Blindness

“The Lord opens the eyes of the blind.” – Psalm 146:8

Esme got a blindfold from her church class a few weeks back; they were learning the story of Jesus healing the blind man. She now enjoys wearing it around the house and bumping into things, but only because she can take it off whenever she wants. I saw a patient this morning whose visual acuity was light perception. Legal blindness is defined as visual acuity equal to or worse than 20/200 on the Snellen chart, but when patients can no longer see any letters, we measure how many feet away they can count fingers, then tell whether a hand is waving. Beyond that is light perception: when you can only tell whether or not a bright light is shining directly into your eye. This patient had lived with poor vision for some time, but came in because she had recently sustained several falls that required orthopedic surgery. 

Vision is something we take for granted until we lose it. The Bible speaks of a spiritual kind of blindness, a walking in the dark and under the power of Satan, until God opens our eyes to bring us into the light (Acts 26:18) and enable us to see and live in hope, glory and power (Ephesians 1:18-19). It is like the eyes of Elisha’s servant being opened to see the horses and chariots of fire all around them on the mountain (2 Kings 6:17): reality had not changed, but his ability to perceive it had. The vision God gives us is wonder, power and life.

When one has lived with blindness a long time, it is quite an experience to be able to see again. Typically the patients I see the day after cataract surgery are unexpectedly emotional. They tell me they had forgotten how bright the colors were. Or what it’s like to move with independence and confidence. Sometimes they ask whether the surgery gave them wrinkles on their face (no, those were there before, I say). If they can’t speak English, sometimes they just grip my hand and cry.

There is something akin to that type of wonder and irrepressible emotion in the Psalmist’s words here: “Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.” This is someone who has personally experienced the liberation and love of a God who sets prisoners free, who lifts up the discouraged, who sees the marginalized, and yes, who opens the eyes of the blind. This is someone whose experience of this God has completely transformed who he trusts in, who he worships, and what he longs for. May the same be true for us.

Non-Random Events

“But a certain man drew his bow at random and struck the king of Israel between the scale armor and the breastplate.” – 1 Kings 22:34

“The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me.” – Psalm 138:8

In this story, Micaiah the prophet tells king Ahab that he will die if he goes to battle against the Syrians at Ramoth-gilead. Ahab orders Micaiah imprisoned and goes anyway, but he disguises himself in battle. The thirty-two captains of the Syrians have been specifically instructed to target only Ahab, yet they can’t find him. But then an unnamed man happens to draw his bow, and the arrow happens to hit Ahab, and the hit happens to be at one of the few weak links in his armor, and the wound happens to gradually drain enough blood that by evening he happens to die. The phrase “at random” here actually means “in integrity or innocence”: in other words, the man who drew his bow had no actual intention of killing Ahab, or perhaps of killing anyone. And yet, all of it happened, just as God had said.

There is perhaps no clearer example that God is sovereign over seemingly random events. Nothing can stop any act or design or purpose that God intends to bring about, as we also read in Psalm 138: no scheme of man, no level of statistical improbability, no claim of precedence. This challenges me to identify and confront the assumption of self-sovereignty our culture operates in. It leads me to take God’s words and promises far less lightly. It encourages me to be bolder in prayer to a God who can make anything happen. It invites me to be more patient in my faith when I don’t see Him working in obviously sequential ways.

The fact is, we are not the masters of our fate or the captains of our soul, as atheist William Ernest Henley wrote in his famous poem. Decades later, Dorothy Day responded to that poem with one of her own. Here are both:

“Invictus” by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be


For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance


I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance


My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears


Looms but the horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

“Conquered” by Dorothy Day

Out of the light that dazzles me,


Bright as the sun from pole to pole,


I thank the God I know to be,


For Christ - the Conqueror of my soul.

Since His the sway of circumstance,


I would not wince nor cry aloud.


Under the rule which men call chance,


My head, with joy, is humbly bowed.

