Archive for the 'Brokenness' Category

06
Nov

The ‘R’ Word

By pasturescott 8 Comments
Categories: Brokenness, Christianity, Confession, Conviction, Repentance and Salvation

Been talking about repentance at The River the past few weeks. The following are some thoughts I had on my heart this past Sunday. Sorry New River-ites, you’ve already seen this, though it has been retooled into a much more readable fashion…

 repent5.jpg

Two men.

Both sinned against the Lord on the exact same night.

Both betrayed Christ.

Both repented.

Only one was justified.

The other penitent soul went straight to hell.

Yikes. Are you listening?

Of course we are talking about Judas Iscariot and his fellow disciple, Simon who was called Peter. Judas betrayed Christ for some coins, striking the necessary spark for Christ’s crucifixion. One gospeler says of the devilish disciple (John 6:70)—the only disciple from Judah—that satan entered into him, so we know this follower of Christ (at least geographically) was possessed by satan himself on that fateful night (John 13:27). Under cover of night, of both the natural and supernatural kind, Judas went out at the direction of Christ (John 13:27) and set in motion the night of all nights.

Judas’ betrayal was sealed with a kiss.

Sifted Simon had his part in the cosmic drama as well. After Jesus had been taken, he followed the retinue of soldiers and the shackled Messiah to the home of the high priest where the Christ was bloodied and bullied all night long. Outside, in the courtyard, Simon was confronted three different times, twice by two different “girls” (Matthew 26:69,71) who were able to expose his weak-kneed faith.

You remember Peter, don’t you? Upstairs? In the Hall of the Last Supper? Yeah, that’s him: loudly heralding his undying commitment and willingness to die alongside Jesus if called upon to do so. And see all the disciples around him? Well, Judas had already fled into the night, but the rest were adding their amens and hallelujahs, each stepping forward and volunteering for the King’s Army of Martyrdom.

Now some scant hours later, Peter-the-spokesman, is tragically and pathetically calling down curses on himself and others if he had had as much as a passing relationship with this Man who called Himself Messiah. The final betrayal, a string of words that would make any salty fisherman proud, was met with the loud and soulful wail of a rooster as it crowed. Or perhaps it was a soldier’s bugle, sounding out “cock-crow.” It didn’t matter. Whether from metal or animal, as far as the future Apostle was concerned, it was surely his death-knell. He must have covered his ears, squeezed his eyes shut and fallen to the earth waiting for the inevitable lightning strike. Continue reading ‘The ‘R’ Word’

20
Sep

Father Knows Best

By pasturescott 23 Comments
Categories: Brokenness, Christianity, Conviction, Encouragement and Hope

winding-road.jpg 

I’ve been waiting for the question that hasn’t come. But it will, I’m sure of it. 

“Scott, aren’t you even a tad jealous that Kevin Everett will likely retrieve all his bodily functions and mobility after suffering a potentially grave spinal cord injury?”

This is going to sound weird, I know, but Kevin should be jealous of me.  Hear me out.  Kevin Everett is the tight end for the Buffalo Bills who sustained a near-crippling injury while making a tackle in Sunday’s NFL season opener.  He launched at his opponent, driving his helmet into the player’s chest and immediately crumpled to the ground.  Early indications were that he would be paralyzed for life, his career in football over in seconds.  Twenty-four hours later we were hearing he was voluntarily moving his arms and legs and his doctors were hopeful even of a full recovery and return to normal life.

Two roads, he and I, with two patently different outcomes.

When I blew a gust of relieved air with the rest of America, I steeled my mind on the truth of God’s sovereignty.  One man’s miracle is another man’s blessing.  Sure, the enemy was there with his typical suggestions: “…it’s not fair, is it, Scott?  You didn’t get the same break, did you?  God is so cruel!  I’ve been listening to your prayers for your own healing for almost 26 years now…and what?  Nothing.  Still stuck in that wheelchair!  And you’re a, what, preacher of the Gospel?  You’d think your Father would look out for you…” 

But I sit here, clacking away at these keys, a blessed man!

(Nice try, Slewfoot.)

