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June – the time of Job… and Jeremiah
Devotional Thought of the Day:
“Why do you still trust God? Why don’t you curse him and die?”
10 Job replied, “Don’t talk like a fool! If we accept blessings from God, we must accept trouble as well.” In all that happened, Job never once said anything against God. Job 2:9-10 CEV.
Give your whole self to God and to His images, your brothers and sisters. Risk. Be crazy. Hold nothing back. Don’t be reasonable. Don’t be an investor. Be a lover.
Tell God right now that this is the one thing you want above all: the gift of loving Him completely. Tell Him you will never let Him go until He blesses you thus. Tell Him that even in eternity you will not let Him go until you are 100 percent love. And then you will never want to let Him go.
“when the creature failed, he flew to the Creator. He evidently felt his own weakness, or he would not have cried for help;”
This week I one of the lectionary readings to preach on what has become, if not a favorite passage, at least a life theme. No, it’s not the Job reading above.
It might be worse,
Here it is.
7 You tricked me, LORD, and I was really fooled. You are stronger than I am, and you have defeated me. People never stop sneering and insulting me….9 Sometimes I tell myself not to think about you, LORD, or even mention your name. But your message burns in my heart and bones, and I cannot keep silent. Jeremiah 20:7,9 (CEV)
I have to admit there have been times where I have felt this way, seriously felt this way. Not enough to assent to Job’s wife’s demand, but where situations cause despair and distress that is overwhelming and makes you want to yell at God.
just like Jeremiah did.
Sort of like I wanted Job to do…
Jeremiah did… Job didn’t.
What made Job able to do it? What made him able to accept the curses as well as the blessings? What is the difference between these readings that always seem to coincide in my life.
And why can’t I be more like Job? Why can’t I help others to be more like Job?
Maybe Job was more like Jacob, displaying the attitude Peter Kreeft describes at the end of his best book. (One of the top 5 books in my life, I think – just finishing it, I need to read it again!) May Job understood what Spurgeon described, the need to cry for help… that was so great you couldn’t hold it in… and God listened.
Jeremiah was young… maybe Job had experienced it before.. and knew. he could cry.. and God would be there.
In times like this, I need to hold on, to demand that God can only be free of me when he helps me love Him, and those who bear His image, completely. Nothing else need matter except that, and truly, that is what I need to hold on to, to the fact that God can change us, and will complete that work.
I just need to hold on, to trust, to demand the blessing of being transformed into the image of the One who loved that purely. (That probably means I need to pray for the strength to do that as well. That I can do it year-round, not just in my annual encounter with Job and Jeremiah…)
I am pretty sure you need this as well, so let’s pray for each other, let’s beg God on each other’s behalf…
Lord, help us hold on.
AMEN!
Peter Kreeft, The God Who Loves You (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 225.
C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).
How We Will Survive This Fear-filled Time!
Devotional Thought of the Day:
When the disciples had rowed for three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the water. He kept coming closer to the boat, and they were terrified. 20 But he said, “I am Jesus! Don’t be afraid!” 21 The disciples wanted to take him into the boat, but suddenly the boat reached the shore where they were headed. John 6:19-21 CEV
855 Spiritual childhood is not spiritual foolishness or softness; it is a sane and forceful way which, due to its difficult easiness, the soul must begin and then continue, led by the hand of God.
As I read this passage from John’s gospel this morning, I saw something I had never seen in the event. At first, I thought it might have been something that was a translation specific idea. But I checked all the ones in my digital library, and they all chimed in, in fact, the word was even stronger in the others>
Instead of “suddenly”, the word was “immediately”
They got to where they were going so fast they didn’t even realize it was happening.
One moment they were terrified.
Scared out of their wits,
Panicked, unable to make sense of what was going on, overwhelmed by what their senses told them.
The next moment, they pulled their boat up on the beach, got out, and life returned to normal.
In the presence of Jesus, everything became different. God was with them, their fears were minimized. They were being led by the hand of God, and their faith was profoundly simple. He is there, that was enough.
This isn’t foolishness or weakness, as St Josemaria describes. It seems to easy to do, this idea of becoming childlike in our faith. So easy we often reject it, and the comfort it brings. Our logic tells us to find the solution, to search diligently out the truth from the thousands of self-proclaimed experts, to take action, even if we don’t know what to do.
