Perennial Streams

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved… Be still, and know that I am God.” – Psalm 46:1-5, 10

One word for river in Hebrew is nachal, a dry valley which runs with torrents of water during the rainy season. It figuratively describes things that emerge with a rush of power, then disappear suddenly, like the pride of nations (Isaiah 66:12), the power of the foe (Psalm 18:4), or torrents of oil that do not please God if the offerer’s heart is not right (Micah 6:7). 

That is not the word used here in Psalm 46:4. The word here is nahar, a perennial stream, a permanent natural watercourse. It appears for the first time in Genesis 2:10, where it describes the river that “went out of Eden to water the garden.” 

What does this nahar-river represent? It could be God the Father, who is our “very present” help in trouble: back then, rivers in the middle of cities helped fortify it against attacks, or helped irrigate its crops. It could be Jesus, the living water (John 4:10, 7:37). It could be the Holy Spirit, the Helper who is always in our midst (John 16:7). Perhaps it is all of the above: God’s triune presence and the life he gives us. The picture I always get is from Revelation 22:1, where John sees a heavenly city with “the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city”—a dazzling new remaking of that first river in Eden.

If there is any time in our generation when the world feels tumultuously displaced, it is now. My feelings chart up and down, like a river-bed sometimes dry, sometimes torrential. It seems like nothing is quite for sure in our immediate earthly future. But the Psalm holds all that roar and foam in contrast with the quieter, ever-present stream of God’s presence, which provides refuge like a moat protecting a besieged city, which provides strength like waters irrigating the ground. Which reminds us of the heavenly city in which our ultimate citizenship and hopes reside. Don’t be afraid, this song tells us. Be still, and know that God is God. He is here, always present, like that quiet river whose streams make glad its city.

Lead Me Out of My Doubts and Fears

by Ted Loder

Eternal God,

lead me now

   out of the familiar setting

      of my doubts and fears,

   beyond my pride

      and my need to be secure

into a strange and graceful ease

   with my true proportions

      and with yours;

that in boundless silence

   I may grow

      strong enough to endure

         and flexible enough to share

            your grace.

Closed Circuits

“Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?’” – Job 38:2

Life these days can feel more like a closed circuit. Less input, less output. With fewer points of reference, it’s easier to be swayed by whatever does come in. With fewer external outlets, it’s easier to displace frustrations onto other members of the family. It’s easier to become your own echo chamber.

It’s amazing how long Job and his friends go on for: thirty-five-some chapters of talk, back and forth. This line, right here, feels like the best line in the book. I don’t have Job’s friends, but it strikes me how often I get lost in my own head, in my own perspectives and analyses, until the counsel I give myself is like that word without knowledge. Sometimes, what I need is not more analysis, but an encounter with God. What I need is not more internal rumination, but to look at something outside of myself. Would anyone have expected that God’s answer to Job is to take him on a tour of the world? But look, he says, at the high stars and the deep sea. Look at the rain and snow, the lion and mountain goats, the ox and the ostrich. Look at the horse leaping and the hawk soaring. Behold the Behemoth and Leviathan. Look beyond yourself for a moment. Look at me.

Maybe for me that means opening up my Bible to listen for God may have to say, rather than what I’d like to hear. Maybe it means getting out of the house, or standing outside at night to look at the stars. Maybe it means sitting silently in God’s presence without distraction. Maybe it means praying more and thinking less.

Job doesn’t have much to say after God speaks. But what he does say, says it all: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.” Help us to see you like that, God.

Psalms Through The Testaments

“Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps departed from your way… yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself!... Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!” – Psalm 44: 18, 22-23, 26

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 8:35-39

It’s always interesting to bump into familiar lines while going through the Psalms. I had always viewed Psalm 44:22 through the lens of Romans 8, where it sticks out in a somewhat confusing way. Paul summarizes the truths of one of the greatest chapters of all time with an emotional peroratio (“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”), and then, like a downer, of all verses, he quotes Psalm 44:22. Why? To offer proof that sufferings are to be expected? To prophecy the suffering of the church?

