My soul clings to the dust; revive me
according to Your word. When I told of my ways, You answered me; teach me Your
statutes. (Psalm 119.25-26)
The evangelical author Ravi Zacharias writes:
The Bible is not only written to be
read; rather, it reads us. How incredible that God has a personal interest in
the struggles of our lives and has chosen to reveal Himself through the course
of history in the pages of the Bible.
The concept of the Bible reading
us—staring back into our hearts even as we look into its pages—is nothing
short of revelatory to me. We talk of Scripture as a dialogue of sorts. Delving
into its content is the only reliable means we have of hearing what God wants
to tell us. That’s why our search for guidance constantly leads to the
Bible. Our confidence that it conveys God’s Word brings its messages to
life, and once we’ve pinpointed a passage or theme that speaks to our immediate
condition, we apply its principles to our circumstances.
Yet our bond with Scripture is often tenuous at best. For
many of us, there’s a formality with which we approach the Bible that often
stymies our direct connection with what it says. It’s difficult to imagine how
an ancient text can address the complexities of modern life. And the best way
to bridge that gap is to open the Bible with full expectation that it sees us
as much as we see it. While we look for answers it contains, it finds us with
questions about where we are and what we need. This is more than a dialogue. It's a trusted friendship based on acceptance and candor—the meeting of two close
and beloved friends: God and us. It’s a love story.
Nowhere in Scripture is this romance more vividly
portrayed than Psalm 119. David is overwhelmed. His enemies have surrounded
him. His own people don’t understand him. He’s coming to grips with realizing that being a hero and king isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. He opens the
Scripture, where he not only finds the assurance that God is faithful, but he
discovers God’s Word staring back at him, seeing him as he truly
is, understanding his misgivings and weaknesses, and yet loving him with all
the concern and stubbornness of a true friend. “My soul clings to the dust;
revive me according to Your word. When I told of my ways, You answered me;
teach me Your statutes,” he prays.
During Lent’s season of consecration, when we devote
increased time to prayerful reading of God’s Word, we remember that opening its
pages involves more than seeing and understanding what it says. It is an act of
faith that rejoices in being seen and understood. Often, our interaction with
Scripture is less about finding out what we should know and more about
discovering we are known to this God Who has pledged to love and care for us
always. In our daily devotions, we should become sensitive to the liveliness of
the exchange that transpires between Scripture and us. While we are reading it,
it’s reading us.
I have learned to be content with
whatever I have. (Philippians 4.11)
“I don’t like Paul.”
I’ve heard several people say this lately. My response is always the same—a
sympathetic nod—because Paul isn’t easy to like. On one page, he takes our
breath away with eloquent dissertations on God’s grace. On the next, he trips
all over himself, snarling at his detractors, belittling women, and mistaking
swagger for certainty. But while I too quarrel with Paul’s personality and more
than a few of his ideas, I like him very much. I like him because he’s
difficult to like. I like him because he’s never reluctant to admit to his
messiness. Most of all, I like him because he’s our finest example of a sincere
Christian trying to figure out how all of this is supposed to work and what it
all means.
I see Paul as a sort of lead investigator in the faith lab.
He’s constantly at work, observing new phenomena, combining ancestral beliefs
with novel approaches, debunking outdated myths, replacing them with fresh
paradigms, and always—always—struggling
unlock the Gospel’s revolutionary truths. Paul insists on publishing his
findings as he goes, a daring proposition for anyone carving out new territory,
let alone someone tasked with establishing the principles and practices of a radical
faith movement. As a result, we’re privy to his blunders as well as his
breakthroughs. It’s why we see him barrel down a dead-end alley one place—for
instance, in his condescension toward women’s roles in the home and church—and
then reverse his direction elsewhere, as he does by declaring, “there is no
longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus,” in Galatians
3. These flaws attest to Paul’s obsession with figuring things out. Despite his
irksome vanity, he’s not interested in proving how smart he is. He’s doing his
best to put everything together for the sake of the Gospel. He may not be
likeable. But he’s always sincere.