In the back of our minds we hear the psalm, “Be still and know…” and we think to remind ourselves to make time for that, later.
We need to hear his voice, now. We need to allow Him to comfort us, now.
Then, realizing He is guiding us, we can begin to walk with Him through the crisis – and soon arrive on the other side of it. That is where our soul needs to begin, where our hearts have found rest, where our minds have put everything on pause
Soon we will be through this crisis, and it will seem like it happens as suddenly as it started. Led by Jesus, the author, and perfector of our lives Look to Him, Let His love cast out the fear…
He is with You! AMEN!
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way . Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
The Same Words… found back to back, that help in the dark times of life!
The church, is always in the midst of a storm… but safe in Him
Devotional Thought of the Day:
Why am I so depressed?
Why this turmoil within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him,
my Savior and my God. ( Psalm 42:11 AND 43:5 HCSB)
695 In the moments of struggle and tribulation, when perhaps the “good” fill your way with obstacles, lift up your apostolic heart: listen to Jesus as he speaks of the grain of mustard seed and of the leaven, and say to him: Edissere nobis parabolam—“Explain the parable to me.” And you’ll feel the joy of contemplating the victory to come: the birds of the air under the shelter of your apostolate, now only in its beginnings, and the whole of the meal leavened.
As I was reading Psalm 42 this morning, the verse in red and it hit me.
The amount of trauma and conflict (more of the former than the latter) I have had to deal with recently has me somewhat depressed. Okay, more than somewhat. The accumulated weight of trying to guide people to God in at least 10 situations has taken its tole.
So I highlighted the verse, thankful for the reminder that my hope is in something far more stable, far more faithful. and knowing that, even in the midst of this dark time, I can praise Him. Can? I must, for that is the reaction of relief, as I remember He is here, as I remember His promises.
At least I do for a moment, then move on, back into reading the next Psalm, which is a little more positive, a little more upbeat, and yet, it ends with the same exact same words! Okay, I’ve got the message Lord, and paused to let them sink in a little more.
I need to… I really do.
Then I scroll over to my friend’s writing. For I resonate with so much that St. Josemaria Escriva writes, it feels like the words of a wise friend when I read them.
WHich takes the hope, seeping through the darkness, and causes it to shatter the darkness.
Even though I reached on the passage yesterday, I forgot that often how Christ minister’s to us in our brokenness, is how He ministers through us ot others. Knowing how we have died and risen with Him, and find shelter in Him, means that in my death and resurrection Christ’s work will help others find peace and freedom. They will find rest as I minister to them, they will find hope, and by God’s grace, the darkness they encounter will be shattered as well.
including the 10 plus situations where brokenness and darkness seem so… overwhelming.
What kind of God do we have, that can take someone as broken and struggling as I am, and give me the peace to help others who are breaking and broken? What kind of God can help people find refuge and sanctuary through all of us, even as our faith wavers a little? How incredible is that? How amazing?
Only the God who is loving and merciful, the God who is our Savior, who is our God.
As we realize what it means that He is our God, that we have been drawn to Him and made His people, it is time to react… it is time to praise Him and adore Him, and walk with Him!
Amen!
What joy would it bring you to know God will use all things for good for you, even the trauma, the suffering, even the conflict?
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way (Kindle Locations 1620-1625). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Don’t Like the Heat? Stay IN the Kitchen!
The church, is always in the midst of a storm… but safe in Him
Devotional Thought of the Day:
25 I will take action against you. I will purify you the way metal is refined, and will remove all your impurity. 26 I will give you rulers and advisers like those you had long ago. Then Jerusalem will be called the righteous, faithful city.” 27 Because the LORD is righteous, he will save Jerusalem and everyone there who repents. Isaiah 1:25-27 (TEV)
The LORD says that his people reject him.7 Because of this the LORD Almighty says, “I will refine my people like metal and put them to the test. My people have done evil— what else can I do with them? Jeremiah 9:5-7 (TEV)
485 Well, so what? Unless your motive is hidden pride (you think you’re perfect), I don’t understand how you can give up that work for souls just because God’s fire which first attracted you, besides giving the light and warmth that aroused your enthusiasm, should also at times produce the smoke that results from the weakness of the instrument!
