Hearing God Say "I Love You"

So I was reading through some chapters of Isaiah the other day with my friend Janet, and I was struck by this particular passage (Isaiah 43:1-4, emphasis added):

Now, this is what the Lord says,
the one who created you, O Jacob,
and formed you, O Israel:
“Don’t be afraid, for I will protect you.
I call you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I am with you;
when you pass through the streams, they will not overwhelm you.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned;
the flames will not harm you.
For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your deliverer.
I have handed over Egypt as a ransom price,
Ethiopia and Seba in place of you.
Since you are precious and special in my sight,
and I love you,
I will hand over people in place of you,
nations in place of your life.

 The verse in bold really hit me hard - it surprised me.

I feel like, growing up in the church, we've always been taught that God loves us, but it sometimes has a tendency to feel really intellectual or abstract.  We quote John 3:16 all the time - "For God so loved the world," and hey, "the world" includes me, so I guess that means God loves me?  Right?  I mean, it makes logical sense, I guess.

But there is something far more impactful about hearing God say the words, in first person, "I love you."

And he actually says those words in the book of Isaiah.

I remember a period when I was part of a small house church in Boston.  We were trying to understand the concept of "listening to God."  Many of us were used to praying to God, but we were definitely not used to quietly listening for his voice.  It felt more than a little strange, and kind of awkward.

I'm not sure I ever "figured it out," although I remember one time I was trying to meditate quietly and listen as best as I could, and as bizarre as it may sound, I actually did think I heard something from God - and it was those three words: "I love you."  It was a very weird feeling, and I was not sure of what I had experienced.  If I remember correctly, I pretty much kept it to myself, uncertain.

At the next church house meeting, another young lady shared her experience with trying to "listen to God," and her description of her awkward and strange attempts felt like it could easily have been mine.  And she shared what she thought was the only thing she had heard - and how she felt it couldn't be right, it was too simple, it was what she wanted to hear, etc. - and it was exactly the same thing I had heard - "I love you."

I felt like that confirmed it for me.  I believe God is waiting to tell those three words to anybody who will hear them.

He said it directly in Isaiah 43, after all, so it's not unprecedented.

But Chris, you might be saying, Isaiah 43 wasn't written to you.  It was written to the people of Israel.  Yeah, you're right.  And guess what?  Through the sacrifice of Jesus, those who call on his name are grafted in to the tree of Israel, so yeah, it applies to me, and it applies to anyone in Jesus.

In fact, John 3:16 makes it clear that God's love is beyond even Israel or those who are in Christ - he loves the world.  God's love is the starting point for us all.

But yes, if you want the particular promises of Isaiah to apply to you, reconciliation with God is available to you right now through Jesus.  God is longing to say "You are precious and special in my sight and I love you" to everyone who will hear it - and he sent his son as a confirmation.  That reconciliation can be had through him right now - if you're not sure on the particulars, go and ask any of your Christ-following friends.  I'm sure anybody would be ecstatic to share.

No matter what you think you've done, or how far away you think you are, the Creator God of the universe has something important he wants to tell you.

When Abraham Judged God

A little while ago at church we talked about Genesis 18 - you know, the one where Abraham "bargains with God" to prevent the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  This is a particularly rich and interesting passage, and a lot of good points can be made from it, but I had a thought about it that maybe... er... a bit different.  I'll see what you think about it.

Let's consider how Abraham starts the famous conversation after he learns that God is considering wiping Sodom and Gomorrah from the planet:

23 Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

This is absolutely fascinating to me.  Check out that language: "Far be it from you!"  Twice!  Asking if God will "do right!"  Let's be frank about what Abraham is doing here.  As best as I can figure, he is judging God.  He is accusing God of doing something wrong (or potentially wrong, at least) by destroying the two cities.  From my perspective, of course, this is an absolutely ludicrous thing to say, as it's God who defines right and wrong, not us.  But Abraham doesn't seem to see any irony in his own words.  I imagine that Abraham is legitimately and emotionally grieved and angered by God's plan.