Beyond this place of sin and tears,


That Life with Him and His the Aid,


That, spite the menace of the years,


Keeps, and will keep me unafraid.

I have no fear though straight the gate:


He cleared from punishment the scroll.


Christ is the Master of my fate!


Christ is the Captain of my soul!

Evangelism

“Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’” – Acts 17:32

I came to the Bay Area intent on sharing Jesus with nonbelievers, convicted that this was part of the main reason we were called here. But it has been a slow and challenging process. People seem to respond like the Athenians: when Christianity comes up, they react with a sense of suppressed antipathy at worse or a complete lack of openness at best, like those who mocked Paul. Then I begin to build relationships, aware that I may be one of the few Christians they come to closely know: and that takes a great deal of time and patience, like those who wanted Paul to come and repeat himself again. We’ve been here almost three years, still hosting gatherings for friends and families and neighbors, still reaching out during school runs and swim meets and playdates, but it’s hard to see any kind of progress.

In the face of all that, my resolve to share Jesus has atrophied to some extent. I’ve stopped praying regularly by name for nonbelievers in our lives. I’ve become more cynical about the odds of anyone believing. I hesitate longer before mentioning my faith. And then I came across these words towards the end of J. I. Packer’s book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God: “So persevere in presenting Christ to unconverted people as you find opportunity. You are not on a fool’s errand. You are not wasting either your time or theirs. You have no reason to be ashamed of your message, or halfhearted and apologetic in delivering it. You have every reason to be bold, and free, and natural, and hopeful of success. For God can give his truth an effectiveness that you and I cannot give it.”

The truth of God’s sovereignty, Packer argues, should make us take even more seriously our responsibility to evangelize, which he defines as sharing the good news regardless of conversion results, and which he reiterates is a command for all believers to obey. The fact that God is the one who can and does work against the blindness of sin and the schemes of Satan to bring people to a saving knowledge of Jesus gives us confidence: it is not up to us. And this confidence does three things: it makes us bold in the face of apathy or contempt, because we know God can change even the hardest hearts. It makes us patient when there is no immediate response, because we know God works in his own time. And it drives us to prayer, because we know we need help and that God alone is able to draw others to salvation. 

Do I really believe God is sovereign, or not? Or have I been unconsciously trusting in my own abilities and methods, applying my own timeline and expectations? Do I truly love the people around me, and do I truly love and believe in the power of the gospel? You are not wasting your time, Packer reminds me. Persevere in every opportunity. Don’t be ashamed; have hope. It is God who works, and he uses you to do it.

Emotions

“My spirit faints within me; my heart within me is appalled… Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.” – Psalm 143:4, 8

I heard a retreat speaker once say that some of us are brought up thinking of our emotions like cabooses: they should always follow the locomotive of fact. While it can be important in our faith not to be led by feelings over truth, somehow I’ve come to internalize this model for life in general. If I’m honest, I believe that my emotions should make sense. They should not affect me overmuch, and if they do, something is wrong.

In other words, I come to my emotions with a pretext of judgement. But I’m realizing that sometimes I need to notice them without judgement. Judging our emotions is being quick to assess a cause and find a fix, to determine whether what we feel is appropriate or not, right or not. Noticing our emotions is taking time to name them, to acknowledge how we feel and allow ourselves to feel it. It is to sit with those feelings, without trying to correct them, or cast value upon them. When we judge our emotions, we tend to subvert, deny or disparage them. But when we notice our emotions, we allow them to show us something. And we find that sometimes, they can be like signposts, pointing us toward deeper places in ourselves worth exploring.

I constantly struggle with this as a parent. I tend to react to moodiness by immediately finding a cause and a fix, usually with some kind of lecture thrown in: go to bed earlier, manage your time better, adjust your expectations, etc. Basically, I treat my children the same way I treat myself. And I’m realizing, what they often need is not for me to judge how they feel, but notice how they feel. They need me to sit with them and say, “I’m sorry you’re feeling kind of down and tired.” And just be silent for a while, looking at them, being with them, rather than analyzing how their emotion is affecting the task or schedule at hand. 