I don’t like confrontations, and even less do I like politics, of either the secular or church variety. They raise too much heat, they cause too much stress, they cause a reaction that is to fight or to flee, neither of which is good, right or beneficial.
Yet, as a pastor who is a sinner as much as the flock, he guides towards Jesus, I have realized two things about both confrontations and the politics that lead to them.
1. Heat caused by conflict is inevitable in the church.
2. Despite my dislike for it, despite how uncomfortable it makes people, there is always a blessing for those who neither fight nor flee, but depend upon God to resolve the conflict and reconcile those who struggle with each other.
Conflict can dull our enthusiasm for the church, and for the apostolate, the mission God has sent us all on, to bring the message of reconciliation to the people He would call His own. But the very idea that reconciliation is needed means there is heat somewhere, and that the mission will be uncomfortable.
One of the reasons it is uncomfortable is that part of what the heat will remove, our pride. This is the refining, the heat applied in such a way it gets rid of the imputiries, Even the pride that is buried deep within us, hidden even from our own conscious view.
If we can remember that even the person we are in conflict with can and will be used by God if we remember even if they are 90 percent wrong, there is ten percent of their statement that is a message from God, sent to purify us.
And it will, and the more pride that is hidden within us, the more the heat will rise. ANd we have to let it, w have to be patient, for to throw cold water on it will cause more of an explosion. We have to let it work itself out. It will, For God will perfect us, in His time, and this heat is part of the process!
That’s uncomfortable, but it is okay. You and I can survive the heat, we can stay in the kitchen. For I am confident that God will use this for good. He will refine us in it, the Holy Spirit will bring us comfort, even as we are transformed, purified. (and I still won’t like it!)
For what else can God do? He loves us, He can’t leave us broken, impure, spoilt. This heat can be part of our salvation, part of our sanctification.
So even as we struggle, even as we hate the challenges, the heat, we can stay, trusting God. He will work during the time when the heat is up, when we have to cry out,, Lord have mercy! And we can learn to cry it out confidently, and be patient for the resolution, for the reconciliation.
For He is with us! AMEN!
Lord Jesus, send forth your Spirit to all who are enduring times where the heat is rising when life is challenging because of conflicts, even those that we try and ignore, or hide. Lord during these times, help us depend on You, trusting You to keep your promises to us. Humble us when needed Lord, keep us pliable and patient, comfort us and sustain us. AMEN!
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way (Kindle Locations 1186-1189). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
The Reason Life is Worth it…
Devotional Thought of the Day:
21 “Believe me,” returned Jesus, “the time is coming when worshipping the Father will not be a matter of ‘on this hill-side’ or ‘in Jerusalem’. Nowadays you are worshipping with your eyes shut. We Jews are worshipping with our eyes open, for the salvation of mankind is to come from our race. Yet the time is coming, yes, and has already come, when true worshippers will worship in spirit and in reality. Indeed, the Father looks for men who will worship him like that. God is spirit, and those who worship him can only worship in spirit and in reality.”
25 “Of course I know that Messiah is coming,” returned the woman, “you know, the one who is called Christ. When he comes he will make everything plain to us.” 26 “I am Christ speaking to you now,” said Jesus. John 4:21-26 (Phillips NT)
Thus we teach that in using the sacraments there must be a faith which believes these promises and accepts that which is promised and offered in the sacrament.
20 The reason for this is clear and well-founded. A promise is useless unless faith accepts it. The sacraments are signs of the promises. When they are used, therefore, there must be faith, so that anyone who uses the Lord’s Supper uses it this way. Because this is a sacrament of the New Testament, as Christ clearly says (1 Cor. 11:25), the communicant should be certain that the free forgiveness of sins, promised in the New Testament, is being offered to him. He should accept this by faith, comfort his troubled conscience, and believe that the testimonies are not false but as certain as though God, by a new miracle, promised his will to forgive. For that matter, what good would such miracles or promises do an unbeliever?
21 Here we are talking about personal faith, which accepts the promise as a present reality and believes that the forgiveness of sins is actually being offered, not about a faith which believes in a general way that God exists.
