Prayer For My Brother

Many of you know my brother. He was having seizures one after the other the other day and they took him to the hospital. They checked and his med levels were low. They got him back on track and sent him home. Then he got the flu with bad vomiting. If you follow that through you know that having cerebral palsy and seizing and vomiting all together can be a dangerous situation. My mom is trying to trust God for his safety and healing right now as the Christian ranch he lives on is too far away for her to just hop in the car and go. He has been having a rough time and not wanting to bug his staff in the middle of the night when he gets sick. He's had to clean up his own mess and try to remake his bed and everything because he did not want to wake them. They told him today to make sure and let them know, so I'm hoping he will do that.
Pray God keeps him safely through this bad sickness and that his body levels out. Thank you.

Thankful Thursday: Shelter

It's Thursday and I'm thankful for shelter! There are many reasons. I've been pondering on the people of Haiti and their great loss of shelter, on our storms and the two new leaks in my house that remind me how much the rest of it keeps out, and on the shelter of God's almighty hand.

So many are left without shelter now. So many like Job have had everything stripped away from them. John Piper posted a poem he wrote in his pondering on Haiti:

Jesus in Haiti
After the Earthquake

Do you consider safety, or your health,
A sign from me?
I am not awed by might, nor struck by wealth,
Or poverty.

O, I am struck! And crushed. Buried, I wince,
And dying, pray,
A sympathetic Priest in Port-au-Prince,
Even today.

But there, in those United States the boot
Is on my face.
“Saul, Saul,” I ask, “Why do you persecute
And not embrace?”

Your King, I lift my arms to you in peace
And patient grief;
And summon now to Haiti enemies
For my relief.

I find that a very powerful poem. "why do you persecute and not embrace?" is so striking to some who have responded so arrogantly in the Christian media. I'm thankful for other Christian leading men who have risen to show a more Christlike attitude. The last line is the most powerful however "and summon now to Haiti enemies for my relief". It's amazing that God will use those who don't know him even when we who sometimes do not rise to the occasion. It's incredibly convicting. May we not put our boot to the very face of Jesus by not helping the helpless.

Yes, our house has a few more leaks. We will need to do some serious patching once the weather dries but last time I found a leak I just freaked out and felt so discontent with my home. This time I was immediately thankful for how safe and dry we WERE inside here! I've been impressed with the blessing of shelter, and warmth, of dry blankets and warm food. There is so much to be thankful for. Yet I also have to remember to hold even all that I have with an open hand.

Above all, oh, I'm so thankful for the shelter of God's provision of himself. Not really just what he gives me to take care of me, shower love on me, or meet my needs, but the very provision of himself, of the revelation of my need for Him and the solution of His Son to provide it.

"But let all who take refuge in you be glad,

Let them ever sing for joy;

And may you shelter them;

That those who love you may exult in you."
Psalm 5:11

The reason I'm thankful for it is because it is the one thing that cannot be taken away. This of course parallels my thoughts reading Job as I shared in the previous post. God sheltering us means one thing and one thing only. It is not defined by his provision here on earth, though He may give it. It does not mean continued health here on earth, though He may give it. It is not wrapped up in funds for our next need, though He may give it. It is fully and completely the gift of Himself, which is the shelter or the resting place that perfectly fits the one thing we really truly and only need. Love for God breeds joy, unstopped and untainted by the lack for anything else. That is a basis for continued thanks in my soul.

So, I pray for those without shelter, be they in California in the storms, or in Haiti. I pray the Lord will provide their needs and send His people out to help them. I pray even more that men will find the shelter of their souls in these times of loss AND in the times of plenty. The shelter that cannot be taken, and the shelter from eternity past, and our portion forever.

"Who Ever Perished Being Innocent?"

I'm in Job Chapter 4-7 today and it's a doosie to contemplate. It's full of so many layers it makes me want to stop in my chronological reading and fine tune study it for a while. I'm so thankful for my John MacArthur study bible at this point as a starter to sifting through the confusing poetry phrased words in these chapters. Yet, it's so important because it's so profound! This passage of scripture just blows the prosperity gospel out of the water entirely.

