Fire From Heaven

While he was still speaking, another also came and said, "The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them; and I alone have escaped to tell you!"
Job 1:16

I am at the point in my Bible reading cycle where I'm entering Job again.  In what seems a series of divine Godincidences the topics of deception and fighting the literal devil revealed in Scripture has come up in numerous conversations lately.  Just recently a Facebook friend and brother in Christ, Jody Midgley, specifically posted part of a 40 day series wherein he discussed battling the fiend.  My comment on that post was that the biggest trouble I have when I'm walking people through how to recognize the devil's schemes is that we are deceived into expecting him to appear in a red cat suit with a tail and pitch fork when Scripture warns us that he appears as an 'angel of light' (2Cor11:14).

I thought of that brief commentary and similar conversations I've had this morning when I read Job chapter 1.  We know from the verses earlier in the chapter that the devil has been given permission to attack Job, short of his personal body.  The characters experiencing the events do not.  Thus, a servant comes running from one of the calamitous events described and proclaims "The fire of God..."

But was it?  In all appearances it seemed to be just that.  But it wasn't.  Except it looked like it, right?  I mean how are the characters experiencing the event to know - they weren't standing around the Throne Room listening in on the conversation when it happened.  So give the credit (go ahead and finish the thought of where this really goes in our hearts, the BLAME) to God right?  Well in this case we know that's wrong.  God didn't do it, even though He allowed it.  That's a very important distinction.  When tragedy strikes it is no longer a question of whether it was ALLOWED to happen, that's now a moot point, an established fact - the vulgar term is SHIT HAPPENS.  One of my more mature (behaviorally, not chronologically) ministerial associates, Joe White, wrote recently "Manure Occureth".

My sound faith in God recognizes that although my life is in His hands, my steps are ordered by His Word, my path is set out under His direction, that calamity strikes.  In those moments I have reflexively retrained my natural reaction to be withdrawal from emotion - to take a step back and force myself into objectivity.  The smell of burning wool and charred flesh is still in my nose, I'm breathless from the sprint away from ground zero, shaking from the adrenaline, wondering why I survived, why me... and those signs serve to suddenly clarify my potential danger of running headlong into another self inflicted disaster after having been at the scene of a life shaking event.

Step back.  Breathe.  Evaluate.  What just happened?  Destruction.  Of what? An idol I'd established in my life?  No - then what?  Innocents and valuable livestock.  People doing their job, they clocked in this morning to tend the flock which was faring well this season.  Were they evil?  No more than any of us really, Bubba (I know it's not a Biblical name) was the best sort of people you'd ever want to know, give you the shirt off his back if you needed it.  So now we've seen rampant supernatural destruction it is next to impossible to fully wrap our mind around, and our heart is caught up in a maelstrom of potential devastation and bitter reaction that will drown us in life destroying hatred of God.  C.S. Lewis called it "The Problem of Pain."

In my evaluation I've eliminated God as the culprit and simultaneously pinned the tail on the Devil because I know that it is the Thief that comes to steal, kill, and destroy.  God gave us original life, and has willingly walked with us to give us new life, life more abundant (John 10:10).  Now, am I suddenly enlightened as to the purpose of my pain?  Rarely.  Hardly ever in fact.  Frequently I'm able to look back and see how He redeemed that destruction.  Occasionally I get to see some reasoning unfold in days rather than years.  Most often however, I'm just left in a calmer place knowing that I don't know what just happened or why, but that like Job, I can trust God.

And he said:

"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there.  The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD."
In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong.
Job 1:21-22

One of my points in this today is best summed up by a statement made by Pastor Steve Elliott: "A disaster of Biblical proportions does not make it Biblical in character."

Just because it looks like the "Fire of God" doesn't make it so.  We do better to ascertain the character reflected in the events before we jump to an unwarranted conclusion.  Often what people want to blame God for is nothing more than the inherent consequences of sin that never needs the active judgment of God.

To illuminate this struggle of acceptance and sorting through events we often face in our daily life I want to share something I read recently in Jonathan Cahn's book The Harbinger:

[we're stepping into a conversation between the two main characters, the Prophet and Nouriel regarding 9/11/2001, Nouriel struggling to wrap his mind around the implications]

Nouriel: Was God behind it?