22 Such use of the sacrament comforts devout and troubled minds.
Man is always looking for the right way of honoring God, for a form of prayer and common worship that pleases God and is appropriate to his nature. In this connection, we must remember that originally the word “orthodoxy” did not mean, as we generally think today, right doctrine. In Greek, the word doxa means, on the one hand, opinion or splendor. But then in Christian usage it means something on the order of “true splendor”, that is, the glory of God. Orthodoxy means, therefore, the right way to glorify God, the right form of adoration. In this sense, orthodoxy is inward “orthopraxy”. If we go back to the word’s origins, the modern opposition disappears. It is not a question of theories about God but of the right way to encounter him. This, then, was seen as Christian faith’s great gift: we know what right worship is. We know how we should truly glorify God—by praying and living in communion with the Paschal journey of Jesus Christ, by accomplishing with him his Eucharistia, in which Incarnation leads to Resurrection—along the way of the Cross.
I came across some big and heavy quotes in my reading this morning. But they center around that encounter with God we call worship.
In my opinion, this word is what makes life worth living, and I hope, in writing this, I can convince you of that as well. But to do so, we have to come to a definition of worship, a way of understanding it that can be commonly accepted.
Worship is what the lady at the well experienced, it is an encounter with God. For one cannot encounter Him without experiencing the love and mercy that is what is His glory, and our hearts respond in worship, in adoration. As the early Lutherans agreed it accepts the promise of God in the sacrament as a present reality, It is what Pope Benedict simplifies orthodoxy too (much to my amazement, as I have been teaching this for years!) it is the right way to encounter Him.
It is no surprise then that both a pope and the early Lutherans testified that this worship, this right praise is linked to the sacraments, especially the sacrament of the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper. For during that time of worship, every bit of our body is involved in recognizing that we are in God’s presence. From our voices testifying that this is the lamb of God who takes away our sins, to our knees bent in supplication and adoration, to our hands and mouths receiving His precious Body and Blood, we encounter Him.
We encounter Him as He promised He would come to us, as He asked us to know Him, to recognize His presence with us. This isn’t just some boring rite, some meaningless practice that can be overlooked. The Lord’s supper and the other times we encounter God in word and Sacrament ministry are precious because they bring comfort and the remainder of the peace that is ours because of Jesus.
And in the midst of this broken world, as we dwell in the midst of trauma, we need that reassurance, we need that reminder of what is real, that we are the children of God,
Knowing that makes life worth living, it makes it precious,
We are His, come celebrate that with us, and with the God who draws us together!
Tappert, Theodore G., ed. The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press, 1959. Print.
Ratzinger, Joseph. The Spirit of the Liturgy. Trans. John Saward. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000. Print.
Joy and the emotional rollercoaster of Christmas
Devotional thought for our days:
9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth h in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. 10 As soon as He came up out of the water, He saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending to Him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: You are My beloved Son; I take delight in You!
12 Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. t 13 He was in the wilderness 40 days, being tempted u by Satan. v He was with the wild animals, w and the angels x began to serve Him. Mark 1:9-13 HCSB
Thus we are told that only through Christ did real joy appear and that in our life, in the last analysis, nothing matters more than coming to recognize and to understand Christ, the God of grace, the light and the joy of the world. Only then will our joy be true, when it no longer relies on things that can be snatched away from us and can perish, but when it is rooted in the innermost core of our existence, which no power in all the world is able to take away from us. And every outward loss ought to become for us a pathway into these innermost realms and to prepare us ever more for our true life.
Christmas is an emotional rollercoaster of epic extremes. To go from the pressure of rushing around, trying to find perfect gifts, to the moments where a hug from a friend or relative means everything, to the loneliness that occurs, as we realize who we are missing in our life. Like being on the roller coaster, we are not in control, and we don’t always know how to prepare for the next drop or the corkscrewing turn.
For those in ministry, the roller coaster includes our ministry, as well as our own “private” lives. Often we go from trying to reconcile a divided family, to celebrate a service with joy, to worrying about a friend in surgery or recovery, to being there while another friend mourns. And we get to tell everyone that there is JOY in this world!
The reading from Mark’s gospel helps this morning, as we see Jesus going from His miraculous baptism, from hearing the Father’s cry of delight, immediately into the desert, to be assaulted by Satan. From the purity of a sacred moment, into the assault and oppression of Satan himself.