Before I start though I have to take note of what I find to the most profound thing. Job never states that these afflictions are from the enemy. He acknowledges right off that they are from God. He is completely unaware of the scene in heaven where God instigates the misery brought upon Job and yet, he never seems to assume wrongly where they come from. This astounds me. I'm not even able to absorb the complete significance of why it astounds me. It has taken me many years to understand the concept (and much through the book by Jerry Bridges called "Trusting God") that EVERYTHING is sifted through and therefore from the very hand of God. We silly Christians even use the phrase "the devil's on my back" to understand why we are suffering or being tried. Job never mentions the devil and yet he is thrown into a pit I could never attempt to understand.
His friends are with him in this understanding but their perspective is way different. They credit God with these afflictions as well but from the standpoint of them being judgement for sin. More on that coming.

The very title of Chapter 4 in my bible startled me before I read anything: "Eliphaz: Innocent Do Not Suffer". I know even from my own experience of my father dying so young with cancer that this was not true. I want to walk step by step though what he says:

• He breaks his 7 day silence (can you see that scene? they arrive as his friends are just speechless for a week at the level of his suffering) by affirming that Job is wise and has had the strength to encourage and uplift many who have suffered before him but now that bad has come to him, Eliphaz concludes that he is impatient and dismayed. My first reaction to Eliphaz is "you just don't get it do you!?", but then, even I would not get it. Still, how insensitive! How dare he be impatient in his suffering! How he should bear it better and more nobly! How can he let his pain bring dismay? Are you kidding me? I like what John MacArthur says in my study commentary "Unfortunately, with the opening of their mouths for the first speech, all the wisdom of their silence departed."
• HERE is the verse that irritated me the most: vs. 7 "Remember now, who ever perished being innocent?" MacArthur states: "Eliphaz, recognizing Job's 'fear of God' and 'integrity' was likely encouraging Job at the outset by saying he wouldn't die because he was innocent of any deadly iniquity, but must be guilty of some serious sin because he was reaping such anger from God. ...He had oversimplified God's pattern of retribution. This simple axiom, 'the righteous will prosper and the wicked will suffer,' does not always hold up in human experience. It is true that plowing and sowing iniquity reaps judgment, so Eliphaz was partially right, but not everything we reap in life is the result of something we have sown. Eliphaz was replacing theology with simplistic logic. To say that wherever there is suffering, it is the result of sowing sin is wrong. (Ex 4:11, Jn 9:1-3)"
• He states that the wicked may be strong but they are defeated. In this he is right but he is using this experience to explain another which does not always work.
• Eliphaz claims to have had some vision or dream where a messenger brought him divine revelation to back up his thoughts here.
• The next section of verses I'd like to research more (vs. 17-21) but John MacArthur's conclusions are: "vs 17- here is the conclusion of Eliphaz's revelation- that Job suffered because he was not holy enough, not righteous enough. vs17-21 This is the content of the message which is, in effect that God judges sin and sinners among men as He did among angles (vs.18 cf. Rev 12:3,4)
• From here Eliphaz, I feel, kind of insults Job's theological intelligence. He tells him in summary to not be foolish and forget that sin will be punished and that every man is sinful inevitably. Eliphaz felt the solution was a needed repentance on the part of Job before God. Eliphaz emphasizes God's greatness and goodness to show his moral perfection and man's lack of righteousness. What's amazing here is that everything Eliphaz says is true! Yet, he has not judged the situation wisely. He has assumed God's motives and Job's heart condition (boy, doesn't this sound recently familiar in the news? Though I think our Eliphaz could be called Pat) He goes so far as to say that if Job would just do this, he would be happy again. "You know Job, God works like this: you did A, God does B, you repent for A and that will equal C" I just love that God does not like to be predictable, but He is ALWAYS good. He really does not like us to shrink him to formulas.
• Eliphaz tops it all with a very biblical cherry on top. He parallels Lv 26 by lamenting on how the faithful will prosper. He tells Job he will be secure, happy and rich again if he does this repenting. Again Job, if you just would follow the formula! Again, the concept is a correct one but, again Eliphaz is assuming this is the only way God could bring such pain. There had to be a just reason such as unfaithfulness and the solution had to be as easy as restoration. This thinking Eliphaz here I think is dangerous and is the basis of the prosperity gospel of today. If we belong to God, we are sure to prosper. But, that is another blog for another day.
• I'll finish this off with again what John McArthur says because I love it: "On top of his physical misery and his tempting wife, he had to respond to ignorance and insensitivity from his friend, by expressing his frustration" . That is what followed in Ch 6.

