When the Friendship Grows Cold

There are few things more painful in this life than broken relationships or friendships that have grown cold. The loss feels cavernous and crushing. The void in the heart is astounding.  The mental anguish is dizzying. In such times, it’s not unusual to wonder, “What could I have done differently?” And when you’re the cause of the broken relationship, it’s natural to ask, “How can I fix this?”

Usually, humility, confession, and a sincere apology are the keys to rebuilding a lost friendship. Admitting your faults and being willing to change your hurtful behaviors are always necessary for a restored relationship.

As with human relationships, even more so with God.

Today we are in the book of Joel.  Joel was one of the earliest prophets and gave his message to the people of Judah. He was speaking to people who had allowed their relationship with God to grow cold.  They had lost sight of God in the midst of their affluence.  Abundance had caused them to take God for granted and to forget the One who had provided for them from the beginning.  They became “ME” focused and “good life” focused and it deeply damaged their relationship with the God who loved them.

As Joel spoke, it was on the heels of a terrible plague of locusts that had devoured every green thing, leaving only desolation. This led to a famine that was followed by an awful drought. People and animals were dying for lack of food and water. He described the devastation graphically, calling the old men to confirm that there had never been one like it before (Joel 1:2). Even those who would typically be numbed out to calamity, the drunkards, felt the effect of it, for the wine producing vines had been destroyed (1:5). Priests could not perform their religious duties because there was no meat offerings or drink offerings of wine to offer in sacrifice (1:9). Cattle and sheep cried out in the fields (1:13).

Joel called the people to see the cause of the calamity as being of their own doing. Joel realized that these natural disasters suffered by the people of Judah were God’s way of getting their attention.  Many centuries earlier Moses had warned that disobedience to God’s plan would lead to such catastrophes (Deuteronomy 28:38-39). God’s intention was to show the people their true helplessness and lack of control so that they might turn back to him. Only in a healthy relationship with God is there any real security in this life.  But this always requires us to lose our self-sufficiency.

Joel sought to bring the people to real life-changing repentance. He knew that God wanted the people to come with torn and broken hearts and not shallow, external, religious posturing. “The Lord says, ‘Turn to me now, while there is time! Give me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping and mourning. Don’t tear you clothing in your grief, tear you hearts.’ Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful. He is not easily angered. He is filled with kindness and is eager not to punish you. Who knows? Perhaps even yet he will give you a reprise, sending you a blessing instead of this terrible curse. Perhaps he will give you so much that you will be able to offer grain and wine to the LORD your God as before!” (Joel 2:12-14).

Many of us have suffered through our own life’s “plagues.” Because of our negligence in our relationship with God or through our own foolish actions, we suffer painful consequences and overwhelming circumstances. This experience of helplessness is designed to cause us to seek God anew.  When the friendship has grown cold, God says, “Come back to me! Commit yourself to me. Look at your heart to see what has gotten in the way of us. Be willing to remove whatever it might be and allow Me to help you to change.  I want to change your pain into joy by giving you my Spirit anew!”

Mercy from God

“We do not ask because we deserve help, but because you are so merciful,” (Daniel 9:18).

Daniel was pleading to God on behalf of himself and his people.  Though he was not responsible for the downfall of Judah, nevertheless as a member of God’s people, he identified himself with the sinfulness of the nation. He was an innocent bystander in the destruction of his land, yet he suffered with them through his forced captivity in Babylon.  But Daniel’s innocence didn’t keep him from praying and fasting and pleading to God for release. Neither did he blame God for their predicament. Instead, Daniel cried out to God on behalf of his people. He acted as an intercessor, or go-between, as he approached God to seek reconciliation.

Notice Daniel’s honesty as he confesses to God regarding the sins of his people. He says:

• “We have sinned and done wrong. We have rebelled against you and scorned your commands and regulations,” (v 5).
• “We have refused to listen to your servants the prophets,” (v 6).
• We have been “disloyal” to you (v 7).
• “We have not obeyed the LORD our God, for we have not followed the laws he gave us,” (v 10).
• “All Israel has disobeyed your law and turned away, refusing to listen to your voice,” (v 11).
• “We have refused to seek mercy from the LORD our God by turning from our sins and recognizing his truth,” (v13).
• “We have sinned and are full of wickedness,” (v 15).