The fact I am in a wheelchair does not mean I have not been healed.  Oh, I have, believe me!  My paralysis is a pathway to glory and I am resting in the knowledge that my Maker has set me apart for a privileged season in His sun.  He’s given me a break.  You want to know Me?  Your brokenness is the essential way.  The same Apostle who said his own suffering was working for him an eternal weight of glory, said that in the life to come some will shine like the sun, some like the moon and others like the stars in glory.  I’m after the former.

I am thrilled for Mr. Everett but I wouldn’t trade my journey for anything.  Years ago I picked up a copy of Jerry Bridges’ Trusting God Even When Life Hurts and found in its pages the answer to my soul’s questions and even now, years later, find myself referring to its basic tenets time and again.  Mr. Bridges says that God is sovereign, meaning He can do whatever He wants because He is God.  He says He is also all-wise and His children can draw comfort from the fact that while God can do whatever He wants, He knows exactly what He is doing.  Everything He does has purpose.  The third truth pouring from its pages is that God is all-loving.  Ah, this is the most comforting unguent of all!  While God does as He chooses, He always does it in view of His own glory, and always, always, for our eternal good.

This is the God of my life and I am determined to follow Him through every vale of sorrow, every mile of struggle, and every season of loss and despair.  I can do this because the broken road is the blessed road and my Savior walks it with me.  Had feeling been restored to me on October 3, 1981 (the day “after”) and the next 26 years been “normal” for me, I have some doubt whether I would have known the Lord as intimately as I do tonight.  Perhaps yes, perhaps no.  I leave even that to His sovereignty.

I praise the God who sits on the circle of the earth, over those who walk and those who don’t.  Over those who succumb to disease and those who get well.  Over those who serve Him and those who shake their fists at Him.  Makes no difference.  He is Lord.

One last thing.  There was a time when I could sit down (well, of course I’d be sitting!) and write song after song.  Interesting that it was in the early years of my disability and I probably wrote three dozen tunes.  One of the songs that flowed out of my belly pretty much sums up how I feel about these matters.  Mind you, the lyrics were written over 25 years ago and they show some youth, but they are just as real for me today as they were in the early 80’s.  To the praise of His glorious grace!  

HE KNOWS WHAT’S BEST FOR ME

I know I can’t walk around and at times it gets me down
But He knows and I’m kept by Jesus’ love
There’s so many things I’d like to do
Run a race and win one too
But He knows and that’s enough for me 

He knows how much my spirit can stand
He’s so concerned for my good
He is so wise and He hears all my cries
He knows what’s best for me

Sometimes it’s hard to pray when He seems so far away
But He’s there and He’s listening to my heart
He reaches down in love
From His heavenly throne above
‘Cause He knows what I need the very most

And when my life is done
And my crown of life is won
Then I’ll know my pain was worth it all…

It’s my guess that the question I’m still waiting for won’t come after you read this.  Oh, one more thing.  Please don’t think I am being haughty and patting myself on the back.  The truest thing I know is this: none of this comes from me.  Only God could take a broken man’s life and give it meaning and rhyme. 

And Father knows best.

16
Aug

15:20

By pasturescott 16 Comments
Categories: Brokenness, Children, Christianity, Compassion, Encouragement, Family, Forgiveness, Gospel, Hope, Jesus Christ, Miracles, Reign of Christ, Repentance and Revival

“And he got up and went to his father. But while he was still far away, his father saw him and was moved with pity for him and went quickly and took him in his arms and gave him a kiss.”

–First century parable from the lips of Jesus

Long about noon on Saturday a father and son will meet in a giant bear hug far from the horizon that once separated them.  And Mom will be there too, just the right touch needed to make a three-corded strand.  Perceptive onlookers might catch a glimpse of something arcane and otherworldly in this simple tapestry: a family wrapped, cinched and secured in the keeping power of the Strong-Armed One.  I’d call that an unbreakable family bond.

The son is, at long last, coming home.  Gone will be the rags and fetters of the far country and, though the memories of depravity and hellishness will linger, the air will be gloriously cleared of the demons that enslaved and harrassed. 

I noticed a subtle nuance about that story this afternoon.  I found in my Bible, the NASB’s translation of Luke 15:32 to be, “this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live…”  The translators took the verb anazoo and made the distinction in it’s aorist tense that a process or action has begun that, if it continues, will certainly end in a completed action or effect. 

