Month: November 2019

You even put up with that?

You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely. (Psalm 139:3-4)

My first reaction to this passage is to say uh-oh, you know all my ways? (Sometimes I am not too proud of them!)

But on closer thought I’m glad God has this knowledge. Because God is a loving Father who wants to use that knowledge for my own good. If God were not driven by love, then I would be fearful of being smitten because I have had (and still have) some ways that are not admirable.

But the Lord who drew me to Christ is a loving Lord who wants to forgive me when I screw up and to change me. It’s this Lord who knows everything about me throughout the day. And that’s something for me to welcome instead of dreading.

This friendly familiarity that God has with me helps me be honest with him. Since there are no secrets between me and the Lord, when I am groaning, I can express that to him. So, rather than stewing inside and letting my dissatisfaction slowly eat away at me, I can bring my discontent out into the open. Look at what it says in Psalm 142:2.

I pour out before him my complaint;
before him I tell my trouble

This is something great about the Psalms: How often the Psalmist pours out heart and soul —sometimes in praise and sometimes in complaint.  We love to express joy but what about a day where we lack joy? We can be brutally honest when something has us annoyed or even boiling with anger. We do this not to justify ourselves but rather as part of a plea for God to act.

We can look at how the Psalmist’s complaint gets handled:

I cry to you, Lord;
    I say, “You are my refuge,
    my portion in the land of the living.” (Psalm 142:5)

And rather than dwelling in the bondage of complaint the Psalmist asks with confidence:

 Set me free from my prison,
    that I may praise your name.  (Psalm 142:7)

Now, God may or may not fix the situation we are complaining about. I love it when he does set it right! But, at the very least God gives us a positive attitude adjustment in the middle of whatever we were whining about.

He Preserves Us

The book of Philippians begins with “To all God’s holy people in Christ Jesus.” I think of us being God’s people when our men’s Battleground group gathers on Saturdays. Philippians continues in 1:6 by saying being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus, and reassures us by saying that it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (2: 13)

Last week our Battleground lesson was about control and many of us expressed how that idol shows up in our lives. I mentioned how I react when we receive a bogus bill and my wife says these five words: “Why are you so angry?”

Indeed, I need to confess what happened when we got a bogus bill early this year from our cable company. I ended up yelling at the representative on the phone. When I calmed down, I apologized for yelling at him, and he said, “No problem, that is what I get paid for.” Well I don’t think the yelling honored God but perhaps the apology did.

Scripture says that perseverance is especially important in our Christian life. But I have often failed in my perseverance. Does that mean I am doomed? That I might not carry on? Does it all depend on me? The Lord says no!

I am thankful that he gives us another word that starts with “P” that is even better than perseverance. It’s preservation. It’s Jesus who sustains me and preserves me.

Yes, God preserves us to allow us to take the next step after falling flat on our faces. And along that line, let me tell you how God has a sense of humor and timing.

After talking about my reaction to bogus bills at that Battleground meeting last week I got home and the postman rang our bell delivering a certified letter that said we were being fined by our homeowner’s association. It was punishment for something we did not do !

For a change, I wasn’t fuming and stewing over the unfairness of it all. My wife said I wasn’t handling this perfectly but I was handling it much better than I did with the cable company. Anyway this time I sent a polite but firm email to our association property manager protesting the fine and explaining why we did not owe it.

I said, “It’s in your hands, Lord.”

And early this past Monday an email came from the property manager apologizing for the misunderstanding and saying we did not owe the fine. Yes, God engineers circumstances to grow us and test us in our commitment and gives the grace to achieve it.

We really do spur each other on, broken vessels who nonetheless are growing in grace. I conclude with some words from Keith Getty and Stuart Townend’s song In Christ Alone which remind us how it does not depend on us:

Till He returns or calls me home-
Here in the pow’r of Christ I’ll stand.