God had clearly revealed his will for his people and had told them what would happen if they abandoned him. Everything that occurred in the destruction of Jerusalem and the people’s exile was in keeping with what God had said through the Law of Moses and later through the prophets.  His judgment of Israel was not arbitrary but totally just (Daniel 9: 14) . He had warned and pleaded and sought to turn his people away from their sin and destructive tendencies through the prophets. But the people continually refused to believe his word and his message.  Daniel recognized this as he confessed: “You have done exactly what you warned you would do against us and our rulers… the troubles you predicted have taken place,” (Daniel 9: 12-13).

So what was the solution?  Daniel made no excuses but instead sought God’s mercy. He knew that God is a God who helps the needy. God’s heart is for those who are miserable, rejected and broken because of other’s actions or because of their own sin. Daniel declared, “But the Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him,” (Daniel 9:9).  Daniel boldly asked God to intervene and to bring about restoration, “Not because we deserve help, but because you are so merciful,” (Daniel 9: 18).  The people were not entitled to anything from God, but Daniel knew God’s heart and his character. He knew that God responds to broken hearts, real confession, and honest cries for mercy. He knew that only God could save them.

God has not changed. God is still just and God is still merciful. He has clearly revealed himself through the bible and has explicitly explained what happens to those who reject him. It’s important that we recognize that refusing to obey God’s will always has severe consequences. So often when we are confronted with our sinful behavior, we foolishly defend or rationalize our actions. Instead, we need to be honest about our lives and openly deal with God regarding our sin and hypocrisy. We need to acknowledge that only God can save and heal us. We need to turn away from our independence and self-reliance because only God can give us hope and the help we need. When we admit our powerlessness and turn to God with a humble and repentant heart, we too can be assured of his mercy. He delights in restoration and  desires to draw  us back into his arms.

 

 

 

Stripped Away

This week’s readings have really challenged us; particularly as we’re on vacation.  That’s way we haven’t posted this week; that and a very old computer that won’t connect to the internet with any predictability.  But we have continued to read along with each day’s readings and have been moved and disturbed by the book of Ezekiel.  Its a hard and discomfiting book–not the lightest fare for vacation time.  Nonetheless, we have found the Lord using it to sift our hearts and overturn some places that needed upending.

In Ezekiel 21, God makes this sweeping pronouncement through the prophet:  “Son of man, set your face against Jerusalem and preach against the sanctuary.Prophesy against the land of Israel 3 and say to her: ‘This is what the Lord says: I am against you. I will draw my sword from its sheath and cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked. 4 Because I am going to cut off the righteous and the wicked, my sword will be unsheathed against everyone from south to north.” (Ezekiel 21:2-4).  What a provocative statement; disturbing to say the least.  It is hard to imagine that God would allow the righteous to suffer the devastation of judgement along with the wicked.  What’s going on here?

So, let’s look back and remember that Ezekiel is among the exiled Jews who are living in captivity in Babylon.  As he prophesies in this chapter, his view is on the people “back home” in Jerusalem but his message has several intended targets.

First, he is announcing that judgement is coming upon Jerusalem because the people had abandoned their loyalty to God.  All our choices have consequences.  The place is going to be wiped out and no one will be spared; not even those who follow God.  This points to the fact that sin’s consequences affect other people.  It isn’t just the God deserters whose lives will be devastated; even the upright will suffer.  We see this today in our culture as well.  So many suffer injustice due to the poor decisions of others.  The breakdown of family systems in our country has profoundly affected generations who are growing up without healthy role models. Sadly, sin and its dreadful by-products can never be contained to individual lives —  sin cannot be isolated — it has a way of hurting those around us. Consider the case of an addict whose dependency brings underserved pain to their spouse, children, friends and co-workers. Think about the angry father whose verbal rants demoralize and destroy the members of his family. Consider the critical mother whose sharp tongue and disapproving comments wither the souls of her children. Yes, sin always overflows the individual and affects others in dreadful ways. So, the actions of the “wicked” will affect the lives of the “righteous.”

