“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I hope in Him!” Lamentations 3:24
Take away every blessing of existence —
health,
home,
friends,
comforts,
happiness,
even the most basic necessities — food and shelter —
if these things were taken away, one by one, and if I were the most outwardly destitute person on earth —
if I have the LORD’s Presence at the hearth of my soul, residing there, I am more wealthy and blessed than royalty. This is the elixir of life for the child of God.
You have refined us as silver is refined (Psalm 66:10).
There comes a time, or times, when the Christian’s heart is squarely impaled upon his circumstances and is torn to a million pieces.
No matter how much care he took to keep his feet and clothes dry, he finds himself in rising waters of suffering and his head sinking under the waves. Water and blood fill his eyes and ears, blocking out everything but blackness and pain. It is an hour when he believes nothing good can ever possibly happen to him again. Death is seen as a friend, and the thought of laying all this down brings the only notion of hope that seems available to him.
At this point raw faith is the only object to be grasped, and at first it seems to float and sway as unstable as himself. But when it is taken hold of with both hands, he realizes it is the strong cord that tethers him to the Rock deeply anchored, and not far away. It is the only hope of anyone cast into a sea of pain.
You shall enlarge my heart (Psalm 119:32).
He must hang on to what God has revealed to him through His spirit — not the half has been told of the goodness up ahead. It is a promise. God will soon rush in to the places of his soul, made large and empty by suffering, and flood it with joy. Whether it will take place tomorrow, or years in the future, it is sure to come, and the pain will be remembered no more.
He sets the poor on high, far from affliction (Psalm 107:41).
The Christian has this secret source to carry him through every difficulty. He has a private stash of enjoyments to resort to, when every other comfort is removed. I recently read a report that North Korean Christians — themselves living as sheep to be slaughtered by their own government, were said to be praying for western Christians in affluent countries. “We pray that you will know that when Christ is all you have, He is all you need. We already know it to be true.”
To have Jesus is the one thing everyone in the world desperately needs. No other object of human desire comes close to this one great Treasure. How far above the rest of needy humanity we are elevated if we possess this priceless golden orb of Living Truth, this fount of every imaginable blessing, within our hearts. This one precious commodity outweighs every pain and trial and catastrophe that can befall the human race.
And yet He is not a thing to be possessed, but a Person, who lives in us; while retaining the prerogative (as any person) of going and leaving a place at His own will. His promise is what binds Him to me: I will never leave you nor forsake you. To add to this mystery, consider that He wants to stay. He is not just bearing it, waiting for the commitment to be over, as in a bad marriage. It is His desire, even His delight and excitement to attend to the needs of those He loves so much. It’s not hard for Him; He loves being leaned upon for every necessity.
In times of trouble or famine, may we have already been imbibing HIM, eating and drinking HIM, as He graciously commanded, so that the trial has comparatively little effect on us. No matter how shocking the bad news is, may there even be an element of pleasure in it, with this thought: “Even this cannot take away my joy.” In this way, even our worst nightmare is changed into a courier of fresh grace, and new discoveries of how deep the well of His joy is dug. “The joy of the Lord is my strength.”
And Elisha prayed, and said, “Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:16-18).
Do you realize that most earthly things are not really as they seem? Our physical eyes can observe only a very narrow field of what is going on around us. And often what we see doesn’t make much sense. But what is going on behind the scenes?
We might look about us, or others who are suffering, and see dismal circumstances that cause some to question God’s goodness to His children. A sudden death; a tragic accident; a forsaken family; a lost source of income; constant sickness; oppression from an enemy; and the list goes on. Our shocked eyes translate these things to us in one light only, that our God has left us alone to suffer.
Scripture has something to say about this repeated phenomenon, and it says over and over, out loud and on purpose: “Don’t accept what is happening at face value.” It promises there is meaning in all the seemingly random occurrences day by day, instances of pain or pleasure, heartache or fulfillment that seem to drop into our world by hapless circumstance. Whatever the path of events we walk today, He is up to something bigger, better, more important — behind the scenes.
But where is the stage? Where is the hub of the action, front and center, for the great cloud of witnesses to observe? It has to be on the other side of that veil, that part we cannot see. We think of God doing His work “behind the scenes,” and so He is. He is working in US. And we’re the ones behind the scenes. All we can see is the back side of the work — the part that doesn’t make sense. We see rough-hewn construction, debris, and things placed at awkward angles. We see the unpretty side, and it frequently confuses us.
