doing what you don't understand

The Lord gave this message to Hosea son of Beeri during the years when Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were kings of Judah, and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel. When the Lord first began speaking to Israel through Hosea, he said to him, “Go and marry a prostitute, so that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution. This will illustrate how Israel has acted like a prostitute by turning against the Lord and worshiping other gods.” So Hosea married Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she became pregnant and gave Hosea a son. (Hosea 1-3:5)

Some of the stuff God told his people was plain strange. And not only that, some of it bordered on the cruel.

Noah had to ignore the pleas of his neighbors while the floodwaters rose. Abraham had to willingly take his son off to be slaughtered as a human sacrifice for a God that had always detested that. Joshua led his people on slaughtering rampages through Canaan as they conquered the land that left men, women and children dead behind them. Elijah had to kill a lot of false prophets, people he might have known.

These were not things that were necessarily optional. They were mandated by God. He didn’t ask them if they wanted to do it, he just said do it.

The same with Hosea. Go find this tired prostitute and marry her and have children, some of which will be illegitimate. It didn’t matter that Hosea might have had a girl friend he had been dating. It didn’t matter what this match would do to his social standing. It didn’t matter how he felt. God never asked.

Then, after she had left him and gone back to business, he had to go buy her back and marry her again. She was old and worn out, no one even wanted her anymore. But too bad. he had to take her back and let her back into his life and his bed.

And the only reason was to show Israel, who for the most part didn’t care anyway, an illustration of their relationship to God. He took a used nation, finally had to let it go and then took back the worn out nation again as his own.

Hosea’s life became a little observed illustration.

But he did it anyway. His parents probably objected. If he had a girl friend, she was not happy. He was probably not happy himself. But he did it anyway. He was faithful to what God wanted him to do. He obeyed even when it was inconvenient.

We all do that to one extent or another. I had a friend who cried all night when he found out God wanted him to become a pastor and leave his life as a professional musician. But he got up the next morning and did it anyway. I have known people who have left their homes and relatives to go to foreign mission fields only to find themselves or their families sick or injured in conflicts they never intended to be close to. I have known people to give up good jobs to go into ministry only to find themselves impoverished as older people.

They did what they heard God tell them to do regardless of whether or not they wanted to.

Moses did this. He got God mad at him trying to get out of the ministry God told him to do, but he ended up doing it anyway. Jeremiah was the same way. He didn’t want to. Jonah went into his ministry half-heartedly, found himself a raging success and got mad at the success. King Saul tried to hide from his job, Peter tried to deny it, others were other ways. Jesus gave up a life of normalcy with a wife and children for a ministry of only three years that ended up with him being killed.

But in the end, they did what God wanted, even though they may have never really understood it. God never required that they understand, just that they obey.

Pretty unfair, I will have to admit. But that was one faithful guy, Hosea. And I admire him.

an unfair contest between God and the devil

In the book of Job, there is a contest between God and the devil. The devil tells God that Job, a faithful man, is only faithful because God blesses him. God says to the devil, take away everything he has, stopping only at  the point of death, and Job will still be faithful.

It is an unfair contest, one that God ultimately wins. Even after Job has lost all his family, all his wealth and all of his considerable social standing, he still worships God. The devil loses.

At the end, God returns to Job all of his wealth and standing, and gives him new children to replace those who died in the test.

There was only one problem. Job wasn’t aware there was a test. All he saw was his life falling apart and the loss of his children, along with everything else. It was, as I said, unfair. Yes, Job passed with flying colors, but at such cost.

Job rails against God. Tell me why, he cries out. Tell me what I did wrong and I will show you that you are wrong. His “friends” come and tell him again and again that he obviously sinned because God only punishes sinner, not righteous people.

It is a nightmare that probably lasted for a few years.

At the end of it, God tells Job – nothing. Not a thing. No explanation, nothing. What he says, in essence, is I am God and can do what I want. Job accepts this because of the kind of man he was. And things go back to normal.

Except that his beloved children are gone, his wife is hurt almost beyond reclamation, his friends see a God who does whatever he wants to do no matter how you have tried to serve him.

But the one thing God never does is condemn Job for complaining. He just tells him that this is the way things are and that is it. He is God and made the world and can work as he wants.

Job accepts it.

But it was not fair. Yes, Job got back all his stuff and more, it says. He also got back more children. But the first children were killed in quite a horrible accident and they will never be back. He will bear their loss the rest of his life.

He will also bear the fact that his God turned on him to make a bet with the devil.

Because no matter how you put it, God did. Yes, God is God. He ‘wills and works according to his good measure.” Yes, he is the Alpha and Omega, the First and Last, the Beginning and the End. Yes, he is Lord.

And quite frankly, any God that you can predict is not a real God. A real God is one who is unpredictable, one who is far, far greater than you can imagine. Otherwise, he is like the old Greek and Roman gods who were just great big people.

And you have to recognize that there is a capriciousness in God that can be uncomfortable. No matter how long you have served him, nor how hard you have tried to be what he wants, he will still allow bad things to happen to you.

Yes, he may care for you and see you and number the hairs on your head. But he will also allow one of his loving children to contract a debilitating disease that serves no purpose and brings 24/7 pain.

And there is no reason why.

That is the worst part. If we had sinned, that would be one thing. But for those who are simple worshippers to have things happen that are beyond belief is hard to accept.

For those who have served him for years to be cast aside is hard to accept. For those who love him to be ignored is hard to accept.

And the worst part is, I have seen the righteous forsaken and his seed begging for bread. At least I have seen them homeless, without the basic needs of transportation and medicine.