Next, God will use Jerusalem’s destruction to bring about another result. It will also affect the exiles. God’s intention is to cleanse and purify his people so that they will belong completely to him. He intends to bring a remnant of faithful people back from exile who are free of idolatry. Restoration is the ultimate goal. But the people in exile had not yet fully repented and returned to the Lord (even though they had been taken to exile!). The people continued to look back toward home and saw that Jerusalem and the temple were intact. They viewed these outward things and assumed that God was still for them. They were still synchretistic in their hearts — blending their identity as God’s people with the worship of other gods. It is amazing how deep denial runs in the human heart. They put their hope in externals (Jerusalem and the temple) while still running their lives according to their carnal desires. They were people who wanted it both ways. On the one hand they identified themselves with God and professed faith in him. On the other hand their actions proved otherwise. God knew that as long as Jerusalem stood, the people would avoid the real work of honest relationship with him and repenting of their sinful ways — of doing an internal housecleaning of the heart that was visible in their external lives. If Jerusalem fell and the temple was destroyed, the people would have to own the reality that they were out of relationship with God; that he would not tolerate them “dating” other gods; and that their hope had to be in him alone and not in any external, lesser thing.

So how does this apply to us?  We, too, can put our hope in externals while convincing ourselves that we are fully committed to God. We profess faith in Christ, but also hope in lesser things like family relationships, friendships, our churches, our spouse, a boyfriend/girlfriend, our health, our job or our finances. We too have a way of “dating” the lesser ‘gods’. We don’t call them this, nor do we tend to think of them this way, but in essence we make idols of anything in our lives in which we place our hope outside of Christ. An idol is usually a good thing that becomes an ultimate thing that we rely upon or trust in beyond our hope in God. It pulls our hearts away from him and affects our decision making and our choices. It is less that God’s perfect will for our lives. He wants our complete devotion; just as he has already given us his. And because he loves, he is willing to strip away any and every thing that competes for our complete dependence upon him.

How to pray in pain

“Cry aloud before the Lord, O walls of Jerusalem! Let your tears flow like a river. Give yourselves no rest from weeping day or night. Rise during the night and cry out. Pour out your hearts like water to the Lord. Lift up your hands to him in prayer,” (Lamentations 2:18-19).

Jerusalem has fallen. The people have been taken into exile. The Temple is destroyed. The walls of the city are demolished. And the prophet Jeremiah, the one who for so many years warned and pleaded and threatened the people of God, now laments with a broken heart the destruction that has come upon them. The language he uses in Lamentations is open and frank. He teaches us to cry aloud to God in our pain and to be honest before him in all situations; particularly when the pain of sin has caught up to us. We learn that we need not ever hold back the expression of our hearts from God.

For the Judean people, their pain was the result of sin.  It was sin that led to their destruction. The people now felt abandoned by God. Their pain and loss were almost beyond bearing. And Jeremiah mourned the tragedy. We must understand that unchecked sin always leads to devastating consequences. It may not seem that way at first, but ultimately sin brings sorrow and loss. Restoration can only begin in the midst of mourning and admitting the truth to God. This is what leads to God rebuilding our lives.

Many of the Jews believed that God would never bring destruction upon them no matter what they did.  Sometimes we can fall prey to this kind of dangerous denial too.  We take our theology of grace and election too far and assume it means we now have carte blanche before the Lord. No matter what we do, we think, grace will cover it all.  Lamentations provides a check to this foolishness and reminds us of our responsibility before God. He is still a holy, holy, holy God. We cannot assume that the Lord will protect his own at all cost and simply turn  his eye away from their sin.

Yet we know that God is not aloof to our pain.  The God who brought destruction because of sin is the same God who bore the judgment of that sin on the cross of Jesus Christ. God is not against us, but is for us and has forever demonstrated his love in the cross of his Son. His great purpose in each of our lives is to conform us to the image of Jesus. This means that he will perform a thorough work of purging us from sin and shaping us to reflect the One who has borne our sin and our sorrows.  The great hope we have is that no sin is so great that it puts us beyond the reach of God.  He is ever- ready to amend us and restore us and transform us when we turn to him with all our hearts.

So turn to him today. Be honest in your pain. Where there is sin, confess it and thoroughly turn from it.  Receive God’s mercy and cleansing.  And allow the restoration to begin.

