There Are Thorns

 I have a routine for my mornings, my disciplined approach to keeping myself saturated in Scripture I would say, my wife and some others who know me well would likely joke that my personality is just far enough across the OCD line to demand it.  After serving my wife and myself coffee and allergy/decongestants it goes something like this: I pray asking God to open His word to me and begin reading in Psalms, the day of the month (for example today is the 22nd of December) determines my stepping off point.  I read the first Psalm, then read the chapter in Proverbs for that calendar day, then a chapter from the other Wisdom books (Job, Ecclesiastes, Song), then return to read the 2nd of the days Psalms by adding thirty to the first number (today's second Psalm is 52) - I then have a track that takes me through the Torah/Pentateuch, the History books, the Prophets, the Gospels/Acts, and the Epistles/Revelation alternating through the days five Psalms by adding 30 each time (22, 52, 82, 112, 142 would be today's five Psalms).  That puts me into at least 13 chapters a day if I stay on task.  Some days I do, and some days I begin chasing tie ins OT to NT, following rabbit trails that the Holy Spirit illuminates, some days I'm so overwhelmed by something I read that I begin praying for a situation I have on my heart realizing how that Scripture speaks directly to a life situation someone in my sphere of influence is facing.  I guess that confirms I haven't really crossed the OCD border given numerous alternative outcomes.  Regardless, it provides a much wider perspective on the whole Gospel message as I see it reiterated again and again from beginning to end and am able to clearly see that the mental divide most Christians have of OT/NT doesn't really apply as stringently as they would like to think.

That's the stage setting for this morning's blog.  As I sat down for my morning devotional readings I started in the first of today's five Psalms, 22.  I didn't make it through my regular track afterward though.  Instead I found myself in the Gospels reading Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23, and John 19.  Here's the verses from Psalm 22 that put me there:

1 My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
6 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people.
7 All those who see Me ridicule Me; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
8 "He trusted in the LORD, let Him rescue Him; let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!"

16 For dogs have surrounded Me; the congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me.  They pierced my hands and My feet;
17 I can count all My bones.  They look and stare at Me.
18 They divide My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.

All prophetic words written hundreds of years before their literal fulfillment in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah who would save His people, not just Israel, but the nations of humanity who would come to knowledge of Him and call on the one true God to save them, for faith in that God is accounted to us as righteousness and we are taught that there is no other name on earth, given among men whereby we must be saved.  So we find that not only our calendar, but all history truly revolves around the name of Jesus, born to a virgin, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

But beyond those words so literally fulfilled as you read the four Gospel accounts of the crucifixion, are the words of comfort and encouragement recorded in Psalm 22, also quite literally fulfilled for some forty days after the painful verses above.  These verses make my walk worth walking (emphases mine):

21b ...You have answered Me.
22 I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will praise You.
23 You who fear the LORD, praise Him!  All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, and fear Him, all you offspring of Israel!
24 For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; nor has He hidden His face from Him; but when He cried to Him, He heard.

You see, it wasn't a cake walk for which Jesus was born.  It was the Via Dolorosa (Latin for "the way of grief") for which the baby whose birth we celebrate in just a few short days came.  And yet for the pain set before Him, He endured the Cross, despising its shame, so that He could make a way out of no way, so that you and I could be restored to right relationship, indeed fellowship with God.  The King of the universe set aside His celestial coronet to have a cruel crown of mocking thorns crested painfully on his brow.  So that those words could be fulfilled:  YOU HAVE ANSWERED ME... HE HAS NOT DESPISED THE AFFLICTION OF THE AFFLICTED... WHEN HE CRIED TO HIM, HE HEARD. 

And yet to those looking on and even for Jesus (who knew the full plan) in the midst of the actual pain of the event, it seemed as if God had forsaken Him...