And I do not know why.

Yet, I say, as Job did, I know that my Redeemer lives and cares for me. he is still my God, even though he has disappointed me.

worshipping what we don't understand

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

Faith is at the core of the Christian experience. It is faith that drives us towards our service to God.

Faith is not an easy thing to explain. Because I believe in what isn’t seen and even teach that belief, that makes me a mystic. I know that there is no rational explanation of what I believe.

But that is not unusual. The vast majority of us do not understand electricity, yet we expect the lights to turn on when we hit the switch. The extreme vast majority haven’t a clue as to how the computer works, yet here we are, all logged on and doing stuff. Most of us don’t have any idea of how a car works or our television set, or even the radio, not to mention faxes and telephones.

Yet we use them daily and don’t give them a second thought. We have faith in their ability to do what we ask of them. When they don’t we are surprised.

A guy is in the basement charging my landlord a boatload of money to unplug the sewer because we all just take a sewer for granted. I mowed my yard last Friday because my lawnmower started. Since I am a non-mechanical guy, if it had not started, I would have informed it of its place in the universe and which of the afterlives it would probably inhabit, but I probably couldn’t fix it.

We operate on faith 24/7 in just about every aspect of our lives. Yet when it comes to God, we balk. Well, someone says, I just don’t trust having faith in something I cannot see. Yet they type that on the computer while watching TV, neither of which you probably understand either.

I give myself to God freely. And I believe in him freely. He is my God and I will ever serve him.

Do I understand him? No. quite frankly, any god I could understand wouldn’t really be worth worshipping as God. Any time you can reduce anything down to its understandable components, you have removed the mystery.

I can learn to understand my computer, my car, my TV, my lawnmower – they are, after all, just things. I will never understand fully my God. I may come to a knowledge of him and his will and nature, I may come to know him and his ways. But I will never understand him. He is God. He is Other than me. He is greater than me. I can never fully know him nor understand him.

So I fix my eyes on him and I am renewed day by day. He is eternal, where I am just temporary. I’ll leave one day. He will never leave.

Personally, I like it that way. Those Greek and Roman gods that were just really big and strong people, petty and lustful and mean-spirited, those guys and gals were miserable. And they reduced the culture that worshipped them.

The worship of the Almighty God lifts the culture that worships him. They have given themselves to One who is far greater than they ever could be. And they are better for it.

daily java

Daily Java: We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  (Romans 8:28)

Our lives were never intended to be lived just barely. It’s easy to just kind of get along, especially when you are having troubles. You just get along, pay what bills you can, go to church, stuff.

But the apostle Paul said that God works for good to those who love him and are called.

Bad things happen to everybody, no matter who they are.

And it is easy to let the bad things get us down. Somebody up there doesn’t like us. A feeling of inevitablity sets in. You are going to have problems forever. Life is bad and then you die.

If the Bible is true, and I believe it is, and if the Bible tells us things that are true, and I believe it does, God does not send bad things on us. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

If the Bible is true, God doesn’t send bad things. Everything, in other words, is not for a reason. Sometimes things just happen.

The book of Job was written to tell us that sometimes we are the victims of an unfair war between good and evil. We are standing there minding our own business, and – WHAP! – we get hit upside the head with something bad.

God did not send the bad, but he can use the bad for something else that is better. Job lost a lot of stuff (read the book sometime. It is both enlightening and depressing), but God gave him back more in the end.

And (this is big) we see his faith. Yes, he griped his head off, but he remained faithful to God the entire time.

God never complained because of the griping. He just told Job, Deal with it.

Good things came out of it for Job and us. Good things come out of bad thing for us. In sickenss there is strength. In poverty, there is reliance. In sadness comes joy. All because God works all things together for good to those who love him and are called according to his promise.

daily java

Daily Java: John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' " 16 From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known. (John 1:15-18)

It is hard to remember what things were like before you had your life-time watershed moment, before you had your life set on its course.

It is hard to remember what it was like not to be married to my wife. We have been together for more than twice the time we were apart.

It is hard to remember what it was like before I went into the ministry. Having been a pastor for 36 years, I have trouble remembering the time before I became a pastor.

Life has been set for so long, it sometimes seems as if it has always been this way.

John the apostle felt the same way when he wrote this. Since he was writing it some 70 years after the fact, it was hard for him to remember what it was like before. His comment about John: He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me. In his mind, Jesus had always been and it was probably hard for the old John to remember when he was new. I would even imagine that the old John had difficulties remembering all of what happened that long ago. After all, it was only 3 years out of his long life. And he was probably pretty young then.

Seminary was a two year period 35 years ago, and the memories, while sometimes quite vivid, are fading as I get older. The same with the memories of our wedding and honeymoon, high school years and childhood in general. That is a normal thing. They are all part of the fabric of my existence, to use a neat phrase. None of them are particularly gone, but they are all kind of melded together in my memory. It is hard to remember a life without them.

Jesus brought grace and truth. And John can see the blessings that he has gotten from them – one blessing after another. He can see all of the great things that have happened. Sure, some bad things happened also, but the grace of God had overwhelmed everything else. The thing is, he had the grace of God and the Lord’s blessings in his life for so long that he could not remember not having them.

He knows he has not seen God, but for sure he has seen his results in everything he is, has done and ever will do in the little time he had left.

That is what I strive for. The total knowledge of God in such a way that it becomes part of my very existence.

I want to know him like Paul knew him. As he said, I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day (2 Timothy 1:12).