Following Jesus Son of God …

My grandson, still a toddler, had picked this line up –  “What are we gonna’ do now?” Something bad, something troubling, another emergency. . .What are we going to do now?

And that thought over the last two days has been turning into my latest song, What Are We Going to Do Now?  And Psalm 46 came to mind.

God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah

Psalm 46.1-3

So how does that connect to Chicken Little?

Many (maybe most) of us are familiar with the story of Chicken Little or The Sky Is Falling.  I have included the following from Wikipedia to refresh our memory.

The Sky Is Falling, better known as Chicken Licken, Henny Penny or Chicken Little is an old fable about a chicken (or a hare in early versions) who believes the sky is falling. The phrase, “The sky is falling,” has passed into the English language as a common idiom indicating a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent.

There are many versions of the story, but the basic premise is that a chicken eats lunch one day, and believes the sky is falling down because an acorn falls on her head. She decides to tell the King, and on her journey meets other animals who join her in the quest. In most retellings, the animals all have rhyming names such as Henny Penny, Cocky Lockey and Goosey Loosey. Finally, they come across Foxy Loxy, a fox who offers the chicken and her friends his help.

(Credit:  The Sky Is Falling (fable) from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

HERE IS THE CONNECTION:  Psalm 46 is the anti-Chicken Little promise from God, the silver bullet answer for What are we going to do if the sky is falling?  What am I going to do if my world threatens to fall apart?

In the story, Chicken Little, Henny Penny, Cocky Lockey and Goosey Loosey all became caught up in a swirling current of fear and hysteria that began with an acorn falling on Chicken Little’s head.

SEE: Chicken Little Story Link

It was just an acorn falling, but they were hysterical, mistakenly believing that disaster was imminent.

In Psalm 46 the Sons of Korah, generous with their hyperbole, say “So what, even if the earth shakes and changes, even if the mountains fall deep into the sea, even if the sky is falling, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in our trouble.”

If then in the worst case scenario in which the earth gives way from beneath us and mountains are falling, the ocean is writhing in fear and the mountains tremble, and God is there, strong for us, then what about when our personal “worlds” implode or explode?  Can we still believe God?

He really is what he says he is and more, but we don’t learn the more until we trust him even when it seems the sky is falling.  The overwhelming, praise the Lord, hallelujah, God is great, safety and protection of God is not truly known until it is tested and tasted.  Intellectual assent gives a mere hint of God’s tremendous protective care. Believing God during the storm replaces that courteous appreciation with resounding worship and praise.

I don’t think I am alone in sometimes allowing fear of the plunging economy or fear of losing someone I love pounce on me and start to pound me.  You know. . .the “gut shots” in life, the “What if’s” that try to rip us apart.  What if I lose my job?  What if her health fails?  What if he doesn’t change the course of his life?  What if this person rejects me?

It is because God is God that, in the midst of fear, I can choose to not be afraid, not because I am so brave or spiritual or strong.  I defeat fear by firmly choosing to believe what God says above the sound of panic.

And I honor him in choosing his words of truth over the hysteria.  I honor him in listening to his voice above the jarring, discordant, dissonance sounds of this world.  Forget it, Chicken Little and Henny Penny.  I’m not buying what you’re selling, Cockey Lockey or Goosey Loosey.

God is who he is or he isn’t.  Which is it?  And if he is who he says he is, and he is, then let the earth shake, let the mountains tremble, let the ocean foam, I will not be afraid.

I will run.  I will run, run, run to God my refuge.

The earth will shake again. . .

Trying some different things with audio and video; coincides with work on our Easter program.

Click link for audio: dave reading Matthew 27.33-54

We need to feel the cold at times.

I often don’t remember what I dream about and I don’t really remember much of my dream last night except it was somewhat foreboding, feeling like the time the Bible calls the tribulation.  The coldness of the world, the insecurity and uncertainty, and then for a follower of Jesus Christ especially, the danger.

So why would that be good?

Because when we are are warm and snuggly in our faith, we aren’t much prone to step outside to rescue those still lost, still trembling in the cold, still heartbroken.  We’ve got to feel the pain to be ready to share the healing of Christ.