Beloved friends, just as it didn't look like what everyone thought it ought to look like the day Jesus was crucified, so there will be thorns and trials and pains and catastrophes in your life brought about many times by the thoughtless cruelties dealt like so many cards from the hands of our fellow sinful humanity.  I write this after the tragedy of Newtown Connecticut, Sandy Hook Elementary knowing that dozens of lives will find little to celebrate not only this Christmas, but from here on out as the overwhelming senselessness and void left in their life wells up with irrepressible grief beyond what most of us can imagine -- and yet we have this promise made sure that when we cry, He hears.  He redeems the most horrible things dealt out by the hands of sinful humanity, rarely though is it the way we think it ought to look - and therefore many have had their love grow cold and they willfully look away from the One they blame.  They miss the Sunday resurrection and all that it means because for them the event was laid to rest on Friday and they think they have moved on bearing one more disappointment in a string of disappointments that has come to reflect their dreary trudge through life.  It's just not right they scream, and then resign their hearts to the continued weariness of disappointment.

So about two thousand years ago, with all the attendant joy that accompanies such events - God in the flesh cried out after cresting the birth canal of a simple girl who had surrendered her heart and her life to a God whom she had not yet seen.  For about 33 confusing, hard, joyful, rewarding years afterward she saw Him most every day.  She remembered and pondered those first confusing days and angelic messengers; and the subsequent birth pain and joy combined; and early childhood events and anticipated a joyous resolution to her nation's struggles -- only to have it seemingly end in infinite shame and confusion.  And just when resignation had cleared a comfortable seat in the hearts of His closest followers and the disappointed heart of His confused mother she once again witnessed His rebirth as He burst forth from the grave clothes and walked again among them showing them the fulfillment of numerous promises recorded in places like Psalm 22.  Perhaps in the end Mary finally understood that God does indeed hear us when we cry because nothing is working out the way we planned, things are just not right, and yet with Him things are more than right.

He hears us when we cry, and as He redeemed Christ from the grave, He will redeem you - IF you will hear Him cry, from the manger, from the hills overlooking your broken circumstances, from the bedside of your broken moments.  He is Immanuel, God with us, and we celebrate His living to face the thorns alongside us.

8:11

I go through periods on my Facebook stream where I don't make many personal inspirational posts, I may repost a thing or two in scrolling through my news feed, but it seems some days I just am not on.  The truth of the matter is I get into sometimes private message conversations, or spend significant amounts of my limited time in entering conversations on other posts, so if I'm not posting personally, I'm probably working something elsewhere so to speak.  I've actually received private messages asking if everything is all right when I haven't posted for a few days, which is encouraging on several levels.

I'm going to do something today I haven't done before, because I think there is great value in both showing an example of where I disappear to and for those of you who care, how I think and where I've arrived in my years walking after Jesus.  I'm going to cut and paste the substance of a conversation I entered into over Facebook.  I will withhold the names of both the hostess and the single commentator I was responding to as their identities aren't the subject, nor am I attempting to cast dispersion on the individual with which I disagree.  The subject through the whole winding thread is Truth.  And I ask as Andy Andrews asked in his book "How Do You Kill 11 Million People":

If it is correct that "you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free," then is it possible that if you don't know the truth, its absence can place you in bondage?

Let me set the stage by saying the original post was an anti-Obama post with a captioned picture challenging the tactic of those who say anyone who doesn't support Obama or his appointments to key positions within his administration is racist.  I will present the comment that sparked my initial involvement and proceed from there without editing or elaborating.  I need to explain one final thing before we begin, why I was enticed to enter the conversation.

Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil
Ecclesiastes 8:11

Opponent:  No matter what you say or how much you beat that dead horse, he is our President and deserves respect !!!!

Me:  respectable people deserve respect, lawless people deserve punishment for the good of society as a whole.

Opponent:  Really, exactly what crime did he commit ?

