you became mine” (verse 8). Again, he washed off her blood. He covers her nakedness and adorns her with jewelry. But the woman betrays him. She is unfaithful with passersby, even paying them for it. She makes the clothes, jewelry, and food she was given into idols. She burns their children as an offering to other gods.

This is the reality of what happens when we turn from loving God to other idols in our life, when our loves become disordered. We are the woman in this story, incurring not just detached wrath but personal jealousy. Jealousy is a word for lovers. But that is how it is between us and God, and change in how we handle sin and idolatry in our lives does not happen until we understand that on a deep level. The answer to temptation is not self-control but relationship. The law, what I “should” do, has no power to actually change my behavior. But realizing what my sin does to a God who loves me does. The degree to which I can fight temptation or see change is the degree to which I realize my place in this story, and cultivate my relationship with my lover-God.

The truly wrenching thing is realizing that all of God’s wrath, the consequences of his jealousy, fall upon Jesus. God says, because you rejected me when I washed your blood and covered your nakedness, you will now be stripped naked and made bloody in judgment. And that is exactly what happened to Jesus. People were gathered against him on every side as his nakedness was uncovered (verse 37). He shed the blood of God’s wrath (verse 38). There was a crowd there as he was cut with a sword (verse 40). “So will I satisfy my wrath on you, and my jealousy will depart from you”—and indeed, because of Jesus, it has. God looked upon Jesus in his blood and said again, “Live!” and that is why we can too.

Our True Home

by Walter Brueggemann

God before and God behind,

God for us and God for your own self,

   Maker of heaven and earth,

      creator of sea and sky,

      governor of day and night.

We give thanks for your ordered gift of life to us,

   for the rhythms that reassure,

   for the equilibriums that sustain,

   for the reliabilities that curb our anxieties.

      We treasure from you,

         days to work and nights to rest.

      We cherish from you,

         days to control and nights to yield.

      We savor from you,

         days to plan and nights to dream.

Be our day and our night,

   our heaven and our earth,

   our sea and our sky,

   and in the end our true home. Amen.

Future Ambiguity

“Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.” – Proverbs 27:1

This verse has acquired a whole new meaning these days, as we face navigating nearly every event in our future—schools, career, exercise, trips, ministry—with uncertainty. Will this open? If it does, what will it look like? What are my and others’ level of risk tolerance? Will it all change again in a few weeks? 

In a way, this time has brought into clearer focus the spiritual reality that we always have controlled far less of our future than we perhaps think we do. We tend to function with a degree of self-reliance that manifests as either over-confidence about the future, or anxiety over the future, and the Bible warns against both. James 4 says, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go… and make a profit’—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring… you boast in your arrogance.” Matthew 6 says, “Do not be anxious about your life… Look at the birds… your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” Both tendencies stem from the same problem: making more of ourselves than we ought.

Proverbs says, wisdom is to accept a certain degree of ambiguity about your future. It is to realize how much we tend to be a victim of our circumstances, a victim of our perception of our future circumstances. It is to recognize how much the future controls how we feel in the present, and to be able to let go of some of that. Wisdom is to be honest about what our heart trusts and hopes in.

The Room Of Pictures

“Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of pictures?” – Ezekiel 8:12

Ezekiel records a disturbing vision of the idolatry of his people in this passage. His vision takes him to the temple of Jerusalem, where he sees sitting at the entrance an “image of jealousy,” an aggregate symbol of all idolatries. Then in the temple are three groups representing idolaters of different lands: the elders in the dark like the Egyptians, the weeping women like the Syrians, and the sun-worshippers like the Eastern religions.

The description of the elders is particularly chilling. Their room is entirely hidden. Ezekiel has to dig into the wall to find the entrance, which leads to a hidden bedchamber. There, engraved into the walls, are “every form of creeping things and loathsome beasts” (8:10). Seventy elders are there, burning incense in worship of these images—strikingly, the same number of elders that Moses leads up to Mt. Sinai in Numbers 11:16. 