Why?  Well, Abraham's nephew Lot and his family are there, for one thing.  Perhaps Abraham is being totally upfront with his argument - he just doesn't like the idea of whole cities getting judged and destroyed, when innocent people (relatives of his or otherwise) might get caught in the crossfire.  Abraham apparently imagines that God has not thought of this already, and this provokes righteous anger in Abraham.  "HOW DARE YOU" he is basically saying to God.  That's a pretty serious thing to say.

Now, notice how God reacts.  If you've read the book of Job, you might imagine that God will respond with two chapters or more of "putting Abraham in his place," reminding him who is actually sovereign, and who is not.  But that's not what he says:

26 The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Well, gee.  All right, then.  That was easy.

Perhaps a little too easy.

Notice that immediately Abraham is not satisfied with this:

27 Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, 28 what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?”

I find this humorous, although I suppose I shouldn't, as the subject matter is pretty awful.  But nonetheless, I have to imagine that as easily as God agreed, the first thought passing through Abraham's mind must have been, "Uh oh... what if there's not fifty righteous people?  Fifty's an awfully big number... maybe it'd be safer to try 45."  (Notice how he backs away from his earlier tone and becomes a touch more humble - is he realizing he might have overstepped his bounds a bit with his previous tirade?)

And again, God agrees easily, but even that's not good enough. And so he "negotiates" God down step by step - 45, 40, 30, 20, and finally 10.  And each time, God agrees simply and calmly without argument or criticism.

In the next chapter God rains burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah.

Apparently 10 wasn't a low enough number.

I have heard people in various Sunday School classes and so forth make the case that this is a prime example of intercessory prayer changing God's mind.  While there are other Bible stories that demonstrate this, that's not what this particular case is, I don't think.  Rather, this is a prime example of God gently and mercifully changing Abraham's mind.

Abraham did not trust God.  He lashed out in anger at God, morally judging his intentions.  He believed himself to be a better arbiter of good and evil than God.  But over the course of the conversation, without God having to say even one single cross word - simply by agreeing with Abraham over and over - Abraham starts to gradually realize that God might have a far better idea of how many righteous people there are in the cities, and whether they deserved destruction, than Abraham.  Maybe God already stayed his hand for a very long time for the sake of innocent people (recall how the Israelites couldn't enter the Promised Land until the sin of the Canaanites was complete).  Maybe Abraham started to realize that God's justice and wisdom and mercy is beyond ours, and that Abraham wasn't telling God anything he didn't already know.

In the next chapter, God (rather forcibly) leads Abraham's relatives out of the city before destroying it, explicitly for Abraham's sake.  God took care of Abraham, even though I would've thought God would've been insulted and angered by Abraham's lack of trust.

And honestly, that's kind of convicting to me.  I hear people judging God all the time - and I don't mean just people understandably caught up in the emotions of grief, or people honestly wrestling with questions.  I mean people just straight up accusing God of doing wrong - the things he allows, does, or doesn't do.  "Far be it from you!" and so forth.  My gut-level reaction to this is to want to respond with mockery and sarcasm.  It's so obviously foolish and self-defeating.  I want God to "speak from the whirlwind" as he did at the end of Job, putting everybody in their place.

But that's not always what God does.  I'm not even convinced that's mostly what God does.  He didn't with Abraham, after all.  He responded gently, quietly, with mercy, allowing Abraham to work things out on his own.  It's possible that there are cases where we need to rebuke judgmental thinking about God, but I suspect there are more cases where we need to respond with the mercy and patience and understanding that God showed.

What do you think?

Uh... How Did I Miss This Story? (Jeremiah 35)

Ah, Jeremiah 35.  That's a great chapter of the Bible, isn't it?

I mean, I'm sure you've read it.

Jeremiah 35, right?

The one about the Recabites, of course.

You know what I'm talking about.

Right?

Ok, actually, I read this one recently and I realized that I had no recollection of ever having read this passage before in my entire life, or even having vaguely heard about the events in it.

I've "read" the Bible several times all the way through, meaning, of course, that my eyes saw every verse of it from beginning to end.  Whether any of it actually penetrated by brain by the time I got to the various prophets in the Old Testament is an open question.  (The anxiety-laden part of my brain would like to remind me at this time that it's entirely possible that I comprehended everything I read, but I'm just developing an early-onset case of dementia.)