But reading Romans 8 through the lens of Psalm 44 feels different. This Psalm is so honest, isn’t it? How many times have we, or our friends, said, God, where are you? I’m following you with my whole heart; why am I suffering? Why have you not given me good things I’m hoping for? I feel like I’m just being killed all day long, doomed like a sheep marked for the slaughterhouse. The Psalm ends with a plea, lobbed out into the empty void.

And then, hundreds of years later, these words of Paul echo back as if in answer: the sufferings are real. They are happening. But we are more than conquerors through it all, because God has sent Jesus, like a lamb to the slaughterhouse. He rose and will bring us to a glory that is not even worth comparing with the sufferings of this present time (Romans 8:18).

Every single word of the plea was answered. Rise up: Jesus rose from the dead. Come to our help! Jesus came as God incarnate in order that the world might be saved. Redeem us: Jesus’ blood bought us out of slavery to sin and one day he will bring us out of all suffering to glory. For the sake of your steadfast love! Love was the reason God did it (John 3:16). It turns out that this is the point of it all: that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Magnifiers

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” – 2 Corinthians 4:8-9

One lexicon describes the Greek word used for “manifest” here in this way: “to be manifested, in the Scriptural sense of the word, is more than to ‘appear.’ A person may ‘appear’ in a false guise or without a disclosure of what he truly is; to be manifested is to be revealed in one’s true character.” 

In our world, we’re more concerned with appearances. We put care towards our physical appearance, and of course there’s the world of image in social media. I discovered the other day that I can make zoom touch-up my appearance! With a click of a button, all my skin blemishes disappear! (the kids were very weirded out by this; they wanted me to put my freckles back)

But Paul is concerned less with appearance than with the revelation of what we truly are. Appearance can be fabricated, invented, created. Revelation is simply the pulling back of a curtain to show what was already there, like the removal of a veil. Revelation is how we discover God: he did not come into existence simply when we became aware of him, of course. He has always existed; what changed was our ability to see him.

There are certain things in life that pull back the curtain. Afflictions, doubts, persecutions, and blows reveal where it is we have not yet died to our old selves, and where it is we truly have new life in Jesus. They are magnifiers, laying bare all the planes and cracks of our clay jars. And this is not just for us, Paul says: it is for others, so that life may work in them.

None of this sounds particularly pleasant or comfortable. But if anything, what Paul drives home here is that that is not the point. The point is that we may literally magnify God; we may bring the reality of the life that he brings and promises into closer view for those around us.

Remembering

“Oh, that I were as in the months of old…” – Job 29:1

Sometimes I think back on the last time I had coffee with someone. The last time I went to the gym and the library. The last time I scrubbed into a case. The last time I sat in a sanctuary and heard the voices of people singing around me. The last time I went shopping at the mall. The last time I tried on a shirt before buying it. I can remember almost every detail about each of those times: how it felt, what I wore, who I saw. Back then, I had no idea I wouldn’t be doing those things again for a long time. Sometimes remembering makes me mad. Mostly it makes me a little sad. 

The complicated thing is that I find I’m remembering not only for myself, but for my kids as well. I feel an inexplicable level of frustration, for example, that Eric can no longer swim, that something so much a part of his physical and mental and social life is suddenly gone. It’s just sad to see it and it makes me hurt. I feel the same way when I see Ellie waving at her best friends in class zooms. I know the kind of pre-teen camaraderie and inside jokes and conversations she had with her friends in class is just not possible now. 

And just as I’m processing my own sadness, I’m watching them process their own grief too, in different ways and at different times. This morning, an angry outburst from one of the kids about homeschooling turned into them admitting for the first time that they miss school and wished they go back. Even eight weeks in, we’re still adjusting. We’re still remembering.