On one level, this is a picture of people who’ve decided God has not given them what they want, and turned to the gods of their neighbors. The Egyptians painted their gods on the walls. They were known for religious mystery-rites, to which none were admitted without initiation, and these extended to the Grecians and Romans as well. It is only too easy to be self-seeking in our motivations or functionally worship what others around us are.

But on another level, this is a picture of our hearts, of the secret places in the dark where we nurture idols we think no one else sees. One commentator wrote, “By our memory, and by that marvelous faculty that people call the imagination, and by our desires, we are forever painting the walls of the inmost chambers of our hearts with such pictures.” True worship is what we worship in the dark, in the private chapels where no one goes into but ourselves. What do you think upon, imagine, or desire that you would not want to bring into the light? What is in your room of pictures?

The irony is that one of the elders is named Jaazaniah, which means “the Lord hears.” Jeremiah 17:10 says, “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind.” The image at the front of it all is an image of jealousy—the anger, hurt, and disappointment not just of a bad choice, but of a broken relationship. That is what our sins in the dark mean, to the God who sees everything, even the places in ourselves that no one else does.

Blind Spots

“But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” – Hebrews 3:13

There’s a communication tool called the Johari Window. It consists of four quadrants: the top is labeled “self” with the left-hand column labeled “known to self” and the right-hand column “not known to self.” The left side is labeled “others” with the top column labeled “known to others” and the bottom column “not known to others.” 

The upper left quadrant is the “Open Area”: this is behavior known by you and acknowledged by others. Most communication occurs here. The lower left quadrant is the “Hidden Area”: things you know but keep secret from others. The lower right quadrant is labeled “Unknown”: the part of yourself that both you and others are unaware of—we could perhaps call this quadrant “known only by God.” This is the you that only God knows and sees. Finally, the upper right quadrant is the “Blind Spot”: what you are unaware of but others can see.

It’s interesting to note that, no matter how enlightened about yourself you think you are, there is a whole side of you that you are unaware of. There are things about your character, your personality, your behavior that only others, or only God, perceive and understand. Much of our ability to grow, individually and in relationships, is dependent upon our willingness to recognize this and be open to receiving feedback. Dave and I particularly feel this when it comes to parenting: as adults, we see blind spots in how our well-meaning parents may have raised us, and we figure we are inevitably doing the same, so we try to invite feedback from those closest to us about our parenting when we can.

This verse points out another element at work in our ability to perceive ourselves: the deceitfulness of sin. Sin works to blind us more and more to its true nature. It blunts not only our ability to perceive the truth, but to feel any desire to change. The word for “hardened” here is the same one used to describe the heart of Pharoah; it means “to render obstinate or stubborn.” This is not an overnight process; it happens gradually. Our daily choices matter. How long we wait to perceive the hardening work of sin matters. These are particularly difficult blind spots for us to see. And so the author of Hebrews says, exhort one another today, now; don’t wait. Be willing to probe the blind spots of others and to receive feedback in those areas yourself.

New Every Morning

“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” – Lamentations 3:21-24

I am not a morning person. I don’t wake up feeling happy, or hopeful. Dave has learned to not attempt much conversation before 10 A.M. Mornings these days, as I wake to the sounds of the kids stirring outside, tend to be when I feel the weight of all I’m called to do press down upon me. I often don’t feel up to the task of loving the people around me, cooking and cleaning, doing it all at home on and on for as far as the eye can see. Things sometimes look up from there, but mornings are the bleakest.

These verses really mean something, occurring where they do. They are the only hopeful words in the entire book of Lamentations. This is perhaps one of the most significant but’s in the Bible. This is a person in sorrow intentionally recalling hope to mind. Hope is not just something we feel. It’s something that results from what we intentionally think on. And what he recalls to mind is a God whose love and mercies are new every morning.