The Power of Denial

Denial is a psychological defense mechanism that can lead to real and lasting devastation. Basically, denial is the refusal to acknowledge the existence of an unpleasant reality.   Denial was active in the lives of the people of Judah and particularly their king, Jehoiakim of Jerusalem. Jehoiakim absolutely refused to listen to the prophet Jeremiah’s predictions of the coming destruction by the Babylonians. He preferred to listen instead to the lies of the false prophets who continuously declared peace and low-cost deliverance. Jehoiakim wanted to believe that no harm would come to him despite how he lived. He wanted blessing without accountability. He was committed to keeping up the charade that God would not bring correction to His own people who had rebelled against Him. Jehoiakim’s denial was so complete that he even burned the scroll on which Jeremiah had recorded the Lord’s message. “”Whenever Jehudi finished reading three or four columns of the scroll, the king took his knife and cut off that section of the scroll. He then threw it into the fire, section by section, until the whole scroll was burned up. Neither the king nor his officials showed any signs of fear or repentance at what they heard,” (Jeremiah 36:23-24).

Jehoiakim was like so many us who pretend our sins will not catch up to us and who deny the consequences of our actions by ignoring them. As the old saying goes, denial is not just a river in Egypt—it is a force in all of our lives.  But to be whole people who live in freedom, we must face the truth about our actions. The only way to overcome our problems is to deal with them squarely before the Lord. Had Jehoiakim heard the words of the prophet and turned away from his sin, God would have spared him and brought healing. We know this is the case because that’s what happened with Johoiakim’s father Josiah.  When Josiah heard the words of the Book of Deuteronomy for the first time he tore his clothes in repentance and committed himself to a program of change.  Josiah received the merciful love of God because of his heartfelt and true response to God’s corrective word.  But such was not the case with his son. Jehoiakim chose instead to listen to the lying prophets and to reject God’s clear warning.

A life of freedom always comes through a commitment to truth.  Essentially, committing to truth is committing to God. We must be willing to hear what God’s word has to say about our lives and then respond accordingly.  Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free,” (John 8:32). Are there any “false prophets” in your life calling you away from the truth? Are you struggling to accept the reality of your actions and therefore living in a dangerous kind of denial? Are you rejecting what God has clearly pointed out to you as sin in your life?  May I encourage you to allow the Holy Spirit to search your heart and help you gain God’s perspective on what is really going on within you.  And then honestly turn to the Lord to be healed. Commit yourself to him and ask him to give you the power to change. With God, we never receive what our sins deserve. Instead we receive grace and mercy because God specializes in restoring that which is broken.

Is Anything Too Hard for God?

The Lord asked Jeremiah, “Is there anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27). It’s a profound question. It’s a question that is designed to evoke what one really believes about God. The obvious answer is, “No. Nothing is too hard for you God.”  Any reasonable person who believes in the Lord and has read the scriptures would have to come to this conclusion.  However, for a person who is hurting and struggling under the pain of life and/or the mistakes of their past, or for a person who can’t possibly see how things can change for the better, the question may be difficult to answer.

When God asked this question, he did so in the face of the destruction that was emerging upon Jerusalem. The place was about to be overrun by the Babylonians.  The siege engines were already against the walls. Downfall was imminent. The sins of the people had finally caught up to them. Their wanton rejection of God, who repeatedly had called them to change their minds and turn their lives back to him, had finally run its course. The inevitable destruction that God warned them would come had come.

In the midst of this impending doom, God began to speak words of hope to the people.  It began with God instructing Jeremiah to buy a piece of land from his cousin. Even though the Babylonians were about to overthrow everything, God used Jeremiah’s actions to show there was still hope. God was saying through Jeremiah that even though immediate loss was coming, restoration was on the horizon. Though the people would be sent into exile, they would one day return to their homeland and to normalcy. Jeremiah’s action was an investment in a future that God said would come. “Fields will again be bought and sold in this land about which you now say, ‘It has been ravaged by the Babylonians, a land where people and animals have all disappeared.’ Yes fields will once again be bought and sold…in the land of Benjamin and here in Jerusalem, in the towns of Judah and in the hill country…For someday I will restore prosperity to them. I, the Lord, have spoken,” (Jeremiah 32:43-44).

The impending exile was not intended by God to forever destroy the people. It was not the malicious act of a vindictive deity. It was designed for one purpose: to totally and thoroughly turn the people back to their God. God wanted his people to accept responsibility for their failures and bad choices. The exile would cause them to become thoroughly honest about themselves and to stop hiding from the truth of their unfaithfulness. When they finally got real with God and honestly sorrowed for their sins, his restoration would come. When they realized and admitted their need for God’s healing power, they would have it. “I will surely bring my people back from all the countries where I will scatter them in my fury. I will bring them back to this very city and let them live in peace and safety. They will be my people, and I will be their God. And I will give them one heart and mind to worship me forever, for their own good and for the good of all their descendants,” (Jeremiah 32:37-39).