Job spends an entire chapter remembering his old life. Back when he was in his prime, when his “steps were washed with butter.” How he felt, how people responded to him, what he did, what he dreamed of. Part of loss is remembering. I told the kids this morning what I’m telling myself, that it’s okay to remember, to talk about it, to feel sad and sometimes mad. Job does. He talks to his friends and to God, and we find out later in chapter 38 that God was listening the entire time.

Why We Labor

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” – 1 Corinthians 15:58

Paul has just gone to considerable detail discussing the resurrection of Jesus—and this is his concluding statement. Not, “sit back and relax because God’s got a great future in store for you,” but “labor on, knowing that now your labor has even more meaning than it did before.”

In his book Surprised by Hope, N. T. Wright expounds on this connection. He writes, “You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that's about to roll over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that's shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that's about to be dug up for a building site. You are… accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God's new world… what we do in Christ and by the Spirit in the present is not wasted. It will last all the way into God’s news world. In fact, it will be enhanced there… The work we do in the present, then, gains its full significance from the eventual design in which it is meant to belong.”

How will this translation happen? Will the trees we plant, the injustices we right, the art we create be present in the new world in a way they would not have if we hadn’t begun it all here? I don’t know. But I do think most of us tend to think of heaven as far less embodied than it actually will be: the point of resurrection is not that we will shed ourselves and this world, but that we and our world will rise, remade. Sown in dishonor; raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in power (15:43). That is why Jesus’ resurrection is everything. It goes both ways: on one hand, we work looking forward, knowing that what we do is not lost and will in fact be brought into greater fullness in eternity. On the other hand, we work as new-creation people called to bring our vision of eternity into the present, to bring the restoration, redemption, and beauty of God’s kingdom into our world now as much as we can.

This time has changed the nature of our labors: we’re wrangling with more digital platforms; we’re doing more cooking and cleaning around the house. It has changed the value of our work, separating out what is deemed “essential” or not. But the resurrection changes how we see and do all our labors. It tells us why “inessential” things like beauty and creativity are necessary. It changes how and why we wipe a counter or try to get our kids to understand a math problem. None of it is pointless; none of it is lost. Abound in your work, Paul says. Persevere. Don’t give up. Your labor is not in vain.

Swimming In The Gospel

“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you.” – 1 Corinthians 15:1-2

J. D. Greear points out that most of us think of the gospel as merely the entry rite into Christianity, the diving board from which we jump into the pool of Christian living, where we then swim off to enjoy the changes in life that go along with being a believer. “But the gospel is not only the diving board,” he writes. “It is the pool itself. Even after the big splash dies down and you’re floating freely there in this new experience, the next lunge you take that carries you farther away from the diving area doesn’t move you beyond the gospel but deeper into the gospel. You’re swimming in it. It’s all around you. The purest waters that flow from the spring of life are found by plunging deeper into the gospel well… the gospel is not only the way we begin; the gospel is the way we grow. It’s not just where we start; it’s where we are going. All the Christian values and virtues we hope to develop don’t happen on the other side of the gospel but rather right there in the middle of it.”

Paul has gotten nearly to the end of his letter, but he goes back to the gospel. Look at the tenses in this verse: Paul would remind us (present tense) of the gospel he preached (past tense), which we received (past tense), in which we stand (present tense) and by which we are being saved (ongoing present tense), if we hold fast to it (present tense) as it was preached (past tense). The past tenses frame, highlight and emphasize the present tenses.

What does it mean to swim in the gospel, to hold fast to it every day? The first thing Paul goes on to do is spell out the gospel. He preaches it again: that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried and raised on the third day. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says, “the problem with most believers is that we should be not listening to ourselves but preaching to ourselves.” We need to preach the gospel to ourselves because our memories are short. We forget that we need rescue, that we have received it, that we have forgiveness and freedom and power not through ourselves but only through Jesus. Paul also goes on to lay out a list of eyewitnesses who saw Jesus after he rose: the gospel really happened. People saw it. We need to do whatever it takes to hold that reality, and our knowledge and experience of that reality, before our eyes every day. To record gospel sightings. To share about it with others. To say like Paul, “But by the grace of God I am what I am” (15:10). May we move every day deeper into the truth of the gospel in our lives. 