Prophet: Man was behind it, he answered.  Evil men were behind it.  Up to that point they had been restrained...

Nouriel: It's hard to receive...but it's a hard... For what follows?  I don't know.  But even to say, 'God allowed it to happen'...

 Prophet: It happened, Nouriel.  Therefore it had to have been allowed to happen.  That's not the question.  Rather the only question is whether it was allowed to happen for no reason or whether there was, within it, a redemptive purpose.

Nouriel:  On 9/11 people were asking, 'Where was God?'

Prophet: 'Where was God?' he said, as if surprised by the question.  We drove Him out of our schools, out of our government, out of our media, out of our culture, out of our public square.  We drove Him out of our national life, and then we ask, 'Where is God?'

Nouriel:  Then He wasn't there?

Prophet:  Still, He was there.  He was there with those who lost their loved ones and is still there to heal the broken and comfort those who mourn.  He was there with those who gave their lives so others could live, shadows of Him.  And He was there, as well, with all the countless others who would have perished that day if not for the countless turns of details and events that saved them.  And for those who perished... those who were with God in life are now with Him in eternity.  For these, it was not a day of national calamity but of release.  He was with them and is with them.

Hard words that bear thinking about.

In what is an echo of an Andy Andrews book entitled How Do You Kill 11 Million People? with the poignant subtitle Why the Truth Matters More Than You Think I want to close sharing an article I just read this morning which finishes out the tap on the shoulder I received this morning to write this (emphases of paragraph and final line mine):

March 21, 2013

The Devil in Disguise

By Earl Tilford

3/21/2013

After Sunday’s airing of Home Box Office’s series “The Bible,” controversy erupted over the depiction of Satan. Series producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey denied any purposeful resemblance to President Barack Obama noting Moroccan actor Mehdi Ouazaani often plays dark figures. Silver screen satanic characters have taken many forms, from horned monsters to the slick New York lawyer played by Al Pacino in “The Devil’s Advocate.” In Genesis, Satan appeared to Eve as a crafty serpent. It wasn’t until after Satan took serpentine form that God took away the creature’s legs, condemning all snakes, from innocent garter snakes to deadly rattlers, to life on their bellies.

Arguably, the satanic character in the HBO series only superficially resembles our president. The depiction also is Biblically and theologically inaccurate because evil usually comes to us disguised as good. Satan sold Eve on the virtues of nibbling the forbidden fruit, insisting God would never punish her. The innocent Eve couldn’t have recognized evil since she had not yet broken the one commandment God gave her and Adam. Had Satan been honest with Eve, it would have taken a “blonde moment” of apocalyptic dimensions to buy into the pains of childbirth, loss of a son to sibling murder, tooth decay, a likely painful death followed by a return to dust. The serpent promised a deeper understanding of life’s mysteries, theretofore known only to God, Satan and other angelic creatures.

Evil exists. Pure, unadulterated evil recently visited a nearby Tuscaloosa neighborhood where an unknown assailant butchered a 73-year old female friend of mine. Heartbroken, I listened at her memorial service while the pastor dwelt on the Psalmist’s poetic assurance that we need not fear evil while in the valley of death because a loving God will be there with us. Some years ago, in the midst of that valley, I asked “God, where were you when my child died?” The response I received, “The same place I was when my son died,” brought serenity and hope without fully satisfying the “why?” Presumably a complete answer awaits me in eternity.

Most of the time, evil isn’t as clearly apparent as my friend’s ax wielding killer must have been during her terrifying last moments. The most recognizable modern personification of evil is Adolf Hitler. Third Reich propaganda films like “Triumph of the Will” clearly show millions of Germans adoring the Fuhrer whose seductive message blamed their sufferings on the Versailles Treaty, evil intent of Bolsheviks, and insidious machinations of Jews at home and abroad. In 1933, had Hitler promised, “Follow me and within 12 years your cities will be rubble, 19,000,000 of you will be dead, our nation divided and occupied by foreign armies, your national honor trashed, and my name along with this regime will become synonymous with evil,” I doubt the people who gave us Beethoven, Bach, Einstein and Goethe would have yelled, “Sieg Heil! Sign me up!”