Though the people faced judgment, judgment was not the last word.  It never is.  Hope is. The pain, the discipline, the destruction were merely tools designed to open hearts and pull them away from self-sufficiency. That’s what these things are always designed to do. They open the way for the inrushing of grace and the healing of the merciful and forgiving God.

Know this: no matter what you face today, God is for you and not against you. No matter how difficult your impending future looks, God is greater and has seen beyond the immediate. He’s already there waiting for you. He can and will see you through it, because nothing is too hard for the Lord.

Slow and Steady

Persistently. It means to exist for a longer than usual time often in the face of difficulty.  A person who is persistent continues a course of action without wavering. When I think of the word persistently, I am reminded of Aesop’s fable, “The Tortoise and the Hare.”  The moral of that story has become the well-known phrase, “Slow and steady wins the race.”  The idea is that consistent actions effect outcomes.  This is true in life in both a positive and negative sense.  What you do continuously over time determines your destiny.

Persistently is the word that Jeremiah uses for himself and for the people of God.  But he uses the word in polar ways to describe each of their responses to the message of God.  He says, “For twenty three years…the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened. You have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear, although the LORD persistently sent to you all his servants the prophets, saying, ‘Turn now, every one of you, from his evil way and evil deeds, and dwell upon the land that the LORD has given you and your fathers from of old and forever,” (Jeremiah 25:3-5).  For 23 years Jeremiah listened daily to what God had to say to him and he spoke that word faithfully to a group of people who with equal persistence refused to listen. While Jeremiah embodies a life well-lived before God (despite the incredible hardships and persecution he faced because of it), the people of God embody fickleness, spiritual lethargy, and impulsiveness that ends in emptiness and destruction.

When we fail to live daily listening to the word of God, our lives invariably are dominated by the whims and winds of this world and our own sinfulness. And this invariably leads to a fall. Many years ago as I was preparing to go to seminary, my desire was to attend a biblically-oriented school as opposed to the merely religiously-inspired institutions of my particular denomination (Episcopal). As I was praying and seeking God about this, my wife and I happened to be walking through the Audobon Swamp Garden near Charleston, SC.  We were looking at the various trees that had been uprooted by Hurricane Hugo. I noticed a commonality between the uprooted trees.  No matter what kind of tree it was and no matter how wide the roots of the particular tree were, the common factor among those trees toppled by the storm was a shallowness of roots. As I looked intently at the destruction before me, the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and whispered these words, “Unless you are rooted and grounded in my Word and in my Spirit, when the winds of apostasy and change begin to blow, you too will be toppled.”  I knew at that point that despite the persecution it might bring me from my own diocesan leadership, I had to go to seminary where they would teach me to know and listen to (and love) the word of God.

When we fail to listen persistently and when we refuse to come daily to hear what the Spirit of God has to say through the Scriptures, we can easily drift away from God like the Isrealites of Jeremiah’s day. They persistently failed to listen to the counsel, advice, correction and rebuke that God persistently sent them. As a pastor, I see this all the time as I deal with people who are dominated by their appetites and whose lives have become empty of commitment and purpose.  I regularly speak to people who live frantically busy lives that lack a sense of peace and groundedness.  I grieve as I see this trait being passed on to the next generation as children learn to bolt from one activity to the next, from camp to camp in the summer, and from lesson to sport to music in the school year.  Our culture is full of busy people determined to get ahead and grab their share of the good life, yet who do not listen daily to the word of the Lord.  And we wonder why our churches are so spiritually anemic and our nation seems to be in rapid decline.

Meanwhile, God is loving you. Persistently. He daily seeks time with you.  His heart is for you. He is dogged in this pursuit, yet not in a merely dutiful or drudging way. He is creative and surprising; steady but not boring. He will lead and guide you if you will simply learn listen to him.  Will you, like Jeremiah, choose to carve out the space in your life necessary to listen to God and commit daily and consistently to learn his ways?