That’s pretty technical sounding so let me dumb it down for you and me.  When I have told others of our son’s return, I (a) do not refer to Graham as a “prodigal” because he no longer wears that moniker by the grace of our Lord, and (b) advise them not to expect our boy to exude an ethereal glow and matching halo.  The boy has begun to breathe again the new air of the liberty by which Christ has set him free.  He is just now beginning to lay hold of that for which Christ has taken hold of him. 

Like me (and you), he will not have “arrived”.  He might break our hearts again.  (I sure wish there was a verse 33 in that chapter so we could see how it plays out six weeks, six months or six years from the banquet!)  He might revert.  I pray not, for the scriptural phrase “a dog returning to its vomit” is not such a good thing.  It’s deadly, in fact. 

All we have is today. 

And 15:20.

And verse 32.

And that’s got Mom and me giddy from the word go.

And go we will.  To meet our son on a hillside of grace, restoration, reconciliation and…

JUBILEE!      

Finally, let me end with this captivating story found in Philip Yancey’s book, What’s So Amazing About Grace?  The details might not mirror ours exactly and while it is about a young girl rather than a teenaged boy, you’ll see why I’ve done it.

A young girl grows up on a cherry orchard just above Traverse City, Michigan. Her parents, a bit old- fashioned, tend to overreact to her nose ring, the music she listens to, and the length of her skirts. They ground her a few times, and she seethes inside. “I hate you!” she screams at her father when he knocks on the door of her room after an argument, and that night she acts on a plan she has mentally rehearsed scores of times. She runs away.

She has visited Detroit only once before, on a bus trip with her church youth group to watch the Tigers play. Because newspapers in Traverse City report in lurid detail the gangs, the drugs, and the violence in downtown Detroit, she concludes that is probably the last place her parents will look for her. California, maybe, or Florida, but not Detroit.

Her second day there she meets a man who drives the biggest car she’s ever seen. He offers her a ride, buys her lunch, arranges a place for her to stay. He gives her some pills that make her feel better than she’s ever felt before. She was right all along, she decides: her parents were keeping her from all the fun.

The good life continues for a month, two months, a year. The man with the big car–she calls him “Boss”– teaches her a few things that men like. She lives in a penthouse, and orders room service whenever she wants. Occasionally she thinks about the folks back home, but their lives now seem so boring and provincial that she can hardly believe she grew up there.

She has a brief scare when she sees her picture printed on the back of a milk carton with the headline “Have you seen this child?” But by now she has blond hair, and with all the makeup and body-piercing jewelry she wears, nobody would mistake her for a child. Besides, most of her friends are runaways, and nobody squeals in Detroit.

After a year the first sallow signs of illness appear, and it amazes her how fast the boss turns mean. “These days, we can’t mess around,” he growls, and before she knows it she’s out on the street without a penny to her name. When winter blows in she finds herself sleeping on metal grates outside the big department stores. “Sleeping” is the wrong word–a teenage girl at night in down town Detroit can never relax her guard. Dark bands circle her eyes. Her cough worsens. Continue reading ‘15:20′

27
Jul

Unplugged

By pasturescott 17 Comments
Categories: Blogging, Brokenness, Children, Encouragement, Forgiveness, Hope, Loving God, Parenting and Repentance

So…

Where ya been?

The keyword of my life lately has been ‘connect’.  That, and the woeful lack thereof, as the case may be.  As you are well aware, little is heard from Green Pastures or Sound Bites these days except the plaintive whistling through the hollow reaches of cybersphere and the occasional tumbleweed meandering across your monitor along with the amaranthine chirping of techno-crickets. 

I have been beset by mind-cramps, faithful reader, and those incessant mental charley horses have caused me to seize up and rub it out until it goes away.

My Outlook Express has decided to join the mournful processional by going feet-up for the past two weeks.  So help me, if I have to look at another ugly window popping up telling me my server has not connected for the past 60 seconds and would I like to wait another 60 seconds, I may be shopping for yet another laptop as this one will be sporting a nice clean 20-gauge grin in its kisser. 