Christ is our example.  He embraced death to defeat death and provide rescue for us.  He immersed himself in life on this Earth so he could become a merciful and faithful ambassador between God and man.

He felt the cold wind and as he stayed focused on the purpose of God, the cold wind produced a merciful High Priest, a go-between, a tailor-made Savior for the humans who walk this Earth.

And, now, as Christians, we need to follow.  We need to feel the cold and remember the fear, so we can bring the message of Christ with mercy and faith.

(Hebrews 2:14 MSG)  Since the children are made of flesh and blood, it’s logical that the Savior took on flesh and blood in order to rescue them by his death. By embracing death, taking it into himself, he destroyed the Devil’s hold on death

(Hebrews 2:15 MSG)  and freed all who cower through life, scared to death of death.

(Hebrews 2:16 MSG)  It’s obvious, of course, that he didn’t go to all this trouble for angels. It was for people like us, children of Abraham.

(Hebrews 2:17 MSG)  That’s why he had to enter into every detail of human life. Then, when he came before God as high priest to get rid of the people’s sins,

(Hebrews 2:18 MSG)  he would have already experienced it all himself–all the pain, all the testing–and would be able to help where help was needed.

Who do you bow before?

Ezra 9:7 (ESV)  From the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt. And for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plundering, and to utter shame, as it is today.

Whose hand will we be under?

Someone will rule over us.  We choose whether it is God or the “kings” of the land.

Our “kings” are often different, our peer groups, family members, religious assembly, co-workers. . .

But we can be free no matter our social or political environment if we bow before the right Person.

Sometimes we march forward, sometimes we run, sometimes we stumble.

Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64

I was listening to WILL our local NPR station one day and they were interviewing someone discussing Felix Mendelssohn and his struggle in writing this concerto.  The account given was that he felt as if he were “fumbling” along.  They went on to discuss how insecure and unsure he was.

The result of his fumbling, insecurity and unsureness?  One of the most popular and most frequently performed violin concertos of all time.

Sometimes our stumbling produces tremendous fruit.  I guess I am telling myself that.  I have been working on a new song and was very excited about it.  And got some tracks down last night and. . .how can I put it?  It was a snoozer.

Back to the drawing board.

But so many things in life.  In sports they talk about the guys who know how to “grind it out.”  Sometimes we grind; sometimes we are sky high on inspiration and that can yield great work, but sometimes we have to grind.  We stumble, we’re unsure, even insecure and we keep going.

I hope God is listening to how spiritual I am sounding right now and blesses my continued work on this song for having such a spiritual attitude.  🙂   (Yes, I am laughing at myself at the moment.)

When I am weak, then I am strong.  Seems like I have heard that somewhere?  Hmmm. . .

(2 Corinthians 12:9-10 BBE)  And he said to me, My grace is enough for you, for my power is made complete in what is feeble. Most gladly, then, will I take pride in my feeble body, so that the power of Christ may be on me.  (10)  So I take pleasure in being feeble, in unkind words, in needs, in cruel attacks, in troubles, on account of Christ: for when I am feeble, then am I strong.

I am on vacation this week.  You have probably noticed more posting than normal.  It is great to have the time to do this.  Back to work next week however 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mon-Sat for the next few weeks.  Very happy to have a job; very thankful.

I wonder as I have been reading through Ezra this week if we couldn’t title the book – “The Good Hand of Our God Upon Us.”

The writings brim with God’s sovereign care for his people.

So much provision was necessary for the trip back to Jerusalem to establish God’s work.  Here Ezra looked around and saw there were no sons of Levi.  But the good hand of his God was upon him and God directed his search to Sherebiah.

(Ezra 8:18 ESV)  And by the good hand of our God on us, they brought us a man of discretion, of the sons of Mahli the son of Levi, son of Israel, namely Sherebiah with his sons and kinsmen, 18;

Providence.
Do you believe in the providence of God?  All things working toward God’s purpose, all the mess, all the complicated relationships between individuals and countries, all confusion and uncertainty, all the events of our lives, good and bad.  God really does have a plan, but his plan is not to execute our plan no matter how much we claim it or demand it.  Basically still believing Romans 8.28 when the bottom falls out of your life.