Rumors of God

Have you ever had someone in your life that you first heard about through friends?  They would tell you all about this person and you would feel like you already knew them based on what you had heard.  You make assumptions, even judgments based on the stories recounted to you. You may decide this person is a hero or that they’re someone to avoid at all costs.  You might even warn other people away from this person.   And you’ve heard it all through “reliable” sources; rumors, really.  But you assume what you’ve heard must be the truth.  Later on, however, you have some real life interaction with this person and discover he or she is not at all what you expected.    You may leave pleasantly surprised or deeply disturbed.

Job worshiped and revered God all of his life.  He lived a good life and followed all the teachings about God, honoring God, and serving him.  But a long  season of challenge, affliction and hardship changed him.  Job is spent.  He has argued, wrestled, defended himself, and reconsidered all he knows about God.  Once God reveals himself to Job, however, Job realizes he has just known God by rumor.   Job is both relieved and disturbed by God’s self-revelation.  He is relieved because the long silence of the One he loves is over.  He is disturbed because he learns that he didn’t really know God at all.

The primary rumor by which Job has known God is perpetuated by his three friends.  That rumor is: If you are blameless and without sin, trouble won’t touch you.  Your behavior directly impacts the way your life goes.  If things are going wrong for you, it’s because you’ve done something wrong.  The prescription for this is: Fix it and everything will turn around.  Many of us know intellectually that this isn’t true, yet our hearts insist otherwise.  When bad thing happen, we immediately do an inventory and wonder if certain actions or sins have caused our trouble.  While poor choices do have their consequences, there is no hard and fast rule that says, “If you’re good, nothing will go wrong for you.”  You can change your behavior and the challenge you’re facing may continue anyway. That’s what Job discovered.

But this changed when God revealed himself to Job.  Job dropped his false understanding of God and admitted, “I babbled about things far beyond me, made small talk about wonders way over my head,” (Job 42:3 Msg). Ultimately, God’s self-revelation not only righted Job’s misunderstandings, but also led Job to a place of humility and acceptance. “I admit I once lived by rumors of you; now I have it all firsthand – from my own eyes and ears! I’m sorry – forgive me. I’ll never do that again, I promise! I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor,” (Job 42: 4-6 Msg).

Do you really know God or do you rely on “hearsay” and “crumbs of rumor” about him?  The good news is that you can know him intimately and personally.  God has revealed himself in a myriad of ways to us.  We can know him as the Holy Spirit reveals God to us in Scripture, through other believers, through creation, through the events of our lives.  We can know him most clearly through his Son Jesus Christ, who is the very image of the invisible God. It’s important when we face trials like those Job faced that we not rely on misinformation or rumors of God. Like Job, we need to sit with God in the pain and questioning until God clearly reveals himself to us.

“Wise up!”

As life presses in and difficult situations arise, how do you navigate the challenge of making sound decisions?  The person whose mind is set on the world’s ways cannot see the wisdom of God’s ways.  Do you look to God for wisdom or do you rely on the tactics and strategies you’ve learned from the world?  The world’s ways are different from God’s ways.  In fact, they are often called “rebellion” by God.  But to the person focused on the world, rebellion is not rebellion, but simply common sense. The bible insists upon a life guided by God’s revelation as the only truly wise life. Are you learning God’s wisdom or do you still rely upon the world’s common sense?

In Isaiah 30, we see these differences magnified.  The people of Israel are at a time of crisis in their national life.  The mighty Assyrian army is threatening to invade. Disaster seems imminent. So what do the Jewish people do?  Instead of turning to their true King, the Holy One of Israel, who has promised to protect and keep them, they make a political alliance with Egypt.  God is not pleased by this faithless rebellion. He says, “Ah stubborn children, who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!” (Isaiah 30:1-2).  Not only do they neglect to seek God, but also they run in the opposite direction.  They are looking for the world’s security. They are seeking an old way of protection.  Ultimately, they are seeking to save themselves and the Lord makes clear that what is sought outside of him, though seemingly wise in the world’s sight and simply ‘common sense’, actually becomes their source of defeat and degradation.

How often have I seen this kind of dynamic operating in my life?  When a time of crisis comes, I run about seeking ways to fix the crisis.  I wrack my brains trying to figure out how to make it go away. Too often, I follow the way the world resolves things —  for instance, by looking out for number one rather than living openly and generously; or by believing that the end justifies the means, or that preserving an image is more important than walking with integrity.   I sometimes seek comfort from old habits, behaviors and addictions.  Sadly I have spent far more time than I care to admit seeking out the world’s ways and my ways of fixing my life.  God lovingly, but bluntly names this, “Rebellion.”  He tells me to, “Wise up!”