Vain Service

O my Lord,

Forgive me for serving thee in sinful ways—

   by glorying in my own strength,

   by forcing myself to minister through necessity,

   by accepting the applause of others,

   by trusting in assumed grace 

      and spiritual affection

   by a faith that rests upon my hold on Christ, 

      not on him alone,

   by having another foundation to stand upon beside thee;

      for thus I make flesh my arm.

Help me to see

   that it is faith stirred by grace that does the deed,

   that faith brings a man nearer to thee,

      raising him above mere man,

   that thou dost act upon the soul

      when thus elevated and lifted out of itself,

   that faith centres in thee as God all-sufficient,

      Father, Son, Holy Spirit,

      as God efficient,

      mediately, as in thy commands and promises,

      immediately, in all the hidden power

         that faith sees and knows to be in thee,

      abundantly, with omnipotent effect,

         in the revelation of thy will.

If I have not such faith I am nothing.

Whispers of Christ

“Man who is born of woman is few of days and full of trouble. He comes out like a flower and withers… Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one… so a man lies down and rises not again… All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come… For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.” – Job 14:1-2, 4, 12, 14; 19:25

I love the honesty of Job’s words. They’re not polished or edited; they’re not logical or organized. They are words from the heart. Today we read, “I was at ease, and he broke me apart.” His grief has become a part of him: “I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin.” He feels poured out and torn apart: “He slashes open my kidneys… pours out my gall upon the ground.”

Part of it seems to be too that he is grieving the grief. There should not be this kind of suffering without answer or hope. He sees plainly now that man has no answers. We are all fragile and unclean, we have no answer for death. It’s almost as if he is longing for something, whispering of someone. He is waiting, all his days he would wait, for renewal. This word “renew” literally means “to change clothes.” It’s as if Job is waiting for the day when he can rise up off the ground, and have his dust and sackcloth and ashes gone, not just from his skin but from deep within where his grief has gone, to have healed and restored all the things in him that have been slashed open and broken apart.

But we have this. Peter tells us we have a living hope, an inheritance that is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading” (1 Peter 1:4)—that is free from death, free from impurity, free from the ravages of time. Our hope is a person: it is Jesus, who is man born of woman, bearing a life full of trouble, yet living forever, so that we can. It is Jesus who lives a clean life so that our uncleanliness can be covered over. Who lies down in death yet rises again. Who we call Redeemer, and who will one day return to stand upon the earth he will make new.

Keeping Silent

“And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.” – Job 2:13

“Tis hence Orestes, agonized with griefs / and sore disease, lies on his restless bed / delirious. / Now six morns have winged their flight…” – Euripides, Orestes

I listened to a talk once by Nancy Guthrie about dealing with grief. She said one of the things that hurts most is when other people don’t acknowledge your grief. When they avoid you, avoid bringing up the name of the person who died. You don’t have to worry about saying the right thing, she said. Just say or do something to acknowledge it in some way. In her book What Grieving People Wish You Knew, she says the best way to start is by letting the grieving person take the lead: “Determine in advance and discipline yourself in the moment to listen more than you talk. Some of us have a lot of words. We feel awkward with silence, so we tend to instinctually fill it up with words. But there is great power and comfort in simply showing up and being willing to sit in the silence and listen… Instead of driving the conversation, hold back.”

That was what Job’s friends did here. They got down with him on the ground. They sat with him the entire time of mourning, they saw his grief, and no one spoke a word. One can’t help but feel this was probably the best thing they did the entire book, and indeed Job says later, “Oh that you would keep silent, and it would be your wisdom!” (13:5) 

The way we love sometimes is to listen, without having to fix or analyze. The gift we give sometimes is our presence, our attention to the person before us without distraction or agenda. The way to wisdom sometimes is silence.