But if we were able to walk around to the front, we would see how it all comes together. Seeing it all unified in meaning and order, we would suddenly realize the need for this or that odd structure in the back that holds everything up.
“The whole earth is full of His glory,” cry the seraphim even now, at all times, although our eyes may look upon a rainy day, a lonely fireside, an vacant place at the table. Those sad, gray, empty spaces aren’t gray and empty at all — that description only depicts one thin dimension of the circumstances. Those spaces are filled with God’s vivid glory, but is screened by the veil of our sinful state right now. Thankfully we have “eyes of our heart”, spiritual eyes, that can see beyond the veil.
We must obtain from God the faith to look things full in the face and say “God works all things together for good!” There is a reason it is happening, and that reason is more important than any temporary discomfort or tears we may have. Someone said, “If we knew ALL the facts, we would have arranged everything exactly as God has ordained.”
Over 20 years ago, when I was a young growing Christian and (for the first time) had an accountability partner, I remember us studying Psalm 37. It was the first time that precious passage was really opening up for me, and I ate it like dinner, every day for a long time. In the third verse my version (at the time) read “Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.” What a visual that was for me — green meadows, peace, safety, and the command to enjoy it.
Well, at some point during that study, I was given a new Bible. It was in the New American Standard, and I thought there couldn’t be much difference in all those verses I had labored to memorize; I took it in stride. But when we went back over the third verse again, this is what my new Bible read:
“Trust in the Lord and do good;
Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.”
Now, this phrase ‘cultivate faithfulness’ was quite different than ‘enjoy safe pasture.’ Miles and miles apart, in my mind. The one focuses on what God does; the other what I can do. I wish I knew about the original languages of the Bible, and all the different root words and senses, and everything they could mean. Someday I’ll get someone smarter than me to explain them. But taken in plain unvarnished English that I could read, I was a bit unsettled about these two different phrases. I came to the conclusion that since I now had a NAS in my hands, I needed to stick with it; and besides, “cultivate faithfulness” is what it PROBABLY meant. That seemed “more Godly.” It spurred me to get out there and start hoeing and weeding, and whatever else by way of good hard work a Christian ought to be doing. I was going to show God and everybody how faithful I was going to be.
I wore that NAS Bible out; it fell apart. I wore the next one out, also an NAS. For the past year I’ve wondered what Bible I should get next, and which version (I wish someone would just tell me these things). Then, a few months ago, my sister brought me a “brand new” one, with the silver edges intact and everything. My mother had bought it for me the Christmas of 1987 and somehow had been put in storage; it sat there until this summer, when it was found and given to me, just when my old Bible was becoming too tattered to use. My full maiden name is still brightly engraved on the cover. The version is NKJV, so I am somewhat having to re-learn some verses, what my aging brain will allow me to. Not long ago I turned to Psalm 37:3:
Trust in the Lord, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
How much more beautiful that last phrase sounds to me, than any other version. It requires even less “work” than “enjoy safe pasture.” Feed on His faithfulness. Who thinks of eating as a duty? We must feed on something, and hardly need to be told to do so. As we dwell in the land, we are surrounded by signs of His faithfulness everywhere we step. The banquet is already spread, all around; meat and drink aplenty, and delicacies beyond our imagination. Feed on Him; delight myself in Him. That is my chief joy and “duty.”
If there is a stumbling block to me in the Bible, something that I cannot get my mind around, that I cannot begin to comprehend, it’s in one phrase in Proverbs. It has nothing to do with the fact that God hardens or softens hearts at His own pleasure; not that He loved Jacob but hated Esau, while still helpless babies in the womb; not that He has purposely hidden His truth from the wise, and revealed it to the ignorant and immature. I have no problem whatsoever with the doctrines of grace — I see them as reasonable, wise, and perfect, because He alone is God and what He decides is always right. This sentence in Proverbs 15:8 is what I almost cannot accept:
“The prayer of the upright is His delight.”
Is. His. Delight.
First word: Is. This astounds me, because it does NOT say “The prayer of the upright BRINGS Him delight.” This might be the hardest portion in all of Scripture for me to swallow. The morsel sticks in my throat, undigested — I am excited to taste it, but cannot conceive of how to internalize that tiny little word.
Second word: His. It could have said, “The prayer. . . is the angels’ delight. . .” or even, “Heaven’s delight.” Those seem closer to the truth than “His.” But He wrote it and selected the exact words, not me, praise His name.