God counsels His people in a completely different and counter-intuitive way.  He advises us to come back to him and trust in his kindness and strength.  “In returning (repentance) and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength,” (Isaiah 30:15). God calls us to come back to him.  He calls us back to the cross. He calls us to turn away from our sinful independence and to rest in his care.  He advises us not to speed up busily trying to fix things, but instead to be intentional in seeking his counsel.  When we diligently seek him, he promises that we will always find him. This is what it means to trust.  It means to place ourselves in his strong and faithful care, expecting his answers and then obediently following his direction despite how it looks or seems to the world around us.

Are you learning God’s wisdom or do you still rely upon the world’s common sense? Are you learning to, “Wise up?”

Mercy

God’s mercy is something extraordinary.  In the Old Testament it appears as though mercy is tied to obedience; but this is not always the case.  His mercy is greater than that.  In the New Testament, his merciful desire to draw us to Himself for all eternity is let loose through the cross of Jesus.  It is profound.  It reaches beyond the foolish choices we make and it covers generations.

In 2 Chronicles 29 we meet Hezekiah.  He is a king who, “Did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done,” (vs 2 ESV).  His father, Ahaz, however, “Did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father David had done, but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel.”  We see this ebb and flow of good kings following bad kings and vice versa throughout the books of Kings and Chronicles.  As Israel and Judah disobeyed God and moved further from him, God allowed them to reap the consequences of their choices.  For me, the lowest point in their history manifests in the civil war between them.  But in 2 Chronicles 29 God’s mercy reappears in the leadership of Hezekiah.

“In the first year of his reign, the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them,” (2 Chronicles 29:3).

Hezekiah’s first order of business was to restore the Temple of the Lord.  He brought in priests and Levites to clean it out and to re-consecrate it.  The Temple had been neglected and corrupted.  It took them eight days to bring out all the “uncleanness they found” and eight more days to consecrate it.  Burnt offerings were made to cover sin and to atone for all Israel.  After that Hezekiah restored worship to the Temple.  As burnt offerings were made, the Levites began to worship God through music.  Hezekiah then commanded that thank offerings be brought.  The people brought so much that there were not enough priests consecrated to handle it all and so the Levites had to help out.  It’s interesting to note at one point that the priests and Levites were ashamed and embarrassed at how unprepared they were. It’s clear that their hearts were being revived and they regretted their shortcomings before God.

Then Hezekiah invited all of Judah and Israel to return to celebrate Passover.  In the Message translation, it states that it had been so long since Passover had been celebrated that, “No one living had ever celebrated it properly,”  (2 Chron. 30:5). There was a lot involved in properly celebrating the Passover and many of the gathered congregation were not rightly set apart (consecrated) to celebrate it according to God’s directives.  Therefore, many did not eat the Passover meal. Because of this, Hezekiah prayed, “May God who is all good, pardon and forgive everyone who sincerely desires God, the God of our ancestors.  Even-especially these who do not meet the literal conditions stated for access to the Temple.”  The text goes on to say that, “God responded to Hezekiah’s prayer and healed the people,” (2 Chronicles 30:19).

With God’s mercy enacted towards sincere hearts, this Passover feast and celebration was the greatest seen since the days of David and Solomon.  The people returned their hearts to God and he received them and blessed them.  God clearly was delighted in His people despite their shortcomings.

God meets us where we are today.  We have all made choices we regret.  Some of us live in self condemnation, in denial, in pride.  We have turned away.  The beauty of Hezekiah’s story is that Israel and Judah were a complete mess.  There was little hope of redemption.   They were fighting and killing one another and worshiping every pagan idol and god around.  But one man stood up and turned back to God.  He called those around him to turn back to God.  To everyone who heard and heeded the call, God’s mercy covered and cleansed them.  In the cross of Jesus we receive God’s mercy.  We don’t have to go back to a long list of rituals and sacrifices to stand cleansed before God.  We simply stand with Jesus Christ and receive His mercy.  We stand under the Lamb of God who was sacrificed on our behalf. And when we do, we get to start over.