Jesus knows our roller coasters, he knows all too well our brokenness, our struggle with our emotions trying to keep up with the moment’s challenge. In revealing His love, in dying on the cross and rising again, He comes into our lives. and brings peace.
This is what Pope Benedict is talking about as he teaches about joy, this joy that comes from realizing that we are in the presence of Jesus. as we are given the hope of glory, as we are comforted by the presence of the Holy Spirit. The roller coaster doesn’t disappear, but we realize there will be a time when this ride ends, and we will share in His glory.
If I have learned anything about Christmas and its emotional rollercoaster, it is this. In order to survive it, I need to spend some time, looking at the manger, trying to put myself there, realizing that the Lord came into our lives because He loves us. Then, hearing Him reveal HIs love, we find the deepest peace, and in that peace, joy.
God has given Himself to us, fully. Think on that, focus on it, as we prepare to celebrate it, together.
Ratzinger, Joseph. Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year. Ed. Irene Grassl. Trans. Mary Frances McCarthy and Lothar Krauth. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992. Print.
The Paradox of Peace
Devotional Thought for our Seemingly Broken Days:
9 These wise teachers will fall into the trap of their own foolishness, for they have rejected the word of the LORD. Are they so wise after all? 10 I will give their wives to others and their farms to strangers. From the least to the greatest, their lives are ruled by greed. Yes, even my prophets and priests are like that. They are all frauds. 11 They offer superficial treatments for my people’s mortal wound. They give assurances of peace when there is no peace. Jeremiah 8:9-11 (NLT)
311 Everything seems so peaceful. God’s enemy, however, is not asleep… The Heart of Jesus is also awake and watching! There lies my hope.
Since the devil is not only a liar but also a murderer,3 he incessantly seeks our life and vents his anger by causing accidents and injury to our bodies. He breaks many a man’s neck and drives others to insanity; some he drowns, and many he hounds to suicide or other dreadful catastrophes.
116 Therefore there is nothing for us to do on earth but to pray constantly against this arch-enemy. For if God did not support us, we would not be safe from him for a single hour.
And in despair I bowed my head
There is no peace on earth I said
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men
It has, in the last few years, become my favorite Christmas song, replacing “What Child is This.” “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is based on a poem by Longfellow, whose story seems like a modern Job.
In the verse above, we see the paradox of peace. As we see it in the prophet Jeremiah’s description of his time, when those who taught and led Israel would tell them there is true peace, and ignore the gaping wounds and despair their people were suffering because there was no peace. Their proclamation of peace simply was a band-aid, not put in place to bring healing, but simply to hide what was underneath.
It is in recognizing the despair that we can know peace, it is dealing with the mortal wound, that we can see the healing fo God which leaves us in true peace. This is the paradox that peace is.
I have seen this too many times, even as recent as last night, when in the midst of tears, of heartbreak and grief, a sense of peace that leaves us in awe floods a sanctuary. Even as the tears flow, there is something, you hear it in the voices singing His praises. It is hard to address the brokenness – but it is so prevalent in our lives, we can’t just cover it up and ignore it.
I think the illusion of peace provides the scenario that St Josemaria mentions, where under the illusion, the facade of peace, Satan and his minions are not asleep, but hard at work. (And yes, Satan is real, not just a mythical explanation for evil.) He is the one who would have us project peace when there is not. He would have us dismiss the havoc, the anger, and hatred, the misery, and grief, allowing people to dwell in despair, blinded to the idea of hope.
That is how Satan can do what Luther describes him doing. Satan could not keep Christ in the grave, and so his desire now is not just the glorification of evil, that it simply a means to his end. His end game now is simple, to keep Christ from living in our hearts, in our lives, and through us redeeming the rest of the world. He would stop us from being drawn to Jesus, to the mercy and love, and the peace that comes when we depend on Jesus for all of our life.
You see, that is the greatest paradox of peace. It is known, not in the absence of conflict and pain, but it is found there, in the violence and anguish of the cross. It is not found in ignoring the mortal wound, but found in the wounds of Christ crucified, It is not found in covering the brokenness with a holiday facade, but in the body broken, and the blood shared.
For there at the cross where Jesus was broken there is found peace, for there, untied to Him, we find the glorious peace that comes from knowing the immeasurable love of God for us.