The essence of Biblical evil is man usurping God’s providence. God didn’t create us evil. He did, however, allow free will and then, when humanity turned away to pursue its own ideas of what is good, just and righteous, God let us be who and what we are with deadly results. Words matter.

On January 20, 1942, 15 German officials, met at the Berlin resort of Wannsee where, over brunch, they decided to exterminate and incinerate Europe’s 12,000,000 Jews. If all went according to plan, the fully developed process would take less than a year. Indeed, from January 1942 to April 1945, the German work camp system killed 12,000,000 people, half of them Jews. Nazis used euphemisms like “evacuation” for “extermination” and “medical re-socialization” for “sterilization.” Their final solution was mass murder.

The Wannsee attendees didn’t resemble monsters. Conference chair, SS Lt. Gen. Reinhardt Heydrich, who would soon earn the title “Butcher of Prague,” also was a concert violinist and Olympic gold medal fencer. Most of the attendees—secondary officials and bureaucrats—were lawyers…family men. Their evil was not in their monstrosity but in their banality. Worse, they were convinced history would vindicate and honor their actions.

Like the Satan in the Garden, evil deceives with words. A current TV ad depicts a brother conceding his gay sibling’s right to be as happy in same-sex marriage as he is with his wife. Many liberal Christians advocate a plethora of “social justice” issues from pro-choice and gay marriage, to open immigration. Ironically, in Biblical Greek—the language of the New Testament—the words “righteousness” and “justice” are identical. God’s justice flows from inexorable righteousness while social justice reflects human values. Therein lies the rub. Evil is not how we play Satan, but how Satan plays us.

Taking What You Like... Leaving the Rest

Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.
Hebrews 12:12-13 (emphases mine)

In my conversations with people something of my faith always comes out in some fashion.  I credit the skill in my work to God - it is clearly evident to me that He put me in some very key places to learn some things that few others in my field (even many who have decades more experience) have been exposed to.  I credit my work ethic to Him because I frequently remind myself of Colossians 3:23-24 and that it is actually Jesus Christ whom I work for and answer to.  That encourages some, offends others.  It builds a rapport with some, sets others to thinking they might be able to take advantage of what they see as my naivete (this second crowd always end up sorely disabused, but it's sadly humorous to watch them try).  I just really strive to do the right thing for all the parties involved.  I fail sometimes to be certain, and that motivates me to do better when faced with the same situation again.

The place where I'm most blessed in my relations with others is to share bits and pieces of healing.  I genuinely want holistic wellness for people, and because I've worked to obtain that for myself over the last 23 years especially, I know of whence I speak when I choose to speak.  Some people have watched from a distance and eventually approached me in their hard times asking what they know will come with true empathy, but possibly hard answers.  That empathy earns me the right to the conversation, but often what I find is that the hard answers often turn the suffering person away - not from me, but from their solution.  They are far too often the victim of their own circumstances, reaping what they've sown - and the answers I share from my experience just don't fit their bill.  Some try for a minute, and taste and see that the Lord is good, and then with the least bit of relief they resume their former ways of destruction thinking that the storm has passed and therefore they can step out from under the Rock.

The main point of this blog this morning is this: If you want the HEALING for some area of your life, you have got to divorce your thinking from doing the same things you've always done and expecting different results.  Notice I wrote THINKING.  It starts there and leads to actions.

Notice in the two verses I opened with that there is a different order of events.

1. We have suffered some injury - there is a part of our life not working, it's lame
2. So we strengthen that member - that part that is injured needs strengthening
3. We do this by making straight paths - paths clear and separated from the clutter that lead to the injury in the first place
4. We experience healing.

Far too often we want #4 without any more than acknowledging #1.

Without #2 and #3 however there can be no #4.

Without #2 and #3 what's going to happen instead?  We're going to permanently dislocate that injured member of our body.  We are going to push our ways of doing things to the point that we destroy everything that that member could have done for us for years to come.