Me:   Here are a few crimes: 1.) Under the UCMJ as CIC he is blatantly guilty of article 92 gross dereliction of duty leading directly to the death of US citizens and soldiers due to foreseeable circumstances under which he failed to provide adequate defense of sovereign US soil in Benghazi, Cairo, and 19 other embassies throughout the Muslim dominated regions where we have missions. 2.) Obstruction of justice in the matter of his instructions to AG Holder to not defend DOMA when it reached the Supreme Court for challenge - this was his first blatant Constitutional violation to my knowledge. 3.) Obstruction of justice and collaboration with intent to defraud with regards to Fast and Furious - again a matter that lead to the foreseeable death of US citizens and caused harm and insurrection within another country. 4.) Recess appointments of Cabinet positions without Congressional approval, WHILE CONGRESS WAS IN SESSION - willful disregard for the system of checks and balances established within the Constitution - and then refused to remove them from their posts when he was called on the matter by Congress who stated they did not approve of the candidate as being qualified in one instance. 5.) there are at least 8 other blatant violations of the Constitution by his direct approval very thoroughly documented by others with more time and space than a post on FB. If you are truly interested they are easy to find, as well as a copy of the Constitution from your local bookstore wherein you could compare the list to the documentation and test their veracity. The problem is our whole electorate has become lawless, pretty much an accurate reflection of their constituencies, most of us want what we want right now and will do whatever we have to to get it - damn the consequences to anyone else. Traditionally we have been a nation founded under a rule of law, with a healthy fear of God as ultimately keeping us accountable to a power greater than ourselves. With every little compromise from rock solid principles however we find ourselves to have usurped God's role and placed ourselves on the throne. So now we live in a nation with 545 small 'g' gods all working against each other to the detriment of all, leading all their citizenry to follow example in their little bailiwicks

Opponent:  Any time that I have bothered to check claims of those opposed to President Obama, I found them to be either distortions or falsehoods. The lies and distortions that Obama-haters keep going is reprehensible. Hey maybe the strategy is, if you tell a big enough lie frequently enough,some people will believe it. Enough already !!

Me:   It's all right miss Terrie, if we can't agree on a foundational rule of law against which to objectively compare his actions, then we can't even have common ground to stand on for this discussion, we're talking at and around each other. You see hate and disrespect toward a man, whereas informed conservative thinkers are calling his score card based on rules by which our president and electorate refuse to abide. I realized as I was working and thinking about this whole thing yesterday that the only way you could possibly not know what the real basis of the charges against the man are is if you don't want to know. And that's really the root of the problem with our country from the top down, we're in love with a dream of how we think things OUGHT to be, rather than objectively evaluating how things actually ARE. Those of us who have a love of the truth keep our feet on the ground and work to see our dreams fulfilled by putting our hard work and time proven disciplined efforts toward building and maintaining the foundation that provides an environment wherein those dreams can come to fruition. I'll share a current real life example with you: I have a neighbor whose 19yo son has openly been dealing drugs for almost two years and was arrested two nights ago, in possession, selling near a school, resulting in a fruitful search and seizure of additional quantities from his house across the street from my home. After the police left, two of us neighbors stood with the father and discussed what had happened - and the man stood there in understandable tears and told us what a good boy he was and how he was raised well and was respectful... so on and so forth, my other neighbor just called him on it and said "...your son and all his friends throw garbage out on all our lawns, even after being confronted, they have abused you as the parent multiple times - THAT'S NOT RESPECTFUL... you all had to know what the boy was doing and the dangers he was putting himself and us in and we've all talked about these issues before..." You see, the father never stepped back and objectively evaluated the actions of his son - he stayed in love with a dream that had no foundational work under it to build his son's future as they pictured it being. And that friends and observers is almost a perfect microcosm example of the biggest problems with our whole country right now, the sheer number of people in denial and refusing to abide by knowable objective truths by which to evaluate good and evil.

Hostess:  encore!!

