Category: Jesus Christ

The School of Friends

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“As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.”

1 Samuel 18:1

“But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”

Ruth 1:16

The quality of our lives can be measured by our friends.  It takes some of us a very long time to understand this.  Often we have this mistaken belief that other things are immensely important, and we strive to make these qualities relevant and significant.  But the Spirit of God is on a whole different board, and He is wondering why we aren’t there with Him. It’s time to catch-up!

To be a friend– a companion, is a significant undertaking.  It involves channeling ones love and commitment to someone other than family.  If we have become someone’s friend, our dedication to that person can be measured. (Not everything is intangible).  So what will friendship require?  My answer is simply this:  All that is needful for the present moment.

Something ‘clicked’ inside of Jonathan when he talked with David.  There was something of understanding and an affinity that was created between them.  As I read this account I realize that this friendship was what was exactly needed for David to survive the conflicts he was coming into.  Now it certainly wasn’t the full answer, but friendship would certainly help lift him above the fray.

Ruth had this exceptional relationship with Naomi.  Ruth was locked on and quite intensely has made a strong verbal and volitional commitment to Naomi.  She is so sincere here as she makes a vow to follow and to serve.  She ‘shuts down’ her agenda and goals in order to live life through Naomi’s experience.  What a generous humility and gentleness!

“Don’t forget your friend or your parent’s friend.”

Proverbs 27:10

Both Jonathan and Ruth embraced their new calling.  Friendship is a cavern chiseled out to be an amphitheater.  It is a whole bigger and more expansive than we ever thought possible.  Its borders and boundaries go far beyond than a Wednesday night poker game with your buddies.

Recovering this new understanding of biblical friendship can be revitalizing.  When we see the fruits we wonder how we will ever transverse the path of discipleship without companionship.  It is noteworthy to point out that Jesus sent out His disciples ‘two by two’.  Sometimes, it will involve a radical (extreme) shift in thinking.  However, there can be an incredible boost coming from this relationship.

“Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.”   

Helen Keller

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ybic, Bryan

kyrie elesion.

 

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Sorting Out What is Real

It’s a windy cold, gray day here in Alaska.  Very typical for November up here in “the Last Frontier.” Just as typical  is that I have had a heaviness descend on me, (just like when the fat kid sits on the little kid at the bus stop.)

But this onslaught of present grayness seems to be a premonition, I feel, of what I face trying to survive through another long Alaskan winter, (and I don’t know if  I’m going to make it this year.)

Oddly enough, I’ve been thinking about ecosystems and symbiosis.  How the trees in a forest touch each other with their roots.  The big tree in the sun, “shares” with the little tree in the shade.  It’s the way they gently touch each other– helping, and encouraging and strengthening.

The Church is very much like this.  As a mentally ill believer, I have a lot of needs and weaknesses.  But knowing this, I draw from what God supplies by means of fellowshipping with others, and prayer, and the Word. (FYI.  I’m not good at any of the three.) But I guess I am planted in a good spot.

I think that when we finally make it to eternity, we will be interlaced with each other to the extent we really aren’t sure who is us, and who are our loved ones and our Christian ‘brothers and sisters.’  One thing is certain–we’re not going to survive the journey alone.  We just can’t do it on our own.

I must keep myself rooted firmly into “today”.  I can’t handle tomorrow’s sorrow today.  I have a special friend who believes he has to live “moment-to-moment”.  He says that this helps him navigate the hopelessness and the despair from depression.  One day at a time, and pace myself.  This, and perhaps, be just a little more gentle with myself? Maybe?

An interesting thought, not sure who said it, but it seems true:

“There are places in the heart that do not yet exist; suffering has to enter in for them to come to be.” 

The transformational reason is that we grow after we hurt, that pain endured will change us.  I think this is what God has intended to happen.  (Good thing, not to waste our sorrows.  After all, we’ve already earned them.)

kyrie elesion, Bryan

(Lord, have mercy)
 
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O Hang On, Dear One!

“He comes to us in the brokenness of our health, in the shipwreck of our family lives, in the loss of all possible peace of mind, even in the very thick of our sins. He saves us in our disasters, not from them. He emphatically does not promise to meet only the odd winner of the self-improvement lottery: He meets us all in our endless and inescapable losing.”

Robert Farrar Capon

For most of us, life is not an ecstasy of really wonderful things that roll unceasingly over us. Sometimes it attacks us. It can have teeth. Goblins and giants begin to encircle us, pressing to our very door. Several friends of mine have faced down divorce lately. Others have gotten very sick. I have some dear ones who battle with mental illnesses. Pain, pain, and more pain.