This is what we need to experience, a love so amazing, so overwhelming, that doesn’t hide the brokenness, but bring to its healing, and comfort. That notes the mortal wound and pain and brings healing through the resurrection.
This is our hope, especially in these days…
So be drawn to God, allow Him to comfort you in your despair, Then, you will dwell in the glorious peace of God, which is beyond all understanding, but which Christ guards you, your heart and soul and mind. AMEN!
The Forge (Kindle Locations 1252-1255). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Tappert, Theodore G., ed. The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press, 1959. Print.
The Visit of the Peace of Christmas Past
The Visit of Peace of Christmas Past
Isaiah 11:6-10
† I.H.S. †
May the peace of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ bring you great peace, as you bring the Christmas message of Immanuel to the World!
Whose Christmas Past?
As Ebenezer Scrooge met the ghost of Christmas Past, he had one question. He asked the shadowy ghost was whether it was there to talk about Christmas long past, or the Christmas of His past.
And as we look at the peace of Christmas past, that is still a good question, to begin with, are we talking about the peace of Christmas long past, or the peace of our Christmas past.
Some of you are saying, “What’s the difference!”
For tonight – we will answer the Lutheran way, that is, both the Christmas of long past and the Christmases of our past…
For Jesus brings peace to the past.
Was the Past that Peaceful?
Many need to bring to Jesus that peace to their past Christmas.
Maybe there were years when the world was at war, or maybe it was just their families that were divided and broken. Maybe It was broken hearts that couldn’t understand how everyone else could be joyous and happy. Maybe it was finances that challenged them, or addictions or their health or the health of those they love.
Many of us have some good memories, but also hard ones, and those steal away the peace, for the moment.
In Isaiah’s passage this evening, we heard a promise made to people that were challenged with many of the same challenges. Many of them dealt with broken families, broken finances, broken by sin and shame, with heartache. Which was why peace seemed impossible, as impossible as natural enemies that would forgo the violence, and instead find peace with each other.
Such a passage would mean nothing special, if there was peace at the time. For what division would be reconciled, what anger would be calmed, what relationships would need to be healed? Isaiah’s promise revealed that this would happen….that they could wait for it
And that is promise in which God’s people trusted. Because of that promise, and His Spirit confirming it, they could find peace in the mist of the chaos. They could wait for the cross which was to come, they could wait for the point when all would be reconciled together in the death of Christ, just as we wait for the day when all is reconciled in His resurrection. They knew the brokenness that they endured in their society would fade. God had promised it.
When our eyes are on God’s promise we can wait as well, Looking at the Christmas’s in our past, as we realize that the peace of God was with us, even in the middle of the fights, the anxiety, the frustrations and pain. He sustained us in our Christmas past, just as He sustained them.
We could look forward because of the promise
Each visit of the ghosts taught Scrooge something, in Dicken’s parable, and as we look at the visit of the peace of Christmas Past, we realize that the peace we knew then is the peace that we know now, a peace that looks forward, trusting in God to do finish what He has completed in us.
A peace that enables us to look forward to the day when lambs and wolves relax together, and nothing hurts or destroys anymore, to the day where we live with Him will be a glorious place.
It is the peace that hope gives us that we are sustained in now, as Jesus keeps us safe in that peace. AMEN!!
Of all people, SHE was the one? Amazing!
Devotional Thought for our days:
9 Then the Angel of the LORD said to her, “You must go back to your mistress and submit to her mistreatment.”
13 So she called the LORD who spoke to her: The God Who Sees, for she said, “In this place, have I actually seen e the One who sees me?” 14 That is why she named the spring, “A Well of the Living One Who Sees Me.” It is located between Kadesh and Bered. Genesis 16:9, 13-14
140 Live your Christian life with naturalness! Let me stress this: make Christ known through your behaviour, just as an ordinary mirror reproduces an image without distorting it or turning it into a caricature. If, like the mirror, you are normal, you will reflect Christ’s life, and show it to others.
God told her to go back where she was being mistreated.
I struggle to wrap my mind around what God was doing. Who is this God who would send a poor slave back to her owner, to undergo more mistreatment? To send her back to where she was told to commit adultery, to conceive a baby by a man who would never love her, who would later (see chapter 21) abandon her and her son.
Why did God send her back? Why would he not just take care fo them then and there?
