Nothing is Wasted

I signed up for everything I am living right now.  It is not that big a deal.  Not one of the things that annoy me is a real trial--just a steady drip of annoyances.  

But so often my reactions are out of proportion to the irritation and my attitude reflects a loss of eternal perspective.
  
Heaven help me if I am ever asked to do the really big stuff--like suffer persecution or go without food or lose one of my beloveds.  

The funny thing is the way God flicked me on the ear to remind me of that reality tonight during family devotions.  

We read 1 Kings 19 this evening. In the previous chapter, (which we read yesterday) Elijah had just pulled off his fantastic performance around the alter with the priests of Baal.  

There were the dramatic preparations, the dancing and self-mutilation by the false prophets, the cleverly sarcastic comments from Elijah, the ultimate humiliation of the false god, the powerful prayer to the God of Israel, and then--the fireworks!! Gorgeous victory.  Dramatic demonstration of the power of God.  

So that was last night's reading.  

But somehow tonight we found Elijah sitting under a broom tree, praying for his own death.  (1 Kings 19:4)  

What happened to the mighty mocking warrior of God from the last chapter?  

Well, he was faced with the reality that, although God often pulls off the dramatic rescue, He is not required to.

Sometimes the hard, ugly ending has to be borne to accomplish a hidden purpose--and that is a heavy knowledge.  

The other men of God in Israel--hundreds of them--had presumably been faithful servants too.  And they had been driven into hiding by the army of Ahab, who hunted them like animals, and slaughtered them one by one by one.  

And now Jezebel had just given Elijah a very personal death threat.  And that burden was too great for his strength. 

It's hard explain why that was a comfort, and why I felt it was a message to me.  Elijah's reaction to his circumstances was not the one that any of us would wish to have, but it is the one we sometimes DO have, even in the face of much lesser trials.  

And what does God do when he finds his servant lying under a tree, praying for death?  Berate Elijah for his lack of faith? Fire him? Smite him down? (Another reason everyone can be glad I am not God; I'm a smiter at my core.)

No.  God tenderly feeds Elijah, allows him rest, encourages him ("the journey is too much for you") and then shows Him his might in hopes that Elijah would gain strength and perspective.
  
1 Kings 19:11-13

¹¹ The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. 

After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  

¹² After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. 

And after the fire came a gentle whisper.  

¹³ When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Before that dramatic revelation of Himself, the Lord had come to Elijah and asked him, "What are you doing here"? (verse 9) 

 Elijah's answer sounds to me like a bunch of self pity, mixed with some bragging and a dollop of accusation.  

(verse 10)  "I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty.  The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword.  I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too."  Sniff.  (I added that)

So, in response to Elijah's lack of faith, God shows His presence.  He pulls out all the stops!  

"Look, Elijah!  Can Jezebel match this power?  Are you not safe with me?"

And then afterward, God asks Elijah the same question! 

"What are you doing here"?
 
I can almost sense (forgive me if I am reading into this) an expectation there--like maybe He is hoping for a different answer from his servant.  

A renewed sense of the bigger picture perhaps?  A strengthening of the backbone?  A re-igniting of the passion?  

Surely He wasn't asking because he had forgotten Elijah's first response!  

Which makes Elijah's response both funny and sad at the same time because he gives the same exact answer.  

Almost as if he was so focused on himself that he can't break out of the loop. 

How many times, as a parent, have I had one of my brilliant soliloquies fall flat like this. (No fire or broken mountains, but still--pretty convincing.)

You love your kids, you identify a need, you hand them the key, they stare at their naval and hand you the same line they started with.  

And at those times, even in my disappointment, it hits me between the eyes. The picture has two levels.  Me with my child.  God with me.  Brilliant!

In the same way, I LOVE what happens next in this story (this is where I got my flick).  When we read tonight, there just happened to be a long pause between verse 14 and 15. (I think our little reader lost his place:)  

Anyway, there was silence in the space between where Elijah gives God his "pre-recorded" answer and God's final response to him.  In that quietness, Elijah's petulant words just hit the ground in our living room.   

It was almost like I could picture God just staring at Elijah, in love and frustration and pity, waiting--hoping he would sense the power, get the message, catch the vision. 

But Elijah didn't.  At least not at that moment.

And so God started talking again.  

Did He bake Elijah some more bread, maybe rub his feet a little, bring him a drink?  

Did He try again to wow Elijah with wind and pyrotechnics? 