There is something in that, isn’t there? The sun rises every morning, without fail (I once read a fascinating science-fiction novel called The Three Body Problem which made me realize I shouldn’t take that for granted). There has never been a morning in my entire life when the sun has not risen. That is what God’s love and mercy are like. They never fail. They arrive anew each day. And through his mercy, we can “allow God to love our people through us.” As Nouwen writes:

“I remember how Thomas Merton once wrote: ‘God is mercy in mercy in mercy.’ This means that the more we come to know ourselves, the more we come to know God’s mercy, which is beyond the mercy we know. Letting go of the desire to be perfect lovers, and allowing God to love our people through us, that is the great spiritual call that is given to you and to me. There in the pure heart of God, embraced by his unconditional love, you will find the true joy and peace your heart is longing for.”

Escalators and Fires

“For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases.” – Proverbs 26:20

Part of the art of fighting well is refraining from escalating arguments. Fighting is part of a healthy relationship and can be helpful in bringing to light issues that need more work or communication. A relationship without any disagreements probably means it hasn’t gone deep enough yet, or, even worse, has gone to the other extreme and both parties have become disengaged. 

But, of course, fighting can become incredibly destructive. The tongue is like a fire, James writes, difficult to control. It takes an incredible amount of intention and practice to learn how to let fights illuminate important issues and spark important conversations, while not allowing them to become hurtful or destructive. Early on in our relationship, Dave and I agreed on a list of rules for fights, which included general things like “never use the word divorce” and “never bring up things about the person that they can’t change,” as well as items specific to our fighting styles, like “it’s okay to leave to cool down, but give a general window of return.”

What we’ve learned over time, though, is that it’s much easier and more strategic to control fights before they escalate to the point where you need lists like those. Fights are like fires: they’re harder to start than to keep going. They’re easier to quench early on. Fights don’t bloom on their own: they require kindling. Whether you are conscious of it or not, you have to feed fights for them to come to life. And it always takes two. Even one of us choosing not to escalate can change the course of the entire argument.

One of the challenges during the first few weeks of sheltering in place were the fights that would pop up between the kids like little fires throughout the day. Some would get worse than others, and one day we sat down and had a talk about it means to escalate and de-escalate fights. Fights, I told them, are like a tall building you walk into. There are different stories in this building. It’s easier to go up a story than to come down a story, and the higher you go up, the harder it becomes to go down. The higher you go up, the more damage you do to the relationship, and some arguments go so high that there’s permanent hurt that takes a lot of work to heal from. You can choose whether or not to take the escalator to the next floor. Escalators are any thoughts or actions that rile you up. We brainstormed what these could be: thinking “he always does this” or “I deserve this.” Physical aggression, rolling of the eyes, using words like “always” or “never.” Raising the volume of our voices. All these things take us up to the next story of the building. There are also escalators going down, like leaving the room to calm down, going to find mommy for help. Using statements that start with “I” instead of “you.” Getting something to eat if hunger is playing a role. Simply not saying anything for the moment. 

What are your escalators and de-escalators? What are the whispers, the small thoughts and actions, that feed the fires of your arguments? There’s probably no better time than now to work on how to fight well.

Lament

“How lonely was the city that was full of people!” – Lamentations 1:1

Living as close to the church building as we do, we often pass by it during our walks, standing empty. I know there are good things happening right now as we connect in other ways. I firmly believe in God’s sovereignty. But there is still something in me that, staring at that empty building, feels the wrongness and sadness of it all. 

The opening words of Lamentations say it all. Yes, how lonely is the place that was full of people. Right here, in the Bible, sit five chapters of nothing but lament. Lament is when we bring our sorrow to God. Lament is when we pray our pain. Lament is a form of protest. It is a way to process emotion. It is a place to voice confusion. It gives dignity to suffering. We are not to suffer in silence. It is okay to acknowledge our emotions.

And yet, the book of Lamentations is not mere emotional outburst. Most of it is an acrostic poem, each verse or verses beginning with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Perhaps this is a spelling out of the full expression of the author’s sorrow, going from A to Z. Perhaps it is to provide an ordered, linear structure that contrasts with the disordered chaos of pain and grief. Despite the structure, emotion is there. The author moves rapidly between topics, as if in active turmoil. The last chapter is not acrostic at all.