We can get closer to Paul by recalling that, like many of
us, he’s the product of a highly prescriptive faith environment. Before Christ
charges him to be an Apostle, he already knows the Hebrew Bible by heart and has
gained respect as a model seminarian. On top of that, he’s a Roman citizen, a
foreign-born Jew of the merchant class, a person of privilege. So he comes from
an entirely different place than the other disciples. By the time he’s stopped
by a vision of Jesus on the Damascus Road, he’s sure he’s got a handle on how
things work. Now he has to start all over again. And one of the key shifts in
Paul’s life occurs when he learns to differentiate between complacency and
contentment.
In Philippians 4.11-13, we find Paul’s magnificent
contentment confession: “I have learned to be content with whatever I have… In
any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of
going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.” And what is his secret? “I
can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” We can assume Paul’s
talking only about his physical and material needs. Yet I’m of the mind it runs
deeper than that. I believe he would also add, “I know what it’s like to be
religiously complacent and how to be content with unanswered questions. I can
remain committed to trying to figure it all out, while conceding it’s more than
I can ever comprehend.” Now his famous “I can do all things” statement becomes
an epic declaration of faith in the making.
I’m thoroughly convinced that every Lenten desert contains a
Damascus Road of some kind—a bracing encounter with Christ that calls us away
from shallow lives of religious complacency and leads to the deeper mysteries
of faith. We won’t figure it all out. We’ll make blunders and find ourselves
backtracking from ideas we’ve embraced in the past. Not everyone will be happy
with us. But in our pursuit of right relationship with God we can find
contentment. Paul told Timothy, “There is great gain in godliness combined with
contentment.” (1 Timothy 6.6) Pursuing God’s will and way inevitably requires
us to start over, clearing away ready-made answers to make room for questions
we can’t possibly resolve. But when we combine that with contentment, we will
gain strength for our journey and discover lives of faith that are anything but
complacent.
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there
is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as
though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed. (2 Corinthians 3.17-18)
God’s Way
The 2013 liturgical calendar barely gives us time to recover
from Christmas before catapulting us into Lent. Truthfully, I’m not sure I’m
ready. When I opened the lectionary to see that this weekend’s Gospel (Luke
9.28-43) returns to the Mount of Transfiguration—as always happens on the
Sunday before Ash Wednesday—a shroud of fatigue and dread settled over me. Was
I up for this? I could probably rally, much like I do when I drag myself out of
bed in the wee hours to catch an early flight. But that wouldn’t be the right approach
to this season. We should come to Lent with eyes and hearts wide open, knowing
it will ask more than we expect, yet eager to meet its demands. I wasn’t sure I
had enough in me to do that. I told myself, “Better dose up on faith, Buster.” Then
I did what I always do when faith is in short supply: I prayed. “God, I hope
You’ve got this,” I said, “because I can’t make this journey on my own.”
A few hours later I got an email from a close friend who’s never set much store in “organized religion.” He’d just
heard an interview with Gloria Loring (an actress neither he nor I recalled) discussing
her autobiography. I’ll let him tell the rest:
Well, she really is a fantastic lady…
open-minded, etc. I know you don’t like the word, but amazingly spiritual.
Anyway, the most interesting quote is the title of her book, Coincidence is God’s Way of Remaining
Anonymous. When I heard it, I just could not stop thinking about it… so
simple, yet effective. Well it turns out to be a quote of Albert Einstein’s. I
just couldn’t get it out of my head.
I’d never heard the quote and now I can’t get it out of my
head, either. A fountain of faith burst through its seven words—from Einstein, no less! I
was overcome with reassurance. I’ll be frank: at this moment, I just don’t have
the energy for the wilderness that lies ahead. But when Wednesday comes, it
will be there, because God is at work. Whether through direct inspiration or the
anonymity of happenstance, strength for this journey will arrive. How can
I be so sure? Because the Transfiguration story portrays one of Scripture’s
greatest examples of how God is revealed in seeming coincidence.