At any rate, since there's a chance you may not have any more memory of Jeremiah 35 than I did, allow me to summarize (or you could go read it - that's always a possibility, right?).

The chapter concerns a nomadic tribe called the Recabites that lived in close proximity to Jerusalem.  Although they were not Israelites themselves, they appeared to be God-fearing, and the Israelites were friendly to them.  The story begins with God directing Jeremiah (the main prophet of the time) to go round up the Recabites and bring them into the temple and, for some reason, serve them wine.

The Recabites accept the invitation into the temple but refuse the wine, explaining that their ancestor instructed them to never touch wine, grow crops, or live in houses, and so, they don't.  (Did God knowingly order Jeremiah to commit a faux pas just so he would get hit over the head with their customs?)

God then instructs Jeremiah to hold these people up as an example to Jerusalem, basically saying, "These guys can obey their forefathers, but you won't obey me.  Consequently, I'm going to destroy you, and bless the Recabites."  And, of course, he did destroy Jerusalem, not too long after this story took place.

So what's so interesting to me about this?  Well, notice that list of things the Recabites were obeying - no wine, no agriculture, more or less adopting a Paleo lifestyle.  None of these particular things are things that God ordered the Israelites to do.  There is no command in Moses's law to be nomads or never touch alcohol.  Nevertheless, God seems super happy to see the Recabites following their forefathers' wishes.  The Recabites did good by tee-totaling not because God wants tee-totaling but merely because it's what old grandpa Jonadab wanted!  It struck me:

Does God value obedience for its own sake?

Well, God certainly wouldn't value obedience to a human being when it contradicted his wishes.  But you'll notice he never told the Israelites not to be nomads, right?

In fact, it seems to me that the whole Bible, both Old and New Testament, is shot through with an ethic of obedience and submission to authorities - parents, governments, even hypocritical religious leaders.  Even going back to the Ten Commandments, God listed "Honor your father and your mother" before "You shall not murder."  Both Jesus and Paul told their followers to pay taxes to Caesar (and Paul went one step further, commanding honor and respect be given to governing authorities!).  Jesus criticized the religious authorities of the day with harsh language, but then he turned right around and told the people:

"The experts in the law and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat.  Therefore pay attention to what they tell you and do it.  But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach." (Matthew 23:2-3)

So, in case you were thinking that Jesus's criticisms of the religious leaders of the time justified a general attitude of rebellion... nope!  Jesus told the people to obey them anyway, even if they were horrible hypocrites and "children of hell," a "brood of vipers," etc. as he called them literally just a few verses down.

Now granted, God did reward Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego for defying various Babylonian and Persian kings' orders to worship idols, and he did reward the midwives for not following Pharaoh's orders to murder Israelite babies in the book of Exodus.  So clearly, sometimes defiance of earthly authorities is called for.

And I think it's also important that the Recabites were not preaching their particular family traditions as absolute moral statements on the same level as God's commandments.  That's highly dangerous, as the religious leaders in Jesus's time found out.  Instead, they were up front about the fact that old grandpa Jonadab wanted this, so that's what they were doing.  They weren't contradicting God's will, nor elevating their traditions beyond their proper place.  They weren't imposing their traditions on anyone else.  They were simply honoring their forefather in the best way they could.

It's also interesting to me that God chose to honor this particular tribe while they were right in the middle of disobeying one of their traditions due to extraordinary circumstances.  You see, they had just moved into Jerusalem (also known as a city) to protect themselves from invading armies.  That seems remarkably reasonable to me.

So anyway, what do you think?  How would you interpret this little narrative?

Let's Get Mayed

"Do not be dismayed."

It's a phrase that shows up more than a few times in the Old Testament, especially if you read the New Revised Standard Version. It struck me the other day while reading through the book of Isaiah:

"I said, ‘You are my servant’;
I have chosen you and have not rejected you.  So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."  (Isaiah 41:9-10)

(This comes shortly after Isaiah 40, which is, in my opinion, one of the most awesome chapters in all the Bible.  If you're ever in need of serious comfort, there's some great stuff in there, and chapter 41 continues the theme.)