This is the negative corollary to "taking what you like and leaving the rest."  We say we want the healing, but not the work of obtaining it.  We want the blessing of God without the work of walking with God in transparency.  We want the paycheck without the work.  We want the fruit without planting a tree.  We want the blessings without the blessor.  The author of Hebrews had a couple things to say in this same chapter about that leading right in to the verses I opened with:

"It is for discipline that you have to endure."
"For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it."
Hebrews 12:7a & 11 (ESV) (emphasis mine)

Something I've found over the years is that some Christians who know no better have some kind of predisposition against 12 Step programs or 'Self Help' approaches to facing horrible issues of brokenness or victimization - partly because they are ignorant of the origins of AA and Al-Anon and all the subsequent programs that grew out of those experiences.  They fearfully hear "a God of your understanding" and walk out of what must be a new age gathering.  They frequently also walk out on their healing.  They are unwilling to admit that they themselves will never fully 'understand God' until they are with Him and see Him as He is.  They are facing something sordid in their life such as an addiction, or a loved one with an addiction, or the memories of horrible abuse and rather than being able to sit in a room with others walking through those same experiences they return to a congregation who can't help them, or won't help them, or worse - judge them without any shred of understanding or empathy.  So they walk through the rest of their "blessed" Christian walk with a dislocated member that the Church should have helped them heal but couldn't and wouldn't.

We rarely do well with the healing stream of counseling in the Church, mainly, in my disgruntled opinion, because we have mostly failed to truly face our own personal sins and realize how extravagant and costly is the grace of God which healeth thee.  We mainly judge wrongly in relation to the less respectable victims of sin because we have frequently obtained fire insurance salvation without a clarion experience of repentance, therefore we have no real counseling to give from our personal experience because we were 'good people' before we got saved - just not quite 'good enough' so we needed Jesus.  Hogwash and fudderbuddle.  Scripture tells a different story about every one of us - there is only one who is good and that is God, He is the very definition of good and the measure to which we cannot attain.  In His grace and mercy He made a way in the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf.  The sinless suffered for the sinful, and by His stripes we are healed.  But we're unlikely to need that remedy so long as we've excused and justified ourselves in our own eyes - by making ourselves out to be victims without recourse.  We may very well have been victimized at points in our life, but there is a healing recourse to live as overcoming survivors.

So I've known far more people who have a vibrant Christian walk because they have been driven to their knees in humble submission to life circumstances, admitted that they can't do it on their own, turned their lives over to the care of God, and then face their demons down and make straight paths for their feet.  When they've been somewhat strengthened and are walking in healing, they extend hands to other victims along their path and sometimes those hands are grasped, sometimes smacked away.

There are a couple things I've seen in reaction to people who obtain healing outside of the Church, a bitter judgmental jealousy of those within the Church who have failed to attain anything resembling healing leading to the "abundant joyful life".  And a hardening of the healed person's heart in relation to the Church, because part of keeping their paths clean is to stay away from toxic people who have God in a box and can lay it all out with every answer to every question.  It is a failure on the part of the Church to understand that God makes His rain to fall on the evil and the good, the just and the unjust, the Jew and the Gentile.  He will pour out His Spirit where He wills, and healing will follow that stream wherever it flows (Ezekiel 47:9).  And nothing makes a good religious person madder than a healed person Jesus brought through the back door - because they don't want it to be about Him, they want it to be about them, their knowledge, their understanding, their works, their rule keeping, their reasoning.  They don't want anything to do with Ecclesiastes 11:5:

As you do not know what is the way of the wind, or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, so you do not know the works of God who makes everything

(emphasis mine)

And the healed person needs to understand that we are in the walk together whether we like it or not, that if you've reached a true experience and understanding of who God has revealed Himself to be, you must walk with others in that Light and that ultimately it's not just about healing from an addiction or abusive life experiences at the hands of some addicted relative, it's about God's glory revealed in you.  It's about making God's name famous as some translations have it.  It's about bringing the 'good' people in the pew next to you along for the true experience of repentance and walking in newness of life - because maybe God will use your humble story of healing to convict that good religious person and sound the clarion call of repentance in their life.  But not if you aren't sitting in the pew for whatever excuse you've justified in your mind.

In closing I will say that one thing is true of every vibrantly healed life I've ever known in the Church or in a 12 step recovery program: although they took one thing they liked at a time, they understood that they would not be able to leave the rest forever.  And as the opportunity presented itself they didn't just take the small tastes of peaceful healing for granted, but picked up the other tools God generously gave them and learned where the disciplined application of those principles would continue making straight paths so that they could be healed.