Good for Us to Be Here
The story begins uneventfully. Jesus needs to get away to
pray. He takes Peter, John, and James with Him and they climb a mountain,
leaving the other disciples behind. Scripture doesn’t indicate why Jesus
selects them. In retrospect, we know they become pillars of the Church and what
transpires on the mountaintop will be a pivotal moment in their faith lives. Whether
Jesus intends for them to see what transpires there we can’t say. We can,
however, suppose that from their
perspective, witnessing the Transfiguration is purely coincidental. They have
no idea if this is a singular event, or if this sort of thing happens regularly
when Jesus prays in solitude. All they know is they’re there by seeming coincidence to see Jesus utterly transformed,
conversing in spirit with Moses and Elijah, after which they’re engulfed in a
cloud of God’s undiluted presence. A voice instructs: “This is my Son, my
Chosen; listen to Him!” (Luke 9.35) And there it is: this is no coincidence at
all. Peter, James, and John have been brought to this mountain to discover Who
Jesus really is. God has chosen this experience to provide them with very
particular knowledge in a very particular way. When the veil of coincidence is
removed, they have no doubt God is at work in their lives.
After seeing Jesus transfigured—essentially getting a
preview of the Resurrected Christ’s appearance—Peter starts to get it. He says,
“Master, it is good for us to be here.” (v33) His first impulse is to build
three structures, one each for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses, to commemorate the
experience. But God dismisses Peter’s idea with the proclamation, because Peter
is called to construct something more enduring and significant than a
mountaintop memorial. He will the become the Church’s chief engineer, relying
heavily on John and James’ assistance as they build the living, breathing Body
of Christ together. And when he says, “It’s good we’re here,” he doesn’t grasp
the import of his comment. He doesn’t realize that, by watching the changes in
Jesus’s person, he too has been changed. Once they leave the mountain, God’s
redemptive plan will take shape through a series of apparently random events
that, only by hindsight, reveal God’s intentions. A long journey of
unanticipated challenges and uncertainty awaits Peter, James, and John. The
transformative nature of this experience will strengthen them more than they
know. The unshakable assurance that Jesus is God’s Son will sustain them in the
coming days, when He’s slandered and persecuted as everything but
God’s Chosen Son.
Constantly Being Transformed
Coincidence is God’s creative license. It frees God to move
anonymously in the background, bringing us to places where we experience
Christ’s transformative power up close and personal. In 2 Corinthians 3.17-18,
Paul writes, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us,
with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a
mirror, are being transformed.” We are beingtransformed, as we discover God’s
glory at every turn—sometimes through deliberate prayer and study, but just as
often through ostensibly random circumstances that cause us to say, “Master, it
is good for us to be here.”
Perhaps you’re primed for Lent. I pray you are. But if, like
me, you’re concerned about mustering stamina for the days ahead, know that God
is working behind the scenes to bring you to a place of renewed strength and
commitment. Lent’s season of consecration begins with confessing we can’t make
this journey on our own.
We don’t have to be
Einsteins to discern that God is at work in our lives, moving behind the scenes
to bring us to places of renewed strength and commitment.
Because you did not believe my words,
which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak,
until the day these things occur. (Luke 1.20)
The Silent One
So much conversation happens in the Christmas narrative!
Angels talk Mary and Joseph through the monumental task that befalls them. Mary
makes a special trip to discuss the situation with her cousin, Elizabeth. The
aged Elizabeth is also pregnant with a son who will grow up to be John the
Baptist—a first-rate talker in his own right and the last in a long line of
prophets who talk at length of a coming Savior. The Magi deliberate the meaning
of the Star and stop by Herod’s palace on their way to Bethlehem for a quick
chat with him. After they leave, the king calls a meeting with his top advisors
to tell them what he’s heard. In the countryside, a celestial concert ends with
an angel informing a few shepherds of Jesus’s birth, which sparks a
conversation about leaving the sheep and going into town to check things out. Everybody
in this story talks a lot, except for
one man—Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father. He’s the silent one.