We don’t see God’s providence and sovereignty unless we are bowed before him.  Otherwise everything else, usually our personal agenda and perspective or that formed by the significant people in our lives, blurs reality.

Ezra after assembling his group was now ready to leave but he had to face the danger of the road ahead.  The king would have given him an armed escort.  He would have provided whatever was necessary, but Ezra had bragged up the goodness and care of his God.

So now it was time to trust and before trust comes humbling.  You see, faith isn’t about being strong and victorious as we so often make it out to be.  Faith is about trusting God, his power, his resources, his plan, his love.

(Ezra 8:21-22 ESV)  Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods.  (22)  For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, “The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.”

And God provided a safe journey.

I guess it just keeps standing out to me as I read Ezra – the good hand of our God.  So for all the “places” we can be, all the goals we can set, things to aspire to, it seems this is a pretty good one.  Am I in a place where the good hand of God is upon me?

Coaches talk about how they want to put their players in a position to win.  So, Coach, have you put yourself in a position to win in God’s eyes.  Remember as you look into the crowd, God is the one whose gaze you want to capture.  Just as a basketball player scans the bleachers for his old coach or his mother or father or brother or best friend, because in spite of the thousands watching, that is who he is playing for.

So who are we playing for?  Who am I playing for?  Who are you playing for?  The one person whose gaze you want to capture as you scan the crowd, who is it in your life?

“For the good hand of his God was on him.”

(Ezra 7:9 ESV)  For on the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylonia, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, for the good hand of his God was on him.

The news of wars on multiple fronts, a worldwide economic plunge, global warming, who won or didn’t win in the last elections, stem cell research and the ethics thereof, the prospect that the U.S. may not be as dominant as it has been in the past are all things that could and probably should bother all of us.

But we just cannot forget that God is God.

Ezra did not forget this; he made it a point to remember God and to be in a place where God could work in his life.  The hand of God was not on him by accident.  He lived in a foreign land under the rule of a pagan king and God used that king and his wealth to send Ezra back home for rebuilding his land.

The biblical accounts during the captivity of Israel, when God threw them out of the land for their disobedience and disloyalty, are to me some of the most powerful statements of a good and powerful God in the Bible.  Humanly speaking Ezra had no reason to expect anything that happened to him as far as going back to Jerusalem.

God did it.

And that is why I would like to encourage/exhort you and me to consider our priorities and maybe revamp our worry list.

How concerned am I about being in the right place spiritually where it would be written “the hand of his God was on him.”

News of the economy and politics and war and violence on our streets has too much sway because we forget where we are and who we are.

All of this is played out before God.  Everything is within his sovereign rule and providential care.  God is good and he is great.

(Romans 8:28 ESV)  And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

This is true, every word and more.  But you have to have be in the right place which is on a path following Jesus the Son of God, being led by and walking by the Holy Spirit of God, living by his words, trusting him, serving him, worshiping him.

But often we are not in a place to see and sense the presence of God.  Too much of life under the sun both good and bad distracts us from the greater things.

We do not see the sovereign care of God unless we are bowed before him.  We don’t sense his providence if we do not attend to our spiritual needs.  Our receptors are dirty and out of focus, or we have too much traffic from earth to hear anything heaven says.

Read the following and be amazed.  This would be like living in Iran today and having Seyed Mohammad Khatami, the current president, send us back home to the U.S. to evangelize the inner cities using money from their oil operations.

(Ezra 7:21-23 ESV  “And I, Artaxerxes the king, make a decree to all the treasurers in the province Beyond the River: Whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven, requires of you, let it be done with all diligence,  (22)  up to 100 talents of silver, 100 cors of wheat, 100 baths of wine, 100 baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much.  (23)  Whatever is decreed by the God of heaven, let it be done in full for the house of the God of heaven, lest his wrath be against the realm of the king and his sons.”

Nothing on Earth would have suggested that Ezra would be able to do what he did.  The politics were wrong, his geography was wrong, insufficient resources.  Poor fellow.  All he had was this – “the good hand of his God was on him.”

Shouldn’t we consider this a priority, to have “the good hand of his God” upon us.  Talk about seats at the 50-yard line!