Job's response in Ch 6 is indeed grumpy. Or at least that is how we read it. I wonder if his friends had not been even more of a burden, if it would have been any more calm. Probably not. I actually do see these friends words to him as being what we would call "insult to injury" for Job though and part of his trails. Just as it was to specifically take his loving children but LEAVE him his awful wife! Not only have you lost all, been placed in beyond bearable pain and infirmity, but now your friends are telling you that you have a sin problem. Oh, man, Job. His response is to just wish for God to finish what he has started and get it over with. Yet, I find it amazing that he vents that without an ounce of anger toward God for what he has done to him. That is one of the most challenging thing to get in this! In a sense I think Job felt that God knew why he was doing what he did so he better just get it done because the doing didn't feel good at all! Job was beyond social propriety and trying to put on a happy face. He probably had no resolve left to be polite to their arrogant judgements. We are reminded in vs. 10 that his faith in God is still firm and steady. He was confused why this was happening to him since he had kept the commands of the Lord and they were precious to him. He admonishes his friends for not being more kind to him even if he HAD forsaken God. He points out that he was not even asking to be delivered (which they are trying to tell him the solution so he can be thus delivered) but to have some sympathy and since they did not give him that he says they are no help.

Job is an incredibly profound book. It has a lot to say to our theology. It takes us to the place many people don't want to go. The place in heaven when the God you love and serve faithfully would indeed present the idea of your testing in such insufferable ways. When my dad slowly faded away physically I was impacted with this and what Job later says "though he slay me, yet I serve Him". Do you know what Job points to because of this? The very foundation of our human existence. God created us with a desire for Him. NOTHING can take that away from us, not even what He may choose to let be done to us. We are created to be reconciled to Him and the book of Job proves that our faith in that is bigger than ANYTHING else. It is all set up at the beginning. Satan felt that Job's faith was only because God did good things for him. God was not about to let humanity forever think that way either. It's much deeper than that, it's about our need that can only be filled by Him. Him taking us in, Him restoring us to himself. No prosperity can fill that need and when Job was stripped of every thing a man could hold, save his very life (which, mind you, and notice, Job was willing to give that up to and quite anxious for it knowing God was beyond that), THAT was still his fulfillment. THAT was what God wanted to prove to Satan....BECAUSE IT'S POWERFUL....BECAUSE IT'S UNSHAKABLE...BECAUSE IT'S WHAT WE CANNOT PROCURE FROM OURSELVES.

There are so many lessons here.

Saturday Scraps

For a while I've been wanting to do a blog about what has been rattling around at the top of my head all week. I did not know just how to do it. Saturday mornings are the only morning the kids and I act like bums for a few hours. Rick works on Saturday first of all so we don't have the normal day off that many people around us do. So, we don't hurry to get the day going. The only to-dos we have are chores. The kids have a tradition of cartoons on one of the two stations we do get and some what we call "Saturday morning cereal" which usually is something like Coco Puffs or Lucky Charms. We don't get them every Saturday but most.
So, while they chill in their jamies I usually have my coffee and get on the computer. It makes a good time to gather those scraps together.