No telling how many emails I have idling out there which has given me the uneasy sensation of having my tether ripped free from the mother ship and being slowly drawn far out into collapsing darkness and utter cold.  Nooooooo!   

All this has me looking for a soccer ball with which I might strike up a friendship and wondering how I’d look in a long, scruffy beard.

Now I find out that my internet browser is giving me the cold shoulder, sharing the news that it has encountered a problem and must shut down and asking me to forgive it for any inconvenience.  Again and again.  For the past twenty-four hours.  You are most definitely not forgiven, Firefox.

All my bookmarks, all those saved articles, every designated folder.  Gone.  Kablooey.  Kaput.  With a resigned sigh, I regrettably slump back toward my old nemesis, IE7, and pray it will accept me back into its good graces.  Great.  Just great. 

Welcome, old friend. 

Where have you been?

(grinning fiendishly) We knew you’d be back…

Lest you think all in my life has been on disconnect, I need to tell you about a connection that I made recently that trumps all these bloopers rolled into one.  This past weekend I spent twenty-four hours with my son who has been away at a school for troubled youth for nearly six months.  I haven’t said much about it, and won’t, except to say that our prayers for a jubilee over his life seem to have a strong hearing in Heaven and the recent shifts in the atmosphere tell us that a very significant corner has been turned.

Will it last?  Not sure.  There may be setbacks and hard miles yet to come, but we have assurance that whatever it is that God wanted to get out of him in this chapter of his young life, He seems to have done just that.

Our life with Graham has consisted of a weekly ten minute phone call and a handful of short visits.  It’ll tear your heart out like nothing else when you take your monthly visit and when time’s up, to watch your only child disappear slowly behind the front door of an austere barrack-like building and you drive away, leaving him there, facing a fourteen hour drive home.  And all you want to do is call it all off, that this can’t be right, that we can make it work, but knowing every agonizing minute that the battle for his soul requires such sacrifice.

So be it, Lord.  Get Your glory in this…

I came within an eyelash of not making July’s visit and, boy, am I glad I listened to God.

Thursday morning, Douglasville, GA. 
I lay in bed, sensing the Lord was telling me I needed to go.  How can I, Lord?  The drive alone will put me back into Shepherd for more skin surgeries.  Go.  But, Lord, gas is so high.  Go.  But there’s a special speaker at church this Sunday and I’ll need to introduce him.  Go, go, go!

It took some convincing of Sandy to let me do it by myself but we agreed it was right, however I’d need to ask a special favor of the school.  I reached for the phone and dialed the all-familiar number. Continue reading ‘Unplugged’

22
Jun

A Woodshed Moment

By pasturescott 14 Comments
Categories: Brokenness, Christianity, Confession, Conviction, Crucified Life, Discipleship, Forgiveness, God, Hearing God, Humility, Intimacy, Jesus Christ, Kingdom of God, Marriage, Obedience, Prayer, Reign of Christ, Repentance, Sandy and Surrender

woodshed.jpg

Ah, there you are. I thought you were dead.

So I was thinking all the way through south Georgia yesterday afternoon. Actually, the ghost of my “old man” spooked me a couple times this week. Earlier in the week someone close to me spoke a hard word into my life and my self went into self-defense mode immediately. I wouldn’t even take it to the Lord to see if this was Him. I knew it wasn’t. Couldn’t be. Not from this person. Flames shot from the orbs of my eyes and smoke billowed from flared nostrils. I told my wife about it and promptly opened the screen of my laptop intending to write them the mother of all emails.

“Don’t do it, Scott,” the Holy Spirit warned.

How strange that He looks a lot like Sandy, I thought to myself.

“If you can’t support me, then leave!” I commanded Him (her).

“I’m telling you, you’ll regret it.”

“No I won’t. Now leave me alone!”

Out she walked. I fumed. Pecking out a string of words, I could feel the evil rise up in me. A mirror of sorts materialized and I saw my old self grinning devilishly, egging me on. Oh, he’ll pay, it said. And you will feel so much better. That gave inspiration for another phrase or two and yet another niggling unsettledness prompting me to go “Pac-Man” on them with my backspace key. Y’ever get so mad you don’t know who you’re mad at? That’s the place I was in. Although I never sent the email my mirrored image was dying for me to send, my heart was wrong. And the anger only festered. Yeah, I ‘obeyed’ the Spirit, but there was no life in it. The Lord had me dead to rights and was setting me up.