I certainly don’t intend to be excessively bleak. It was Job who described us as, “Man is born to trouble, as the ‘sparks’ fly upward.” Job was no pessimist, but he was neither an optimist. But he fully grasped that bad things will happen to good people. And I suppose sitting quietly, grieving with friends will adjust your perspective.

“Paul and Barnabas returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch of Pisidia, 22 where they strengthened the believers. They encouraged them to continue in the faith, reminding them that we must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.”

Acts 14:21, 22, NLT

These two heroes of the faith, Paul and Barnabas visit these cities. They now have an awareness of what their message is to be. It was one of encouragement, and of endurance, and of the ways of God. They both had the physical evidence to show that they “understood” the scope of their teaching.

Suffering is like learning another language. It is then you can minister deeply.

When I learned Spanish it was a new and vital way of communicating to millions of other people. Learning to speak “fluent” suffering will open up the world to billions of people. Learning to speak the language of pain will unlock many closed doors. Broken believers are in high demand for this “kind of work.”

A lot of us will never learn. We are sold on this exotic idea that God wants us healthy and wealthy. But health and wealth were never supposed to be ends in themselves. Jesus is to be all we seek and desire. When the bottom drops out, will Jesus be enough for you? Will you be encouraged by this revelation of suffering to enter the Kingdom?

“So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised.”

Hebrews 10:36, NLT

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“You will know more of Jesus in one sanctified trial, than in wading through a library of volumes, or listening to a lifetime of sermons.” 

Octavius Winslow

“Adversity is always unexpected and unwelcomed. It is an intruder and a thief, and yet in the hands of God, adversity becomes the means through which His supernatural power is demonstrated.” 

Charles Stanley

“He knows when we go into the storm, He watches over us in the storm, and He can bring us out of the storm when His purposes have been fulfilled.” 

Warren W. Wiersbe

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Are You Too Righteous?

“Do not be excessively righteous and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself?”

Ecclesiastes 7:16

I’m thinking out loud about something, so I should alert everyone.  Anyway, I’m thinking about “scruples”.  The dictionary defines scruples as “an uneasy feeling arising from conscience or principle that tends to hinder action.”

The malady developed in the middle ages.  Among the saints who were not yet labeled saints, there developed a particular syndrome of hypersensitivity toward sin and holiness.  You might say that they got stuck in the proverbial “hamster wheel” and couldn’t get off.  Run, run, run and they developed an irrational fear of somehow missing God.  Many a zealous saint has turned obsessive and superstitious. Suicide would happen.

Wikipedia says this about “scruples”– –“an obsessive concern with one’s own sins and compulsive performance of religious devotion.”   It is essentially the doubt and fear that you will do or say something that is not right.  It locks you up inside to the point you can’t do anything.  Scruples can be one of the occupational hazards of the devout believer.

Ecclesiastes postulates the idea of being overly devout.  “Do not be excessively righteous and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself?” (Eccl. 7:16) This verse, suggests that one can be excessive, or, too good.  That might rankle some, as it did me.  How can you be too righteous?

Luther once said, “Be a sinner and sin strongly, but more strongly have faith and rejoice in Christ.” That intrigues me. I once heard a sermon entitled, “Does Your Christianity Include You?” (I can remember the title, but not the message.)

I guess we sometimes develop a sense of wanting to please God to the extent of denying our humanity. 

At least that’s where my own battles with scrupulosity originate.  I am thinking that “Pharaseeism” is kind of like its cousin; they are closely related. I think we start to have issues when we start to become obsessive about our holiness and our discipleship.  If a little is really good, then a lot is even better; this is our rationale, but it doesn’t work that way.

There are several examples in the Word.  I think of Jephthah and his over-the-top vow to the Lord.  In Judges 11, Jephthah vowed to God that if he were victorious in battle, he would give to God whoever came through the doors of his house upon his return from battle. In verse 34-35  we read that his only child a daughter came out first upon his return from battle. Jephthah was crushed.

This wasn’t necessary, or even required, but if we look at his life it seems that he had an impulse to overcompensate.  He was blown away by his daughter’s appearance when he returned home.  Saul was another, with Jonathan and the honey.  Just something to think about.

“If there be anything that can render the soul calm, dissipate its scruples and dispel its fears, sweeten its sufferings by the anointing of love, impart strength to all its actions, and spread abroad the joy of the Holy Spirit in its countenance and words, it is this simple and childlike repose in the arms of God. “

S.D. Gordon

ybic, Bryan

 

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