We all need to read Lamentations because we all need to learn to lament. We too easily either deny and suppress our emotions, or spiral with them into bitterness, complaints, and anger against God. Lament is something different. It is a language we need to learn, a space we need to be familiar with, personally and corporately. If we’re in grief, we need examples of how to be heartfelt and honest with God about it. If we’re not, we need to learn how to see and be present in the suffering of others. Lamentations 1:12 says, “Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow.” Look, and listen, and see.

Newton on Grace

from John Newton, The Utterance of the Heart:

“Sensible comforts are desirable, and we must be sadly declined when they do not appear to us; but I believe there may be a real exercise of faith and growth in grace when our sensible feelings are faint and low. A soul may be in as thriving a state when thirsting, seeking, and mourning after the Lord, as when actually rejoicing in Him; as much in earnest when fighting in the valley, as when singing upon the mount; nay, dark seasons afford the surest and strongest manifestations of the power of faith. To hold fast the word of promise, to maintain a hatred of sin, to go on steadfastly in the path of duty, in defiance both of the frowns and the smiles of the world, when we have but little comfort, is a more certain evidence of grace, than a thousand things which we may do or forbear when our spirits are warm and lively.” 

Kindness

“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” – Titus 3:4-5

When my children do something that annoys me, my first impulse is to lecture their behavior. Why can’t you be less prone to disproportionate emotional reactions, or more eager to share, or more willing to clean up or do lessons? In other words, why can’t you be more righteous? But the practical lesson I’m learning these days is that kindness always goes farther. Kindness means I begin by thinking about the situation from their perspective, not mine. It means I approach them with compassion and am willing to withhold some measure of judgment. It means I respond to them instead of react to the situation.

What I’ve learned to do is simply leave the room when I’m becoming annoyed, going somewhere where I can calm down, and sort through my own emotions before I begin to deal with theirs. It’s a bit like how the emergency oxygen bags work on airplanes. Yeah, I probably shouldn’t leave my child gasping for air longer than I have to, but neither am I going to be of any good helping them if I haven’t applied my own mask first. 

These moments—when I’m fuming in my head about how frustrated I am, yet knowing I’ve got to go back out there and do the right thing—are the real struggles of my day. But these moments are when the gospel most plays out in our home lives. These moments are opportunities for me to make the gospel most real to them. What is the gospel, but that we cannot be saved through our attempts to be righteous, that Jesus has saved us through his loving kindness and now is renewing us through the Holy Spirit? If I lecture in anger, I have lost the opportunity. I have hit them over the heads with the law but not extended grace. Yes, the law must be understood, but it is kindness that brings us to repentance. The more I understand God’s kindness to me, the more I let go of my own agenda and inconveniences, the more I can extend that kindness to my children.

Last Words

“The Lord stood by me and strengthened me… The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” – 2 Timothy 4:17-18

Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy in very different conditions than his previous letters. We don’t know for sure, but this was likely a different imprisonment altogether. His earlier imprisonment in Rome, five or six years ago, was a much milder house imprisonment. He could see some friends and was able to write Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. Once released, he went to Ephesus, met Timothy and left him in charge of the church there, then went on a missionary tour during which he wrote his first letter to Timothy with specific instructions for the church. But at some point during his newfound freedom, he is arrested, under the fresh wave of animosity against Christians that came under Nero’s reign.

This time, Paul was taken back to Rome and put into Mamertine Prison. Prisoners sentenced to execution there were placed in a circular pit in the ground about 30 feet in diameter, with only a hole at the top for light and air. One section of the pit contained a door that connected with the sewage system. It was common to drop up to 35 prisoners at a time in one pit, and when room had to be made for the next group of prisoners, the door would be pulled open. Sewage would enter and drown all the prisoners, washing them back out. Paul was removed for public execution before he could be so killed, but this was where he endured the last imprisonment of his life, a place without much light or sanitation. This is likely where he writes what will be his last letter, his swan song.