Another question needs ot be asked though, one that we really need to ponder.
Why was she the one who got to see God face to face? Why did she have the great assurance that God would even listen to her prayers? Look at the name of the place, see Hagar’s faith.
The One who sees me….
There are times where wonder why God would bother with me. There are other times where I wonder why He would place me where he does so often, dealing with people who are in more trauma than I comprehend.
That’s when Hagar’s faith, this lady who was overlooked, taken for granted, given the worst work ( the idea of having to be involved with the 85-year-old spouse of her mistress must have been a bit traumatic) and not cared for, yet God came to her. God was met her face to face and ensured Her of His presence in her life and in her sons.
As He is in ours. He sees us… you and I.
Assured of that, I can live life, praying that my life is that mirror, that people looking at me see God. And then, I can find some peace… in awe of the glory of God that surrounds us. For He sees us.
Amazing love, how can it be?
I don’t know how… but I sure need it, and it is surely there.
AMEN!
Escriva, Josemaria. The Forge (Kindle Locations 690-693). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
How Do We Deal With All the Trauma?
The Good Shepherd, carrying His own.
Devotional Thought for our days
15 Share the happiness of those who are happy, the sorrow of those who are sad. 16 Live in harmony with each other. Don’t become snobbish but take a real interest in ordinary people. Don’t become set in your own opinions. Romans 12:15-16 (Phillips NT)
15 Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, 16 and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? 17 So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. James 2:15-17 (NLT)
When the news just makes us exclaim “What a disaster!” and, then, we turn the page immediately or change the channel, we have destroyed our “fellowship,” we have further widened the gap that separates us.
It seems so much of my email is filled with news of trauma, or shortly thereafter, with appeals for money to care for the victims.
Houston, Florida, Puerto Rico, Las Vegas, Tennessee, now the victims of the California wildfires. And that is only the events in the USA. There were Typhoons hitting Macao and Hong Kong, earthquakes in Mexico, and other traumas caused by men in England and other places.
There there are the traumas that are even closer to home. A friend’s daughter passes away, another friend is dealing with a spouse whose illness is beyond their ability to cope with, other friends are struggling with cancer or even a pinched nerve.
And like I said, I am then deluged with the requests to help. Houston is a good example. Four friends are working with different church groups – all affiliated together. They each ask for money, as does the district of our denomination. I even received a request from another district to support their work in arranging for help for the district affected! This doesn’t include all the churches and para-church organizations that spammed my email, for surely a pastor would help them?
Part of me wants to react as Pope Francis described, just turn the page, just delete the email. Part of me wants to write letters to each group that seems less than above board, or those that insist their group is more in need or more deserving of money and tries to manipulate using guilt or shame, or hyper-emotional appeal.
And then I wonder if I am becoming too hard, too cynical, to suspicious, to callous. What is the reaction all this is causing in my heart? Am I allowing my fellowship with humanity to be destroyed? Will i end up on an island, with a huge gaping hole separating me from the rest of the world? Or us the only other option to burn out, emotionally, physically, financially? Will my faith become dead, because I can no longer bring myself to act? Will I try to justify that by simply saying the system is overloaded?
I think the answer comes from the passage in Romans, this idea of living in harmony with each other. The example being weeping with those who weep, laugh with those laughing. To take the focus from just giving a donation, to actually being with those who are in need. ( One might say that just dropping 50 or 1000 bucks into an envelope may not meet the help they really need) To be compassionate, to love, for there we find ourselves helping. Not just within the circle of friends we have, but with people we encounter, every day.
And mostly, the answer comes from trusting God, knowing His presence, hearing His voice, following His lead. For as we walk with Him, as we depend upon Him, we find the needs, and the resources he would have us meet. Often those far different than we would have thought of… and yet, the peace and joy, even amidst the tears, confirms the presence of God.
Here is the point. Too often we rely only on our own strength, our own wisdom, our won will, overlooking the obvious, the presence of God. As we cry out, “Lord have mercy,” we need ot rely on that mercy, even as we help others see it. That will eradicate the gap that separates us, as we fellowship together with Him.
Pope Francis. A Year with Pope Francis: Daily Reflections from His Writings. Ed. Alberto Rossa. New York; Mahwah, NJ; Toronto, ON: Paulist Press; Novalis, 2013. Print.