I suppose that ire was bubbling away inside me still as I came upon the shaved-headed so-and-so in the red car outside of Tifton, Georgia yesterday afternoon. He was in the left lane and traveling slower than Christmas so I flashed him. Immediately I saw his fist go to the air and watched it sprout a middle digit. About this time, Sandy looked up from her book when she heard me snort. Just in time, I add ruefully, to see the middle finger and me hitched to his rear bumper. It was then she looked over at me and gave me the finger, albeit with her stare.

“What are you doing?”

“I want this…this…JERK to get out of the way. Can you believe him?” my voice shrilled, looking for sympathy from my beloved.

Alas, there was none.

“Stop it, Scott!”

“What?!?” I could see immediately it was going to be my issue.

“Slow down, you’re going to get us all killed!”

“All? I think this bozo needs to die.” The words came out like toothpaste from a tube. Too late.

Sandy went back to her book. I sulked. I fumed. God bided His time. No one was speaking, not for the longest time. I’d turn to God in my thoughts with a C’mon, give me a break! Can’t you see how crappy this week has been? And I’m the innocent one in all this, but I could feel Him looking down at whatever He was reading too.

A few hours ago, the Lord summoned me. They were the first words I’d heard Him speak in my direction for some time, so I was glad. What I didn’t know was He had opened the door to a woodshed and invited me in. I was so delighted with the attention I gaited merrily inside, thinking it’s about time. I opened my journal and began pouring out my heart to him, defending myself from the get go, reminding Him I was His man and this must be persecution and all that. Instantly, He went into silent mode again. I wasn’t listening. I was doing all the talking and defending, so He quietly shut the door behind Him and cleared His throat.

I stopped. Looking around, I could tell I didn’t like this room at all. Then I had the strange sensation I’d been here before. Many times. I sat still as a stone, knowing I’d best listen as what I was about to hear was going to be the answer to my cry for so long: Lord, whatever is in me that needs to die, painful as it is, do it. Do me, Lord!

The one thing about God, He doesn’t tap dance very often. Mostly, He gets right to the point.

“You were wrong, Scott.”

“You mean, the other day? Well, I know I was yesterday. But, Lord…”

“You were wrong. I sent My servant to tell you.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“If you continue to reject his word, you reject Me.”

He showed me this in the context of 1 Samuel 2:30 (the very end of the passage). The clarity was unmistakable.

“I’m sorry, Lord.”

“Not that easy. Not to Me. To him.”

He told me I was to write this person, humiliating myself in the process, telling him I was wrong, he was right and (gulp) asking his forgiveness. He also told me what to say, no more, no less. But still I found a way to obey God and get an old man ‘dig’ in as well. That should do it, I thought somewhat satisfactorily. I wanted to save a little face at least, to hold onto some measure of dignity. Ah, but that’s the stuff of self.

(There you are, you old codger. I thought you were dead.)

“Take that out,” the Lord said. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Yes, Lord.”  And I took it out.

Did it hurt to do it? Oh my, and how. But I could never want to be on the other side of God’s holiness. The woodshed is as far as I want to ever go. Funny thing how it is also such a grace-filled room. There’s some real one-on-one attention in the woodshed, some real heart-to hearts in there.

Even still, I think I’ll steer clear of it for awhile, thank you very much.

12
Apr

Things I…

By pasturescott 6 Comments
Categories: Brokenness, Christianity, Commitment, Confession, Crucified Life and Worship

Things I am wrestling with:

  • giving away credit for things I want credit for
  • leaving “putting difficult people in their place” to God and loving them with all my heart anyway
  • laying my life down for the brethren

Things I am blessed by:

  • People who seek me out just to spend time with me; it’s even better when it’s minus a task list, no agenda, just two guys sitting down over a great cup of Starbuck’s peppermint coffee (yes, peppermint), fomenting and sealing a lifelong camaraderie
  • children who are never too old to get a hug from their “Pasture”
  • The stirrings I am sensing signaling that the Bride is coming forth in the earth; she is making herself ready for her Bridegroom

Things I better get a handle on:

  • Carpe diem, as there is so little time left to waste
  • The Gospel of the Kingdom, which is the Gospel of the reign of Christ, and which distinguishes the professing Church from the “possessing” Church
  • The Truth that “the church can’t rise until she dies.”