So why should this particular verse strike me?  There are something like a bajillion other ones just like it throughout the Old Testament.  Well, because of that word "dismayed."  A lot of the times similar thoughts are translated "afraid" or "discouraged," but "dismayed" kind of hit me because I've been feeling that a lot lately.  "Afraid" and "discouraged" both seem to have more of a "fear" slant to them than "dismayed," which seems to communicate (to me at least) a little more the feeling of having given up.  Fear may be a part of it, but "dismayed" puts more emphasis on the hopeless feelings rather than the fear.

And yet, here's God again, telling us:

"Do not be dismayed."

Why shouldn't I be dismayed?  Sometimes, things are awful, aren't they?  I have a Twitter account.  I know what's going on.  Right?  Well, God goes on to say,

"Because your emotions are bad and you shouldn't have them.  So man up and no longer be dismayed, because I said so."

Oh wait, that's what Fake Stream-of-Constant-Criticism God (TM) who lives in my head says.  Let's hear from Actual God:

"I said, ‘You are my servant’;
I have chosen you and have not rejected you.  So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."  (Isaiah 41:9-10)

God gives evidence as to why we shouldn't be dismayed.  He's chosen you.  He's with you.  He's your God.  And there's a lot more where that came from if you want to hop back into Isaiah 40.

Do you believe God when he tells you that?

It occurred to me that there's "dismayed" in English, but no "mayed" or "unmayed" or "premayed" or "undermayed."  So, naturally, I went to the Online Etymology Dictionary to elucidate this mystery and not at all to waste time:

late 13c., dismaien, from Old French *desmaier (attested only in past participle dismaye), from Latin de- intensive prefix + Old French esmaier "to trouble, disturb," from Vulgar Latin *exmagare "divest of power or ability" (source of Italian smagare "to weaken, dismay, discourage"), from ex- (see ex-) + Proto-Germanic *magan "to be able" (source also of Old High German magen "to be powerful or able"), from PIE root *magh- "to be able, have power." Spanish desmayer "to be dispirited" is a loan word from Old French. Related: Dismayed; dismaying.

Neat, right?

Right?

Check out where it says the "may" part comes from Proto-Germanic "magan," or "to be powerful or able."  "Dismayed" literally means "powerless."

There's something to that.  I remember back when I used to *embarrassed cough* play World of Warcraft.  I was part of a raiding guild where up to 40 players could get together to fight incredibly difficult dragons - it was exhilarating, but occasionally frustrating, as the boss monsters kept getting more and more challenging.  More than a few times, we would be fighting some boss or other, and I could see we were making progress.  The raid leader (a.k.a. my brother) could see we were making progress.  Not very much progress, grant you, but we definitely had it in us to win.  But after several hours of trying and dying, trying and dying, some of the team members started to whine and complain.  It didn't seem like any progress was being made to them, so they quit.  And people would start dropping out.

Now, if we had a chance to win with 40 raid members, we really had no chance with 37, or 34, or 28.  One person leaves and it becomes a cascade.  No amount of persuasion or encouragement could stop the chain reaction at that point, and we had to call the raid.  It was immensely frustrating, because we could see that we could win.  It was not the dragon that defeated us.  It was our own dismay.  Thanks to the game's mechanic of infinite resurrections, we knew we hadn't really lost until we had given up.  To be dismayed really is to be powerless.

It's the same for many people I've tutored in algebra.  They would take one look at the x's and y's and arcane symbols and decide they've already lost, even when I knew full well that they had the intelligence to handle it.

Occasionally, though, people with math anxiety actually trusted me when I told them they could handle it.  I offered them evidence - showed them what they had already accomplished, and told them that algebra wasn't anymore complicated once you learned what the symbols meant.  I tried to communicate as much expertise on the subject as I could muster.  And if they bought it - they succeeded.  

I feel like God must be trying to do that to us all the time.  "I will guarantee you victory if you TRY!" he must be practically yelling at us.  "I am with you!  I am in control!  I've rigged the outcome already!  Don't give up before you've started!  Don't give up after the first several hours of setbacks!"

"Don't give up!  You can't lose so long as you don't give up!"

And if we take him up on that, if we believe what he's telling us, so long as we're on his side, we will, in fact, no longer be powerless, because we have his "strength" and "help" and "righteous right hand."

So, let's take him up on that, shall we?

Let's get mayed.