• I'm really enjoying the chronological reading. I'm so impressed with the issue of time. How big a barrier time is to our trust in God. Perhaps it's impressed upon me because I struggle with impatience. Looking at the bible God seems to move like a Dinosaur! Everyone in the stories struggles to wait on God and his promises. Most of the trouble comes from women trying to make things happen on their own. Yet, God still uses their meddling for all his purposes. Joseph is impressing me the most lately though with his willingness to be and do whatever the Lord puts him in and to respond trustworthy at any level of responsibility. He had such cause to be bitter for all the wrong done to him and yet he escapes this sinful attitude by continually keeping his eyes on God. He seems of higher integrity than even King David to me in many ways. Back to the timing issue as well, I was hit with the significance of that band of Ishmaelites on camels that came by and bought Joseph from his brothers. Somehow my mind took me right into that scene. Who could know that those camel hoofs as they hit and shuffled the sand, were moving history. They were ushering in the transfer of the whole nation of Israel in Egypt. God knew what was going to happen and I'm sure every hoof and every clink of coins as they were transferred must have rung in his ears. It would save the nation from dispersing itself through marriage to outsiders and redistribution of the people to new lands. It would gather them and purify their lineage but it would also bring them under great oppression for so many years. Those camels brought on their backs, a new large and significant chapter in the history of God's people. The starting thread to a great tapestry.


• I'm very disappointed with Pat Robertson and his tactless insensitivity. I don't like when Christians give the enemy fuel to feed a fire of hatred against God's people. I also don't enjoy the words he used to say that the Devil was responsible for the events against the French in that country. Satan does nothing unless God allows him and people cannot have things they want to happen happen by going to Satan and him saying "okay". Pat made Satan look powerful and God look like the impersonal crushing giant standing in heaven and saying "there you go...bam!" We can never presume what God's decisions are regarding a nation unless he tells us himself. In the OT he does do that. He says he destroyed a people because... but if he does not say, we don't dare guess at his ways. I do know that the heart of Christ weeps for these. Just as he does for every injustice, every deep painful loss, every natural disaster. The whole earth is under the curse still and all of creation cries out for relief from it. I'm sure he weeps at what the effects of that curse results in on those he created. We know that it was that love for us for which he came to die. This disaster could happen to any people at any time and God would sorrow to see it happen on any of us. It makes me remember and be thankful that he has a plan to redeem it all. "For behold, I make all things new". Pat Robertson made me feel like I was in the temple hearing the two men pray that Jesus spoke of. One who said "thank you Lord that I am not like that man, filthy and unrighteous" and the other man who beat his chest and wept and tore his clothes before God for his unrighteousness but deep desire to be saved. Jesus told us which one the Father heard.


• I've been struggling with a bizarre health problem. In early December I had woke up with a seriously painful stiff neck. It was equal on both sides and I could hardly turn it at all. It was not like you get when you sleep wrong, it was way more painful than that. It was some of the worst pain I've every felt and I've had three kids. A week later I had a huge swollen gland in my under arm that was so painful but the neck was better so I was thankful. The swelling was there about a week also and began to move down my arm with the pain. After a few more days I could not stretch my arm out palm up all the way or stretch it out above my head all the way. I finally decided to see the doctor the week after Christmas. He put me on antibiotics for 10 days thinking it was an infection in my glands. I did not notice any difference except that I could stretch it a little more out. About this time I began to battle some real fears as to what was going on in my body. I spiked a strange high fever for 24 hours as well that had no other symptoms. After seeing my dad slowly fade away and die at 54 of cancer, I knew that nothing was guaranteed me. I also knew it was probably nothing and these thoughts battled themselves out in my mind over and over. I would think things like "that's it, I just need someone to do a full body MRI to make sure I don't have cancer" and then the Lord would speak to my heart and say "I know exactly what is going on in your body, and they could do all those tests and still not see what I may be able to see". The doctor saw me again and ordered an ultrasound on my arm. It was to make sure there were no blood clots. It was fine but there was still this long hard vein in my arm that was sore and knotted inside in places (very tiny but you could feel it on the outside). He put me on a 10 day regiment of aspirin and I have noticed a slight improvement in the vein. I'm still not sure whats causing it or if there is a bigger problem but this Focus on The Family was just for me. You have to listen. A mans healing is caught on audible recording. He was just in the middle of talking about healing and how God does whatever is best for His glory. That he sometimes heals and sometimes does not. In the middle of talking you can hear him being healed. I love how he tells Dobson at the end that if we could see the purposes of God in our problems we would probably be more willing to go through them. Yet, isn't that what faith is? Falling on the certainty of the goodness of God.

I think that's it for this week. At least all that's worth a spotlight....the rest is random jumbled mess!