Things I want more than anything right now:

20
Feb

Divine Pursuer

By pasturescott 2 Comments
Categories: Brokenness, Commitment, Encouragement, Healing and Suffering

 

[God] is not proud…He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him.

CS Lewis-The Problem of Pain

He will have us. Isn’t that marvelous?

At dinner tonight, my wife and I bumped into and chatted with a young lady who attends our fellowship each week. She told us about a Bible study she and her husband are looking forward to participating in, called (if memory serves) “The Furious Pursuit.” I don’t know much about the study but I know I like the title; I think I like it even more knowing, as she explained, it is not about our pursuit of God, but rather His pursuit of us. Evidently it’s about the Lord’s stubborn love for the objects of His affection.

A song I’ve been known to hum in my quiet time with God (because I don’t always recall all the lyrics) is “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go.” It was penned by George Matheson, and while there are differing stories as to the occasion and backstory of its writing, most at least agree that the hymn was, as he put it, the “fruit of pain.”

Mr. Matheson was born with failing sight and by the time he was 17, had nearly succumbed to blindness. He was engaged to a fair young lady at the time but because of the doctor’s grim prognosis of the irreversibility of his blindness, decided she could not marry a man with such a permanent defect. She broke off the engagement and thus broke George’s heart.

He did go on to earn his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees and pastored a church of 1500 members in Scotland. His sister stayed with him and cared for him throughout the years but when she fell in love with a suitor and married, the knife of pain cut two ways in George’s heart. It brought back the memory of love lost twenty years afore and added to it was the realization that his personal caregiver was leaving him and with her all his security and comfort.

As the story goes, George sat down and penned the words to this emotive hymn in a scant five minutes! From its lyrics we can safely deduce that Mr. Matheson did learn in time of the Lord’s relentless love for him and was securely fastened in that Love until his death in 1899. While the third stanza is a personal favorite, I feel I must comment on the last. Just today I reconnected with a brother who was born with an eye disease that has slowly eaten away his eyes. The disease is so rare, he and he alone has been the subject of a study written in the Journal of Medicine. This was a source of great pain and humiliation in his younger years and, as he tells it, caused him to go through life with his head down. Today he calls his Lord quite literally the “lifter of his head” because He has won my friend through His relentless, furious pursuit. Now my brother looks you square in the eye even though his right eye is gone and his left is clouded over. How could you not hold your head high when you have looked full into the Face of such Love?

O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

15
Feb

God Is Not Superman

By pasturescott 0 Comments
Categories: Brokenness, Encouragement, Reign of Christ, Salvation, Suffering, Surrender, Trials and Uncategorized

“Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you and you will honor Me.”
(Psalm 50:15)

“For in the day of trouble, He will conceal me in His tabernacle; in the secret place of His tent He will hide me; He will lift me up on a rock.”
(Psalm 27:5)

“Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call; This I know, that God is for me.”
(Psalm 56:9)

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
(Psalm 46:1)

“I will never, never leave you; I will never, never, never forsake you.”
(Hebrews 13:5, literal Greek)

clock.jpg

Timing is everything. And God, who knows no days and who is not bound by time, plots His entrance into our lives perfectly, revealing Himself precisely according to script. The verses above tell us that not only does He invest Himself “around” the time of our need but He is already positioned in the moment. He doesn’t “ballpark” it.

The Hebrew of “a very present help” in Psalm 46 tells us He is already on the scene. God is not Clark Kent with supersonic hearing who picks up on a Metropolis victim’s cry from his desk at the Daily Planet then dons a cape as Superman en route to the scene of the crime. He is there.