Third word: Delight. Merriam-Webster defines delight “high degree of gratification; extreme satisfaction.” Do we ever stop to think that God, who created such sensations, fully experiences them Himself, in full holiness and perfection? The best I can do to understand this is to think of what delights me: the heart’s dearest pleasures, even excitement. Something or someone that is your very favorite, most beloved object — only these can bring you deep delight.
“The prayer of the upright” is God’s precious, dear pleasure, that even brings joy to His heart. It’s easy to comprehend that the Lord Jesus is His dearest Treasure, that He delights in the voice of His own son. We fully join with Him in adoration of Him and His perfections. But His Word is clear that it extends yet further: God loves Jesus’ bride, now made pure and lovely by the Son’s provision. She is made up of those who are “upright” now; whatever they were in their past life, even filthy and sin-crazed, He can cleanse the impurities and set the heart’s affections to what is proper. The upright are those whose thoughts and lives are so ordered as to reflect alignment to His decrees: they love what is good and hate evil, not the reverse, as they used to.
“The prayer.” The sound of my voice is sweet to Him. How is this possible? It seems almost sacrilegious to put this into words. Do you know someone who is so dear to you that, when you hear their voice, you melt a little? It may sound ordinary, or even unwelcome to others’ ears, but to you it is sweet as music; it has special meaning to you alone. To consider that even I can create this sensation to the Most High God is astonishing. How much more eagerly do I run to Him in prayer, when I really consider this blessed truth.
. . . That they may be one just as We are one. . .”
In John 17, this phrase is used three times in two verses (21 and 22), and then a fourth time (verse 23) in a yet more refined description — “perfect in one.”
There are people who — you are spiritually dead with. You walk through the motions of a friendship or relationship, but there is no more durable bond than what is felt with earthly senses. Everything you do or build together is, by default — temporary. Your souls may be knit together by deep things in common: loves and likes, talents, goals, the same mind and thoughts on important subjects, even the same blood in your veins; but if God didn’t enter it Himself, if there is no third Person interwoven in the cord, it has no more power in it than a flashlight battery. The bond may be tightly woven and seem strong, but it has a transient and limited life, and is useful for only a matter of hours. It must have an electric source if it is to outlive the many storms, changes, and ennui’s of life; the current must flow in from the outside of it.
The craving of friendship is part of us. For young people, navigating the maze of life, it is delightful to find someone, here and there, with which we have deep common bonds; as if we were created for one another. It seems a miracle when true friendship develops, and indeed is substantial, sophisticated. And yet — if it is only earthly wrought, relationships are really rooted no deeper than grass.
For children of God, their eyes are open to this fact. Their calling and hope so transcends the physical world that we cannot be satisfied with only what it offers, be it ever so sumptuous and pleasing. Their hearts beat for what is “other.” A whole other world and life, a whole other Person. What a sweet phenomenon it is to them, to find they share this bond with others; some others. Not everyone. Isn’t it a miracle that this order of people exists, as fully alive and on fire, thousands of years after their creed was written down? They love one Lord, and those belonging to Him; they may be from varying levels of society or appearance, intelligent or not, from different types of backgrounds; and yet are “perfect in one.”
The frightful thing is to find oneself bound with a friend, to whom all this is incomprehensible. They don’t know this other Source; to them it is an imaginary fable with no substance. They have no dependence upon it, and cannot respect others who say they do. They are fully satisfied with the good things of earthly life — why can’t we be? A relationship like this is, “half marble, half life” as Charlotte Bronte put it, is like two magnets of opposing forces. They cannot be bonded by human effort. Friction and discord may be quieted, but lie at the very heart of this yoking together of two such people. When this happens, if God does not choose to intervene, how horrible and empty the relationship becomes! There is a line in the 1949 film The Reckless Moment that comes to mind, spoken by the James Mason character: “Hell is . . . other people.”
And being in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, as He sat at the table, a woman came having an alabaster flask of very costly oil of spikenard. Then she broke the flask and poured it on His head. 4 But there were some who were indignant among themselves, and said, “Why was this fragrant oil wasted?
Mark 14: 2-4
Notice there was no indignation that a vessel was broken, because the vessel had very little value: it was what came forth from it, that caused the uproar. The vessel, beautiful and useful though it may have been, could not fill the room; it had to be broken to cause that phenomenon to take place. It was not fully known what was inside it, until it was shattered.