Did He let him live a while longer in his pity party?

Nope.  God came out with marching orders.  Go here.  Then do that.  Anoint him and him and him.  Take this road.  This is your part and this is what will come after you are gone.  

Do it.

As if to say, "Get your eyes back on Me and do it, Elijah.  I'm sorry you ignored My power and missed the lesson.  It was good, and I would have liked for you to catch it,  but at least millions of future followers will be moved by the retelling of what you missed."

"And no matter how you feel, you still need to do your job."

But even then, God ends with tender encouragement for his servant.  "Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel--all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him." verse 18

Yes, Elijah-child.  You can't see it, but there are seven thousand souls in my sight, whom I will preserve.  I know them each intimately.  The risks they have taken for my sake, the purity they have maintained.

They are mine.  You are too.  

And so, Elijah, do your job.  I am with you.  They are with you.  

And you are not alone.

The View from the Pit

I was reading to the little boys from Exodus today, and we got to the part where Pharoah says to his Israelite slaves: "I will not give you any more straw.  Go and get your own straw wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced at all.." (Exodus 5:11)

Then the passage goes on to say how the Israelites "scattered all over Egypt" to find the straw, how the slave drivers pressed them and beat them, how the Israelite foremen pleaded with the Pharaoh to relent, how he refused, and how the hearts of the slaves turned against Moses, the one who had "made us a stench to Pharaoh and his officials and has put a sword in their hand to kill us." (verse 21)

It is 17 verses.  It took me three minutes to read them, and then we got caught up in the drama of the plagues, and the ultimate deliverance several chapters later where the Egyptians not only granted them freedom, but also handed over most of the gold and silver in the kingdom.  

Nice story.  Great impact.

But later on I started thinking about how it is easy to get swept up in the grand victory of that story and forget that those 17 verses contained real days that real people had to live through.  Horrible days. Days marked with uncertainty and dread, and pain.  

Wives and children probably ran through the fields in desperation, the relentless African sun beating down on them, grasping after meager handfuls of the dry grass that meant the difference between life and death for their husbands and fathers.  

There would have been blood and the sound of screaming as the slaves crumbled under the impossible weight of the work and the cruelty of the physical beatings.

Moses probably watched in helplessness and horror as God's plan--the one he openly advocated--seemingly went awry.  

In fact, he said as much when he cried, "O Lord, why have you brought trouble upon this people?  Is this why you sent me?  Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble upon this people, and YOU HAVE NOT RESCUED YOUR PEOPLE AT ALL." (Exodus 5: 22,24 emphasis mine)

I couldn't stop thinking about the weight of those days on the people that lived them.  How easy it is to sweep my eyes over the pages of those stories, or the stories in the news, without realizing the full horror of the evil they contain.  

Then, later today I thought of Joseph, and the time he spent looking up at a small circle of sky from the bottom of the cistern where his brothers had thrown him.  He knew his brothers well.  He probably knew they were capable of killing him.  

It is a handful of verses, and an exciting climax to the beginning of Joseph's rags to riches story, but it was real hours to him.  The bruises and blood from the fall, the cold darkness, the dread of a lonely, lingering death.  What did he think? 

 How about the years he spent in prison, waiting on the caprices of a fickle Pharaoh? It would have been a day. 

And another day. 

And another day.  

And along the way, a TOTAL stripping of the expectations of a "successful" life or the fulfillment of his dreams.  

What about the long walk that Abraham took with his son to Mount Moriah?  That didn't happen in the five minutes span it takes to read about it.  Each step must have been torture.  Every glance at his precious son during that journey must have torn Abraham's heart. 

And how about the disciples on the night before the crucifixion, who having given up everything for their beloved Teacher, were now watching their dreams for an earthly kingdom crumble?  

Tensions were rising.  The betrayer had gone to complete his horrible treason.  Peter, one of the inner circle, had had his fearful heart laid bare before the other disciples when Christ predicted his impending denial. 

Their hearts were filled with grief as they came to realize that Rome would stand and Christ would fall.   Can it be possible that the those men were not living every second and minute and hour amid waves of disbelief and anguish?  

I can see it in the text when Peter repeatedly asks Jesus, "Where are you going?" and "Why can't I come?" (John 13:36,37)

And when Thomas says, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" 

And again when Judas (not Iscariot) pleads, "Lord, what has happened that you intend to show yourselves to us and not to the world." (John 14:22)

I want to be careful not to manipulate the Scripture to fit my imaginings, but I think a plain reading of these stories (and so many others) communicates palpable fear, confusion, panic, sometimes despair among the people of God. What happened to the plan?  Where is the protection?  