Imagining Paul in that place casts a new light on his words. You can read the suffering between the lines: he is physically uncomfortable, in chains (1:16, 2:9) and wishing he had a warm cloak (4:13). He is emotionally dealing with hurts and betrayals that still feel fresh (4:14-16). He misses his personal belongings (4:13) and is lonely (4:9-13). He knows he will die soon (4:6-8). And yet, he opens the letter with as sure a statement of his identity, purpose, and promise as any ever made: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus.” Jesus at the start, Jesus at the end. In that place, God stood by him and strengthened him, and God will bring him home. May we know that too, wherever we are, and whatever our own sufferings and struggles.

Self-Control

“A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.” – Proverbs 25:28

“The enemy who wars against our souls is a consummate master in his way, fertile in stratagems, and equally skillful in carrying on his assaults by sap or by storm. He studies us, if I may so say, all around, to discover our weak sides… Satan will, doubtless, watch you, and examine every corner of the hedge around you, to see if he can find a gap by which to enter.” – John Newton, The Utterance of the Heart, pp 176, 180

The phrase for “self-control” here is literally “rule his spirit”—himself, his inner self. Most temptations do start within. I picture within myself a morass of thoughts, imaginations, compulsions, and desires. If I do not familiarize myself with my inner workings, if I do not study them and learn how to rule them, if I do not restrain them, then I am like a city without walls. 

Perhaps a good modern-day equivalent would be to say that I would be like a house with the front door swinging wide open. Anyone could come in. I would be vulnerable to attacks. I would be devaluing what I possess within. I would simply be foolish. No one would live like that. No one would want to live in a house like that. 

Yet I would not say that self-control is a culturally-esteemed value. We tout unrestrained self-expression. We promote the satiation of desires as long as no one is obviously hurt. We encourage the proliferation of our desires. We tend to be blind to the slippery slopes of temptation. We don’t necessarily learn how to study and restrain our desires until we’ve already gone too far. And this could be the desire for many things: recognition and reputation, food, sex, control, angry outbursts, sloth, revenge, escape. But the fact is, we’re in a spiritual war. We have an Enemy who looks for the gaps. He doesn’t need to break into the city: we break into it ourselves when we fail to learn how to control ourselves. We need to learn and practice the ruling of our inner selves lest we be like a city left without walls.

Contentment

“But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.” – 1 Timothy 6:6-7

“I am content; that is a blessing greater than riches; and he to whom that is given need ask no more.” – Henry Fielding

There is a kind of forced simplicity about our lives right now. A while back, I went through a decluttering phase. I realized that owning something also means storing it, tidying it, cleaning it, thinking about it, caring for it—and that there can be freedom in owning less, in not owning something you don’t necessarily need or use. Sheltering in place has done that with the commodity of time. Our time was consumed with more activities before—and those activities involved not just the event itself, but the commuting time, preparation time, cognitive load surrounding it. Now that we’ve been forced to give most of that up, I’m discovering a simplicity and freedom to our pace of life. We’re able to give what we still do more of our attention, enjoyment and care. We’re able to be present to the unbidden and let slower things flourish.

One of our mentors in Virginia used to say, “if you aren’t content, you can either gain more, or learn to be content with less.” Our desires are not fixed. Our consumeristic, advertising-dominated culture tells us our desires as they are must be met, but that is not true. The truth is, we can change the degree and aim of our desires for food, sex, material things—this is not to say all desires are bad or ought not be attended, of course—but they are more malleable than I think we like to admit. The less we feed our desires, through what we think about or look at or do, the weaker they become. The less we allow ourselves to cope through consumerism, the weaker its grip becomes.

The simplicity of this time, the dream or desire deferred, can in some ways teach us to be content with less. Paul says that when it comes to this material life, we ought to fan our desires for godliness, but be content with simple material things (food and clothing, verse 8). One of them we can take out of this world with us; the other we cannot. Godliness with contentment is great gain.