It’s not that Zechariah has nothing to talk about—or he’s
unsure what to say. Strangely, he’s the first to hear that Israel’s long-awaited
Redeemer is soon to come when an angel reveals that he, his wife, Elizabeth,
and their late-in-life son will play essential roles in this divinely ordained
drama. Zechariah’s problem is that he can’t believe what he hears. He and
Elizabeth have tried to get pregnant for years and they’ve pretty much accepted
theirs will be a childless marriage. In many ways, their resignation reflects
how the Jews feel. They’ve done everything in their power to bring forth a
Messiah. Yet their union with God has remained barren for centuries. For many,
the love between Israel and God is its own reward, just as it is between
Zechariah and Elizabeth. The idea that God might bend time and revive their moribund
dreams—enabling their participation in God’s redemptive plan—is beyond belief
for them. Zechariah responds to the angel’s declaration much like the vast
majority of his neighbors do when Jesus declares the Good News of God’s
kingdom. “How will I know that this is so?” he asks. (Luke 1.18) Before
Zechariah can talk himself out of the amazing task God has given him, the angel
shuts his mouth. “Because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled
in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these
things occur.” (v20)
The irony here is rich and rather cruel. Zechariah probably
has the best handle on what’s taking place in his extended family; he alone
knows how Elizabeth and Mary’s stories are intertwined and the import of the
babes growing in their wombs. He can explain everything in detail. But God
fixes it so that he can’t breathe a word until his son is born because
Zechariah’s faith hasn’t reached a level that will allow him to express it. And
his frustration teaches us a powerful lesson: when we sense God at work in our
lives, it’s best to keep silent. There will be plenty to say when the work is done.
Meanwhile, we should regard seasons of change and growth as quiet times.
No Talking Please
Time and again in Scripture God reveals divine knowledge to
individuals and immediately demands their silence until the thing God is doing
comes about. Such behavior is completely contrary to human impulse. At the
earliest sign our prayers will be answered—at our faintest sense that God is intervening
on our behalf—our first inclination is to tell people all about it. Some of us,
ascribing to a “name it and claim it” theology, even believe that if we talk
about what we want God to do, God
will do it (as if God were a super-genie compelled to grant our every wish).
Yet, as we see in Zechariah, times when God’s presence is manifested in our
lives are when we should remain still. Transformation is taking place. The full
extent of what God is saying and doing is far from clear. What’s required is
total trust. And trusting time is quiet time.
As the Christmas story so brilliantly proves, never in a
million years can we predict or understand God’s ways. Once we start talking,
we start wrestling with impossibilities and mysteries we’re not equipped to
explain. We start to sound foolish; that makes us afraid and, without realizing
it, fear overtakes our faith. We’re no longer fit vessels for God’s purpose.
When God’s presence and movement is made known in our lives, we are wise to
heed the prophet’s call for quiet: “The LORD is in His holy temple; let all the
earth keep silence before Him!” (Habakkuk 2.20) In Psalm 46, we’re invited to
“behold the works of the LORD” (v8) and then told in verse 10: “Be still and
know that I am God!” No talking please—God is at work!
Plenty of Time
It takes tremendous faith and self-control to wait on God in
silence. We forget that God always finishes what God starts, provided we remain
attentive to God’s purpose and calling. Once God’s work is complete, there will
be plenty of time to talk. In fact, when God’s will is fully revealed, we won’t
stop talking. This is how it goes for
Zechariah. The birth of his son frees his tongue. Praise and prophecy flow out
of him with ravishing conviction. What he’s experienced in silence has
thoroughly transformed him. Not only is he able to witness God’s goodness in
his life. What he’s learned opens his eyes to God’s vision for humanity. His
soliloquy, recorded in Luke 1.68-79 ends with a promise we all must claim: “By
the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light
to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into
the way of peace.” (v78-79)
If we can only learn to be still, to wait on God in silence,
the dawn will break. Light will overpower our darkness. Fear and death will be
overcome. We will walk in peace. That’s the story we’ll be able to tell.
Transformation
requires trust, and trusting times are by necessity quiet times.