We thought we were on the path (Job).

In the know (Elijah).

Part of the team (Israelite wanderers...and prophets...and kings).  

But there they all are, at some point or another, lying on their backs, the wind knocked out of them, their escape hatch closed, blinking in wonderment at an unfamiliar sky. 

Who let in the pain?  

OK, unfortunately, this is not the part of the blog where I pull some pretty words out of my gullet, answer all the tough questions, and put a shiny, linguistic bow on the top.  

I am still walking through my equivalent of seventeen verses in Exodus.  

It seems that just when I am pulling my chin over the top of the bar, the State of Michigan, or an agency regulation, or a non-compliant female personage whose children I am currently raising--or my own nasty reaction to one of the above--latches onto my ankles.  (It is a long story, and I'm not going to go into it today.)

The point is, I never was good at pull-ups, even when I don't have extra weight on my ankles.  

And maybe that is the only point.  

I'm NOT good at this on my own, and it IS good when I remember that, even though it usually takes being thrown into a well to make me face it.  

A Psalmist said it beautifully when he wrote, 

"Praise our God, O peoples,

let the sound of his praise be heard;

he has preserved our lives

and kept our feet from slipping.

For you, O God, tested us;

you refined us like silver.

You brought us into prison

and laid burdens on our backs.

You let men ride over our heads;

we went through fire and water,

but you brought us to a place of abundance."
Psalm 66 

We have to be emptied so we can be filled.  

Not fun, but necessary.

I read the passage from John 14 tonight during my evening prayers.  I came to it in weariness, aching from another missed visit, more hurt and anger, another layer of drama in a life that often doesn't even resemble the one I dreamed I would have.  

Kneeling at my bench by the window in my room, I really felt the truth of my reality--actually it's the reality of every one of us, all the time, we just don't want to admit it.  

The truth is, we don't just occasionally feel weak.  We ARE weak.  

We don't just get tired.  We ARE tired.  Down to our bones.  Tired from the weight of our own sin and the pain of the sin of others.  

I am not sad because I have sad things happen to me.  I am sad because at my core I am homesick for the place where I will become what I was created  to be--with the One who gave Himself to make that possible.  

No matter how we try to cover it up with distractions and distortions, diversions and delusions, we are striving with death here.

Paul said it best in Romans 7. " So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."

There's the only bright star in this post!  The passage I read tonight in John was the reminder I wouldn't have heeded when I was 27 and still wearing my "Sandra--Defender of Mankind" cape.  (That is the actual meaning of my name.  Makes me chuckle:)  

When  Jesus said, "I shall not leave you orphans; I shall come to you," I don't just get warm fuzzies anymore.  I grab those words and clutch them to my chest. 

John 14:22 "Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy,"  is not just a platitude, it is a lifeline.  It makes me cry with happiness!

"I will never leave you or forsake you."  "Come to me, you tired and heavy laden, and I will give you rest."  "Cast all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you."  

Yes!  Yes!  

They don't explain the reasons behind every trial, but they speak to the glorious call of a God who does not just forgive my sins and send me on my way, but rather beckons me to come and trade my poverty for riches, my loneliness for companionship, my earthly death for eternal life with Him. 

"We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved." (Romans 8:23, 24a)

Wonderful stuff!  And just the thing to keep me whistling as I peer at my circle of sky, waiting...

Psalm 71:14-21

As for me, I will always have hope;
    I will praise you more and more.

¹⁵ My mouth will tell of your righteous deeds,
    of your saving acts all day long—
    though I know not how to relate them all.
¹⁶ I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, Sovereign Lord;
    I will proclaim your righteous deeds, yours alone.
¹⁷ Since my youth, God, you have taught me,
    and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds.
¹⁸ Even when I am old and gray,
    do not forsake me, my God,
till I declare your power to the next generation,
    your mighty acts to all who are to come.

¹⁹ Your righteousness, God, reaches to the heavens,
    you who have done great things.
    Who is like you, God?
²⁰ Though you have made me see troubles,
    many and bitter,
    you will restore my life again;
from the depths of the earth
    you will again bring me up.
²¹ You strengthen me more and more, 

you enfold and comfort me.