The Final Leg Begins Today

okay, not to be melodramatic, but today, Monday, July 28 marks the beginning of the final leg of German studies, Theological German 2. There are now only three weeks left to prepare for the much dreaded German Reading Exam for which I have separated myself for the better part of the summer months. All so that I may pass it and be able to get that point checked off on my prerequisites.

to this point I've done well. But the way we're being taught in class seems a bit different from how the Reading Exam will be conducted. I can't help shaking the feeling that I'm being well equipped for having tools to translate material after the fact, but that when it comes to the exam, I will not be so well prepared.

dear reader, if you are so disposed, please lift me up in prayer to the One who created me and knows me, who called me to undertake this work, this calling. Ask the Lord God to give me the knowledge, wisdom, and discernment to be able to effectively translate and comprehend enough of what I'm given in the Reading Exam to show that I should pass. The Reading Exam in August 14th.

Thank you, and may the Lord who created you in His image grant you all that you need this day to know Him, and to be able to do all that He has called you toward. God's blessings in Jesus' name!

Raging Against God?

The sermon in church yesterday was one I wish we heard more often, in that it tackled a more difficult passage in Scripture. Too many sermons address passages that the preacher likes, or make people feel good. But yesterday, I heard a message based on Jeremiah 20, where the prophet seems to lash out against God, feeling deceived and manipulated into serving as God's prophet, carrying a most unpopular message to the hard-hearted people of Israel. The preacher's message could be summed up by saying that the lament is form of prayer that we need to use more often. On top of that, he said that we can rage against God - we can scream at Him, hammer at Him - and He can handle it. The sin, this fellow offered, comes when, in our anger, we turn away from God.

Today's electronic devotional reading from Scripture Union UK was on Ruth 1. They pointed out the frustration and anger that Naomi put on God for the loss of her husband and her two sons. And yet God blessed her; in spite of her negative feelings toward Him.

I am reminded once again that my prayers to God can share my anger and my disappointments; that my prayers do not have to be sterile and full of fake praise from a heart that is turned off. God would rather have me rage against Him than speak words that are false. And yet, it is through prayerful honesty with God that we can somehow still praise Him, and see Him for who He is, even as we still struggle with faith and trust. It seems paradoxical, but it is merely the dialectical tension of true, living faith. And so, this is my prayer to the Lord, whom I love, whom I am struggling with as I go through a number of personal disappointments and hurts ...

O Lord God, hear my prayers. I feel alone, cut off from my people and my land.
My heart burns for all the things that have happened to my family and to myself.
And yet I continue to trust You. I continue to pray to You.
But what has that gotten me? What has changed?

Have the broken been restored? Have their hurts been healed?
Do You hear the cries of Your daughters and sons?
What is Your purpose? Where is Your glory?
What would You have us do? How much more are we in need of trusting You?

And yet I will trust You, O Lord. For whom else do I have to trust?
To whom else can I turn? For I know that You ways are not my ways.
Your hand moves in ways that I cannot fathom until it has brought about Your will.
Even in the midst of danger, You are our shield. Even in the moment of our despair, You are our hope.

I will cry out, I will weep, but I will also call on You.
I will continue to sing Your praises. For there is no other hope in this world.
There is no other god, but You, O Lord, my God.
May I bring You glory; even as I weep and question, even as I struggle to have faith.
May my tears and sobs, may my questions and doubts, all serve Your purposes in growing me to be a man after Your own heart.

To You be all glory, laud, and honor, to You, O Christ, my Redeemer King! Amen.

praying

Every Christian wants to believe in their heart that God's got a plan for dealing with tragedy, one that will surprise the "experts", one that will demonstrate God's power and might. This is our hope when tragedy is no longer a term bandied around on the evening news, when it becomes personal, striking someone we know, someone we love.

But God is not a "rabbit's foot", to be pulled out of our pockets and rubbed when we are desperate for a "change of luck". God is not someone we can will to power, no matter how "good" a person we are, no matter how "good" the person is whom we love and care about. He will not be manipulated, no matter how "righteous" our cause.

God is sovereign. His purposes are both eternal and mysterious. Of course we like it when His actions either spare us or bring about something that is seemingly advantageous to us, or something we had been asking for. But the opposite seems to be something we don't want to think about, as we can get upset, sad, or perhaps even "lose" our faith when God lets us down, especially when life or love is on the line.