I’m so grateful for the Psalms, because they show us how to be real with our feelings before God. David does not flinch from his emotions: he tells them to God without filter. The word for “faints” literally means “overwhelmed”—to be clothed with, to be enveloped and completely overcome by. The word for “appalled” means “desolate, stunned, devastated.” David names how he feels. He notices its effect on his whole being. And what he wants first, before any kind of action plan, is to hear afresh of God’s steadfast love. That’s what I’m saying to my kids when I notice their emotions rather than rush to judge them: I’m saying, beyond whatever kind of inconvenience, confusion, or personal hurt I’m feeling because of how your emotion is making you act, I love you. I care about how you feel. I’m willing to be here with you in it. That’s what God has said to me, many times in my life, and that’s how I’m learning to be with my kids and with myself.

Loss Is Indeed Our Gain

by Walter Brueggemann

The pushing and shoving of the world is endless.

We are pushed and shoved.

And we do our fair share of pushing and shoving

In our great anxiety.

And in the middle of that

You have set down your beloved suffering son

Who was like a sheep led to slaughter

Who opened not his mouth.

We seem not able,

So we ask you to create the spaces in our life

Where we may ponder his suffering

And your summons for us to suffer with him,

Suspecting that suffering is the only way to come to newness.

So we pray for your church in these Lenten days,

When we are driven to denial –

Not to notice the suffering,

Not to engage it,

Not to acknowledge it.

So be that way of truth among us

That we should not deceive ourselves.

That we shall see that loss is indeed our gain.

We give you thanks for that mystery from which we live.

Amen.

Naaman

“But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, ‘Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?’ So he turned and went away in a rage.” – 2 Kings 5:11-12

When the servant girl tells Naaman that a prophet in Samaria can cure him of his leprosy, he takes her advice, but on his own terms. He goes to Samaria, but he doesn’t go to the prophet. He goes to the king. He goes along VIP channels. As commander of the entire army of Syria, Naaman was a successful man, and thought he could use his success to obtain what he needed. So he tells his king, who writes a letter to the Israelite king, which lands him in that king’s presence.

From there, it was a series of surprises. Not only was Elisha not able to be summoned, Naaman himself had to go to knock on Elisha’s door. Not only did Elisha not give him an elaborate welcome, he didn’t even bother greeting him at the door. Not only did Elisha not examine or treat him personally, he sent a messenger with do-it-yourself instructions. 

The response Naaman makes in his rage is telling: my expectations were not met. This is not how I thought I would be served. I didn’t inconvenience myself for something no better than what I already have. We may roll our eyes at this, but don’t we sometimes approach God with the same kind of entitled consumerism? “I thought that he would surely…” I thought that God would surely give me what I wanted by now. I thought that God would surely have worked in this situation in this way. 

In the end, it is another servant who talks him into trying Elisha’s instructions. Instead of standing while another called on God, Naaman has to go himself, and dip in the river not once, but seven times. Then “his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.” If you’ve ever gotten close to a child, you’ve probably marveled at their skin: so smooth and unblemished, without sun spots or wrinkles or scars. Naaman’s skin was restored like that, because he was willing to listen to a servant and humble himself and walk the road to the Jordan. His story reminds me of the wise men in Matthew 2, who also had to course-correct when they stopped following the star and instead went to look for a king in a palace. But Jesus did not come in a royal room. He came in a manger, a little child sent to restore us to life, defying our entitled expectations from the moment he was born. 

Rebuke

“A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool.” – Proverbs 17:10

The natural response to reproof is to be defensive. My first impulse is always to justify myself, then to discredit the other person’s points. The impulse is always to reject and deflect. Maybe that’s why this proverb talks about depth. The word for “blows” can also mean “stripes, lashes”: there’s an image there of skin-breaking physical force. The definition of being a fool here is that something which ought to penetrate you doesn’t. It doesn’t make any impression on you, and even if it were to be repeated (which rebukes often are when it’s an issue God is working on in us; have you noticed that?), it would still have no effect.