When we are placed in times of intense suffering, when we have a problem that — by God’s sovereign decree — cannot be solved, cannot be budged one inch, we must train ourselves to not panic. We must learn to worship the LORD, to rest and rejoice in Him, no matter how extreme our circumstances are; and then how much more pure and fragrant our praise is to Him! Because it is being tested, and we love Him though our hearts may be torn. We accept this trial as good in His sight, and by doing so destroy much of its pain. To immediately acquiesce in it brings mortification to our pride. It’s supposed to be this way, for a reason (Eph. 1:11). This is the only path of sanity in the midst of a trial.
“I can’t do this thing God requires of me.” Rather than obey, many will move heaven and earth to so re-arrange their circumstances to make it all bearable. The Lord whispers to His child, “Don’t be like them. They say they cannot bear it, when they don’t realize I would have supplied abundant grace for their intensity of trials. They will end up one-dimensional people as a result, and I will despise them (Rev. 3:16). Hold fast to me, for I have suffered much more than what you must walk through, and I know the feeling of a heart torn into a million pieces. Scream into my side and I will hold you all the tighter. When we get to the other side, I will show you that — as painful as it was, those were only flesh wounds: your bones are all intact, and you will heal.”
The very best blessing of my whole life is the fact that Jesus Christ has saved me from my own sin. Not sin in general, the “we’re all in the same boat,” vague, community sin of pride, selfishness, and the occasional lie; not the effects of other people’s sin, as if I were standing innocent under the fallout of world wars and inner city crime. I’m talking about my own particular brand of sin, fully played out: what my hands could have served up in all its horror and dark perfection. In Spurgeon’s sermon Sin Immeasurable (http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0299.htm), he says, “To get a full idea of how black sin is, you must know how bright God is. We see things by contrast.” By God’s grace He has opened my eyes to see something of the holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ; and when my eyes turn upon my own vile heart, my first human impulse is to shrink back, sicken, and run for some fig leaves to cover it up.
I’ve looked down that road I would have not walked, but run upon. I’ve gone around a bend or two to see what would have lain ahead, and literally it’s too painful for me to think about for more than a moment. If God had allowed me to open wide the door of every sinful passion in my heart, they would have been like the demons rushing into my world, making it nothing more than the herd of swine that ran violently down the steep place into the lake and drowned (Luke 8:33). Times like these my first response was always, “Please, Lord, don’t let the world see what my sin would have been if You hadn’t intervened!” But now I’ve changed my mind. I DO want the world to know. At some point in our future, when the ages will be filled with astonishing mysteries unfolded little by little, I want every thinking mind to understand the carnage and destruction I would have created. Because oh, how the blood of Christ would be cherished and marveled at, all the more! To cleanse away sin like mine — either before or after its grotesque fruition, it doesn’t matter — it took just as much of that crimson river to purge it from my soul.
There are verses in the Bible that I’ve known and clung to for years. What a thrill it was one day, when, by whatever circumstances were occurring, and by whatever mysterious means He used, two completely different passages were connected together in my thoughts: like the child who connects the dots, and sees a meaningful picture take shape. These are two “dots”:
Revelation 3:20
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.
and
Psalm 23:5
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
Regarding the first passage, I had previously always pictured myself doing the work: spreading the table with linen, preparing the feast, lighting the candles, and on top of all that — having “invited” Him to the meal in the first place. On more careful examination, what do I do to fulfill these passages? It’s His voice that initiates the scene: He calls to me. I must open the door, but that takes no effort: His call is irresistible. If I had strength to open a door, it’s because He willed it, He placed the energy within me to do it. Does He enter to a feast already prepared? No! Remember, I just now heard Him; I didn’t previously know about His intention to visit me. I have nothing prepared. No matter. He enters, He purifies the room with Grace; how sweet is the scent to me. He does the work — every dish is sumptuously prepared, far beyond what I could ask or think, or had any sense to crave before I saw it. What He places on the table, I didn’t even know existed; I had only known what bread and water was, by my dim perception of sustenance. The silver is placed, the wine is poured, the centerpiece — Fullness of Joy — fills the room with fragrance; and His lovely countenance is directly across from me. Ah, that is the real feast I am to enjoy. Everything else is just a condiment to enhance it. But that’s not all, it never is. There’s always another surprising truth to consider, to stretch my tiny mind. All this is done beautifully, peacefully by His expert hands, right in the middle of a war. If I turn my attention away from Him for a moment, the battle sounds are heard all around; the very house shakes with explosions and crashing things. But what does it matter? My Lord is here. All is safe, and we enjoy our repast, our — miracle of miracles — mutual feast.
jrzrichardson's Blog 