And we come to a fork in the road. We are standing here at a crossroads.

While I was going through email and just enjoying a morning off from my German class, I had iTunes playing. Thoughts and prayers were in and out of my mind. And then It Is Well With My Soul was in the background, the foreground, both convicting me and uplifting me. Even now tears burn, my breath sometimes convulsing from random sobs as I feel the Spirit of the Living God leading me, inviting me, calling me to choose this day faith and life.

I don't smile. I don't break into songs of praise and joy. I weep. My eyesight is fuzzy from more tears. And yet, I choose faith and life. I hear the words, and I know them. I know they can be, are even meant to be sung with tears in one's eyes. These words allow for their interruption from sobs so deep only the Spirit knows how deep their pain and disappointment run.

And yet, these words carry a message. They aren't magic in and of themselves. But they are messengers of a sort. They carry a message from the God who has not forgotten Emily, her parents, or our prayers.

I don't know what God is doing or going to do. I still pray for a miracle. But I still cry and cry out. It hurts me to know that family members hurt even more deeply than I do. It hurts me because I cannot do anything to change this situation or bring about a miracle.

But I can pray. And I pray and sing these words as I walk the path of faith and life with my Savior ...

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
when sorrows like sea billows roll;
whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Refrain: It is well with my soul, it is well,
it is well with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
let this blest assurance control,
that Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
and hath shed his own blood for my soul.

(Refrain)

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

(Refrain)

And, Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
the clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
the trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
even so, it is well with my soul.

(Refrain)

which path? which way?

First off, thanks to those of you who have been praying for my German studies. Though I feel very 'if-y' about yesterday's midterm (I know I bombed the sentence diagramming and translation), we only had about 58 words to learn for today's quiz, and at least as of this morning, I feel like I know them pretty well. I'll study them a few more times this morning, but at least as of this morning, I feel like I know them all, Praise the Lord, giver of all good things.

And that actually brings me to my devotional reading from this morning.

Jeremiah 6:16 reads ...

16 This is what the LORD says:
"Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, 'We will not walk in it.'

I've read this passage and this particular verse before, and yet today I find it so relevant to this culture in which I live. On top of that, it has a new meaning when compared with, as Phil Andrews does, with John 14:6 ...

Jesus said, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’

What a wonderful relationship between these two passages. What an amazing image. The good path, the good way that Jeremiah pleaded with and encouraged the people of Jerusalem to walk in is ultimately the very person of the God-Man, Jesus Christ. And yet as then, still so today ... so many reject both calls ... "But you said, 'We will not walk in it.'"

But what about you? What do you say? Do you wonder as to which path to walk? Are you so certain as to choosing your own path over-against God's? Are you uncertain as to whether God is real, let alone His path? Do you question or wonder who Jesus is to be able to make such a claim as being the "good way" Jeremiah talks about?

Check out the Gospel of Matthew 16:13-20. Consider what Jesus asks of His disciples. Consider how they reply. And consider how Jesus frames their responses. And let me know what you think. May the Holy Spirit of God give you eyes to see, and ears to hear.

a hard word from Jeremiah

This passage comes from Jeremiah 5 ... God is calling on Jeremiah to deliever a very hard word to the people of Jerusalem - it is a message of doom and judgment. But it doesn't come out of a vacuum, as if God were some sort of cosmic kill-joy, or some pathological killer. He created us for relationship, to worship Him alone, and to love our neighbor's as ourselves. Because the people of Judah and Jerusalem failed to keep those two things as the focus of their lives, personally and nationally, they fell away from God, they turned their hearts and minds to other things, false gods, foreign idols, which were really nothing. And this is what God said ...

5:19 And when the people ask, 'Why has the LORD our God done all this to us?' you will tell them, 'As you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your own land, so now you will serve foreigners in a land not your own.'

What do you think? Go and read - if you can make the time, go ahead and read from chapter 1 up to chapter 5 - Jeremiah 5. If God created us for Himself, and if He is the source of all our blessings, all we enjoy, is He not justified when we turn away from Him and put our hope and trust in false gods which are truly nothing at all? What do you think?