But a rebuke goes deep into a man of understanding. The word for “understanding” means “to discern, to be able to separate.” Allowing reproof to sink deep into us requires understanding. It requires that we discern the other person and ourselves, that we understand the emotions, worldviews, history, intent, blind spots, and context that plays into it all. It requires true listening, the willingness to set ourselves and our own defenses aside. It requires that we are able to separate what should be taken seriously for change, and what should be listened to and let go of. 

Ultimately, it requires that we have a sure identity: a sense of purpose and value so secure that we are pliable, we are able to absorb, receive, and respond to rebuke without a trace of pride or resentment. We find this in the gospel, which reveals the depth of our own sinfulness while also telling us we are completely secure in God’s love and good purposes for us. Christ’s defenselessness on the cross was not his weakness but his strength; not a sign of ignorance but of deep understanding. He who alone did not deserve anyone’s rebuke received it for our sake, and because of this, we are able to receive the rebuke of others.

The Sound Of Silence

“And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.” – 1 Kings 19:12

On Mount Carmel, God comes in fire. Can you imagine, a fire powerful enough to consume in a moment not only an entire full-grown cow, but all the wood, stones and water around it, even down to the dust? But on Mount Horeb, God is not in the fire. In fact, fire does come, as does the wind and the earthquake, but God is not in them, as if to make a point: He does not always come the same way twice. He does not always come in obvious, dramatic, or inescapable ways. 

After the fire, there is the sound of a “low whisper”: in Greek, this is daq, which means “beaten down until it is small, thin and fine,” and demamah, which means “calm, silence, stillness.” Literally, this says, “And after the fire, the sound of thin silence.”

Mysterious, isn’t it? How can silence have a sound? How can silence be thin and small? The key, I think, is in the contrast: the wind beat down the mountains, literally broke rocks to pieces, and the earthquake and fire have the same kind of destructive power: the silence is the opposite of that. It is itself beaten down, perhaps like how Elijah feels in his soul, wanting to die, to be broken down into dust. God whispers to Elijah exactly where he is.

And silence does have a sound, perhaps. When I’m silent, I do begin to hear certain sounds—the chirping of birds, rustling of leaves, tick of a clock—that were there all the time, but are now revealed. We are so used to living life at certain frequencies that we must learn to turn them off sometimes to listen, to hear like Elijah the voice that asks, “what are you doing here?” How curious, that God asks this twice, when of course he knows the answer: but he asks, and listens, as Elijah airs his grievances and discouragement. I hear God asking me the same thing: “What are you doing here, Esther?” And I hear in the silence an invitation to be honest with my answer in his presence.

Noticing Our Weariness

“And he asked that he might die… And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, ‘Arise and eat.’ And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again.” – 1 Kings 10:4-6

Most of my life, I saw physical weariness and limitations as things to push through, things that got in the way. It is perhaps ironic that those going into the medical field so easily neglect their own health: pulling thirty-hour shifts, driving into the hospital in the middle of the night, skipping meals, living off granola bars in between rounds and endless clinics and cases in the operating room (where lunch breaks are not scheduled). Those things were expected in training, which bled straight into motherhood for me, into even less-predictable patterns of sleep deprivation. Very often I would realize I had gone through the entire day without eating a proper meal, between feeding the kids and cleaning up after them.

When Elijah is depressed to the point of wanting to die, what does God do? God brings him food. The angel says, “arise and eat.” He doesn’t say anything else to him, nothing, not one word of therapy or counsel or encouragement or rebuke. And he tells him to eat a second time, but not until Elijah has had time to lay down and sleep.