Me:  Here's my encore. One last piece that comes directly out of this and brings it closer to home for all of us, and I'm going to step off from the real life example I shared to make my point which can be extrapolated back out to cover our governance gripes. This father is an alcoholic, he has made a life choice centered around a legally obtained drug which temporarily allows him to escape his real life worries and stresses and numb whatever real pain he refuses to address in a more constructive manner. The Bible tells us this is a love of pleasure rather than a love of truth. The father drank up the profits from a successful independent business, stopped maintaining his company assets which were the means by which he provided generously for his family, and has successfully perpetrated a claim of disability which allows him to subsist on meager income. Mom is now the primary breadwinner and stressed to the limit with the example of her husband and the actions of her only son. Having spoken with her repeatedly I know she is now working to personally clean up her side of the street and get her head screwed on straight moving forward. We have known this family for over 7 years now, and at least one of the unspoken lessons this boy has learned through his dad's choice is that he doesn't have to face reality either - he can do as he pleases regardless of the consequences to those around him. So why work diligently when you can score big? If he can just distribute enough he'll have the Escalade or Mercedes some of his rich kid friends park around my house all the time. To hell with the vandalism that has occurred to neighbors and parents cars/property, to hell with the tears and pleas of his mom and dad... to hell with the multiple conflicts and hassles the boy has already had with the neighbors and police. In the child's mind he says none of us understand what he's going for... I know because he's told me that to my face... while in most of our minds we don't understand why he can't see he's plunging headlong toward death, institutions, or insanity. And to bring the long example around full circle, the father thinks he raised his son well and taught him to be respectful. How can the father possibly think this? Because he refuses to look in the mirror. He can't see that he laid the foundation for his son to disobey and refuse to abide by proven moral standards and ethics that would ensure a future and a hope of real success that others can admire for something other than "bling". And the way that example extrapolates out is this: everything we do matters, it affects all of us in sometimes unforeseen ways. When our legislators and civic leaders do not make solid choices that are truly good they are choosing the delusion of temporary convenience just like the father chooses the bottle. Let me throw one other example in so we can more easily see the effects of an unspoken message that has wreaked untold havoc on our society: Playboy magazine. Yes there are others, but Playboy started the avalanche in this manner: it taught men and women that people are disposable and they exist solely for our pleasure. When the man gets the magazine in the mailbox, even if Miss June isn't quite to every nuance of his liking it's alright, because Miss July is on the way. So he puts Miss June on the shelf and picks up Miss July or goes back temporarily to Miss May while he waits. The corollary to the woman regarding this is that if her man isn't toeing the line in the manner she sees fit, she'll just take her "goods" elsewhere to someone who will appreciate them/her. So we take our Playboy and Playgirl magazine habits into our relationships with human beings. When we're done with them we throw them away. We can easily see cause and effect of almost any course of action if we will objectively look back at examples that show us clearly what a course of action will result in. It's not just dry history, or complex sociology, or political theory - it's our lives that are being either secured for liberty or shackled to servitude and it starts in my home, and in yours. If I will not lead a self disciplined, self governed life, submitting to knowable, objective, proven truth that leads to a healthy and constructive future then how can I expect my government to do the same. Those of us who are the maddest about what's happening around us have already learned this lesson even if we never put words to it as I have today. We aren't mad because we're racist or we didn't get what we want, we aren't being subjective and egocentric - we're being objective and we're mad because we objectively know that in the end there's nothing in it for any of us other than death, institutions, or insanity shackled to servitude because we had a great party today. Now if my focus is on God and His objectively proven standards of morality, with an expectation of blessing or punishment inherent in my relationship and my submission to a loving liberty providing owner of the universe, everything falls into place as it should. If my focus is anywhere else, or has placed man on a throne reserved only for the Creator, then I'll reap accordingly. So we find great wisdom in making sure we keep the kids or anything else from playing on the throne, and this requires self examination and vigilance on our part. The rewards are worth it. There is always hope and healing available for individuals and nations, but only as we name things rightly and expose them to the light of truth and move on in a different direction. Does that hope remove the scars and inherent consequences of past mistakes - NO, but it does provide a healthier future wherein we can share our experiences and snatch others out of the flames that are eagerly awaiting their destruction. The Truth matters more than we can imagine in every one of these supposedly political arguments, and there is no disrespect to a man to call him into the truth and hold him accountable. I would argue that to refuse to tell people the truth would be the ultimate disrespect.