Psalm 83
A few days ago, one of my Facebook friends wrote this as a status update: “One upside to having a sick child… all the extra snuggles!” When I read that, it struck me that maybe God sometimes feels the same way. It is suffering, not necessarily ease and comfort, that drives us deeper into God’s arms. It is suffering that helps us identify with Him—the one who has been suffering since sin began in His universe.
Psalm 69
It seems like from the time we started dating, my husband and I have had a favorite saying in our relationship: Get out of my head. Ever since the first days of our courtship, we’ve had an uncanny ability to finish each other’s sentences. Sometimes, it feels like we can even read each other’s minds.
Psalm 56
There is such a beautiful verse in this psalm, perhaps one of the most beautiful verses in the Bible: “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” (vs 8)
When I became a stay-at-home mom for the first time with my baby daughter, I remember that there was nothing harder for me than when she cried. Oh, I don’t mean when I heard the sound of her crying. It was seeing her cry that really got to me. I could handle the moments when she was screaming her head off for one reason or another. But it was too much for me when tiny tears would slip down her cheeks. When she would cry those little tears, it broke my heart!
Psalm 55
Okay, so the title of this blog is aimed at women, not men (just in case you guys were starting to sweat a little bit). Although what I am about to say in this blog applies just as equally to men as it does to women. Guys aren’t the only ones who have girlfriends. Girls have girlfriends, too—you know, the kind you can talk to on the phone for hours or stay up half the night giggling with. For girls, a good girlfriend is someone to whom you feel comfortable pouring out your heart—down to the very last, nitty gritty detail. Most guys have an equivalent to the girlfriend relationship—someone they feel comfortable being completely honest with, except it often doesn’t involve as much talking.
Psalm 43
God has an agenda. It’s a simple one—to draw us ever closer to Him in relationship. I believe He does this even with His perfect creatures—those who have never fallen into sin. Why? Because no creature—even a perfect one—can ever fully understand the mind of the Creator. There will always be more to learn, more to be revealed. And so God is in the business of personal revelation.
Psalm 26
I’m not sure I’ve ever read this psalm before. But this is what caught my attention: “Lord, I love the house where you live, the place where your glory dwells.” (vs 8)
I imagine David was talking about the temple. I don’t know that for sure, but that would probably have been the most obvious point of reference. This is what we would expect of a deity, right? To dwell somewhere else, in a fixed time and place. And if we wanted to meet with him, we would go for a visit.
Job 42
After having gone through the book of Job, chapter by chapter, with a fine-tooth comb, I find that I love this final chapter now more than ever before. I used to love it for the fact that God exonerated Job and put Job’s friends in their place when He said, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has” (vs 7), but I see so much more in this chapter now than I did previously. I guess that’s because God is always wanting to show us more! And that’s the picture of Him I saw here.