Ruth Haley Barton talks about this in her book, Invitation to Solitude and Silence. Before anything else, she says, we must deal with our physical depletion. Sometimes, the most important spiritual thing we can do is get our rest. We must surrender and listen to our exhaustion. We must linger with our awareness of fatigue. Wonder about your tiredness, she says. Notice your weariness with compassion: times of solitude and silence are not times for judging, but for noticing. Acknowledge your tiredness as a child would with a caring parent; invite God into it with a prayer.

Often the best parts of solitude retreats for me are the ones that involve taking care of my body: allowing myself to take a nap, being conscious that I am doing so at God’s invitation. Eating my meals slowly, in silence, fully present to the experience. I am learning that my physical weariness is not an obstacle that must be overcome, but an invitation to acknowledge my limits so that I can experience God’s care for me. I am learning to hear God’s voice, which calls me from the depths of woe to say simply, arise and eat. Lie down and rest.

The Two Doors

“They came to the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel left him… he went to the house of Mary… where many were gathered together and were praying. And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer.” – Acts 12:10, 12-13

The interesting thing about Peter’s prison break is that the angel does not walk him all the way home. The angel pokes Peter in the side to wake him up, lights up the cell, unlocks the chains, tells him to get dressed and put on his jacket, walks him past several layers of guards, and opens the door to the city. Surely he could have walked him a few more blocks and made sure he arrived safely at his destination. But instead, immediately, he leaves him.

But Peter knows where to go. The first door was opened by the angel, but the second door was opened by his community. Even though it was late at night, many people were there together, praying for him. They were there to open the door for him. They were there to receive him and hear his story. They were there to experience first-hand this miracle of God together. They were there to spread the word to James and the others.

David spoke yesterday about how a community of Jesus-followers is marked by its source, posture, and depth, and we see those things here. Their source was Jesus: they were gathered not to strategize or vent worries with each other, but to pray. Their posture was one of active participation to the point of sacrifice: they were willing to lose sleep and come together. There was depth of vulnerability: Peter, bleary-eyed and probably not looking his best, did not hesitate to find them.

This is what a responsive community looks like: Peter, coming as he is, knocking at a time of day when no one would normally answer the door, not afraid to keep knocking. And his church, gathered together and praying for him. His church, opening the door to receive him. 

Becoming What We Worship

“The idols of the nations are silver and gold… Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them.” – Psalm 135:15, 18

Buried in this Psalm is this startlingly incisive reminder that we become what we worship. When we worship something, we turn ourselves towards it. We invest our money, time, thought, and energy upon it. We fix ourselves within its presence. And the Psalmist is saying, it is impossible to do all of that and not be yourself changed in the process. And the direction of change will always be that you become more and more like what you worship.

What might have been behind the impulse to make a silver or gold idol? Perhaps a desire to adore something bigger than oneself. A desire to gaze upon something beautiful. A desire to possess something tangible and valuable. Something accessible on one’s own terms and easy to control. Something public and obvious to others. The root of some of these desires are God-given—the need to have something to admire that is outside of ourselves, the longing for something of real value—but when we decide to create it ourselves, we step into the place of God. When God created, he breathed into his creation life. But our creations are dead. “They have mouths, but do not speak; they have eyes, but do not see; they have ears, but do not hear; nor is there any breath in their mouths” (verses 16-17). Why does the Psalmist go to such lengths to state the obvious? Because we need to see that these idols we create have no life, and thus they cannot give us life. As we worship them, we become more and more void of life ourselves.

It is surprisingly hard to be intentional about what we worship. We are often asked to participate in acts of worship before it’s clear what we even are worshipping: we are invited to invest our resources in jobs, schools, diets, entertainment, relationships, before we’ve necessarily thought about what those things are worshipping and how that will change us. I decided which residency to attend based on what programs offered in terms of prestige and career options: I didn’t ask myself, “what does the culture of this program say about what they worship? Is that the kind of person I want to be like in ten years?” As David Brooks wrote, when you choose to work at a certain place, you are turning yourself into the sort of person who works in that place. Be careful of the idols you make, and the idols others you dwell with are making, this Psalmist says. Whether you mean to or not, that is what you will become.