Job 34
Didn’t Elihu say he had something new to add to the conversation? Instead, he ends up repackaging and regurgitating the arguments of his older, supposedly-not-as-wise counterparts: “Job claims that he is innocent, that God refuses to give him justice. He asks, How could I lie and say I am wrong? I am fatally wounded, but I am sinless. Have you ever seen anyone like this man Job? He never shows respect for God. He likes the company of evil people and goes around with sinners. He says that it never does any good to try to follow God’s will.” (vs 5-9)
Job 22
In the opening of Job 22, Eliphaz starts in again with Job: "What pleasure would it give the Almighty if you were righteous?" (vs 2) Actually, The Message Bible does an even better job of capturing Eliphaz’s "so what" attitude: "So what if you were righteous—would God Almighty even notice? Even if you gave a perfect performance, do you think he’d applaud? Do you think it’s because he cares about your purity that he’s disciplining you, putting you on the spot? Hardly! It’s because you’re a first-class moral failure, because there’s no end to your sins." (vs 2-3)
Job 6
When Job opens his mouth to reply to Eliphaz, one thing is clear: He is angry. "Anyone who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty. But my brothers are as undependable as intermittent streams... Now you too have proved to be of no help; you see something dreadful and are afraid." (vs 14-15, 21)
Job 4
In this chapter, Job’s friend, Eliphaz, related something he had seen in a dream: "A word was secretly brought to me, my ears caught a whisper of it. Amid disquieting dreams in the night, when deep sleep falls on people, fear and trembling seized me and made all my bones shake. A spirit glided past my face, and the hair on my body stood on end. It stopped, but I could not tell what it was. A form stood before my eyes, and I heard a hushed voice: 'Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can even a strong man be more pure than his Maker? If God places no trust in his servants, if he charges his angels with error, how much more those who live in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who are crushed more readily than a moth!'" (vs 12-19)
Nehemiah 1
When I was growing up, Bette Midler’s song From a Distance was popular on the radio. Perhaps you remember the last line of the chorus: God is watching us from a distance. I think this is how a lot of people see God—as some sort of distant, unengaged Deity who doesn’t really care about the day-to-day lives of His creatures. He may be up there, and He may be running things, but He certainly doesn’t have time for the "little people."
Photo © Unsplash/The Joy of Film
In the Most Holy Room
of God's Desert House,
there was a small, open door
to the universe,
where God sat between
His angels and talked
with humanity.
Okay, so the angels were gold
and it was just one man
and God had to make Himself tiny enough
to be stuffed into a room.
Still, for those moments,
it was as if God could have
His cosmic family
together in the same place.
Kind of like a mom
who dreams of having everyone
home again
for Thanksgiving.
2 Chronicles 30
After Hezekiah repaired the temple, he called the Israelites together to celebrate the Passover—something that hadn’t been done for a long, long time. It was a grand celebration—with music and feasting and thousands of sacrifices. The people were having such a great time that, at the end of the prescribed seven days, they decided to extend the celebration for another seven days. There was one slight problem, however: "Although most of the many people who came from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun had not purified themselves, yet they ate the Passover, contrary to what was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, 'May the Lord, who is good, pardon everyone who sets their heart on seeking God—the Lord, the God of their ancestors—even if they are not clean according to the rules of the sanctuary.' And the Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people." (vs 18-20)
2 Chronicles 27
One of the few accomplishments of King Jotham that is recorded in the Bible is this: "Jotham rebuilt the Upper Gate of the temple of the Lord and did extensive work on the wall at the hill of Ophel." (vs 3) Of course, any time anyone in Judah had regard for God’s temple, that was a good sign, but Bible scholars suggest that working on the "Upper Gate" of the temple means that Jotham rebuilt and restored the link between the temple and the palace in order to have free access from his house to God’s house.
Photo © CreationSwap/CreationSwap
What kind of God is this,
who issues an invitation
to a personal dinner,
an intimate feast?
Just a little get-together
for seventy of His
(I-hope-you'll-choose-to-be-My)
closest friends.
Indeed, one gets closer
as the courses proceed.
For this mountaintop banquet
was just the amuse-bouche on God's menu
of spiritual nourishment revelation.
None of those seventy elders
could have imagined
the truth about the God
who stood on the veranda of
brilliant blue lapis lazuli,
that His invitation
to feast with Him
would eventually become
an invitation
to feast on Him,
that His offer of dinner
would soon be
an offering of Himself.
His body and blood,
our bread, our wine,
our life.
Has it not always been so?
2 Chronicles 15
In some ways, I wanted to title this blog God is not a stalker. But, I guess I do believe that God is a stalker—in the sense that He will pursue us, leaving no stone unturned in winning us back to Him. But, if we ultimately want to have nothing to do with Him, He will eventually leave us alone.I love it whenever I see plain talk in Scripture. And today, this is the message about God I found in 2 Chronicles 15: "The Spirit of God came on Azariah son of Oded. He went out to meet Asa and said to him, 'Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.'" (vs 1-2)