It’s not so much that He “shows up” as it is, He reveals His already fixed Presence in the bitter moment, the time of need. A marginal note in my Bible reads, He is “abundantly available for help in tight places.” This does not encourage some fellow believers in their times of travail. They demand a God who will head trouble off at the pass and cause it to miss them altogether. Theirs is a faith that needs the storm to be stilled in order to believe. Actually, theirs is a faith who wants clear skies and sunshine (I am not always immune to this either). But great faith, pleasing faith[1], is a faith that trusts in both the Father’s desire and ability to come through, no matter what. Continue reading ‘God Is Not Superman’

10
Feb

Snapshots Of Heaven

By pasturescott 0 Comments
Categories: Brokenness, Church, Commitment, Reign of Christ, Suffering and Surrender

Let us go out to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.”
(Hebrews 13:13)

I hate having my picture taken. Maybe its the pounds (the camera adds ten, you know). Maybe the wheelchair is too, well…too. Perhaps it’s the contrast between me and just about anybody else in the photo. Pull out a cameraold-camera.jpg at a party and I’m either looking for a place to hide or pretending its not there. I’ll bet if I don’t look at it, it won’t look at me. All kidding aside (was I?), there is one photograph I’m angling for. I’m living in such a way as to be captured in God’s lens and placed in His portfolio under the heading of “Kingdom Man.”

The fellowship of saints I have been called to pastor is considering together what we would look like as Kingdom People, as those living “outside the camp.” Think of it: an entire modern-day western church, going outside the camp. Together. At the risk of over dramatization, this Word has been akin to thunder on the summit of Sinai for us and the blow from a shofar, rallying us to mobilize and ready ourselves for something quite unlike anything we have ever known.

In the message of this past Sunday (click here), I said whatever is out there, outside the camp, it involves dying. It involves laying down our lives. It looks like humility, not false piety. It means putting aside and walking away from. It involves separation. Hardship. Loneliness. Mourning and grieving. It can mean martyrdom. Then I paused and looked over the flock and said, “Who wants to go?” Despite the truthfulness of truth and intentional lack of “sweet by and by,” many hands went skyward.

Having considered this “outside the camp” metaphor for a few weeks now, we are getting a clearer picture of what it entails. But let me stop here for a moment. The picture we see coming into focus is just that. A picture. It is like we are looking in someone else’s photo album and we are not actually in any of the photographs. It’s our desire to not just look at glossies and wonder but to one day see ourselves in them as a people fully vested in the “Sermon on the Mount” lifestyle.

Perhaps we might look a lot like these guys…

Continue reading ‘Snapshots Of Heaven’

13
Jan

Walking In Peace (When Your Life Is In Pieces)

By pasturescott 2 Comments
Categories: Brokenness, Encouragement, Reign of Christ, Surrender and Trials

“I am like a broken vessel.”
Psalm 31:12

“But as for me, I trust in You…”
v14

Hold fast
Help is on the way
Hold fast
He’s come to save the day
What I’ve learned in my life
One thing stronger than my strife
Is His grasp
So hold fast
–Mercy Me, Hold Fast

walkonwater.jpg

Someone I know is falling apart at the seams. I have been watching them make all the wrong choices for some time and now I see them paying all the retail prices on their purchases. On a recent day my heart hurt watching them get pummeled by life. In a ten hour span of time, this poor soul could barely come through one crisis without getting sideswiped by another and their already “very bad day” culminated with the most dreaded phone call they had ever had to answer. I wince for them even now as I recall watching the emotional bloodbath they were dragged through. It was pathetically painful to watch. R-rated, even.

I desperately want to reach in and rescue them but that is a pipe dream. Could they have come through the worst of it? Possibly. Maybe. Ummmm, no. Not by a long shot. There is still a Valdez-sized clean-up ahead. A gargantuan slick on the ocean. And pieces and shards of life scattered everywhere, much like flotsam after a wreckage at sea.

(God, show them a hope. Gather up the pieces of the mess they have made and put them together again. God, get the glory. Take them to the place of Grace where peace rules and heaven is graspable.)

I wish they could have been with me tonight as I prayed with a man whose body is covered–every inch of it–with an auto-immune disease only one in a half million suffer with. There is no treatment. No cure. It must run its course, sometimes taking as long as four years. It is painful. It burns. It is horrific. I went to pray for this giant of a man of God but, marvel of marvels, he prayed for me! Tears ran down his face and swollen arms were lifted to the heavens as he thanked God for his valley! “I know Your purpose in this,” he cried out to the Lord in triumph. “You reign in me! I am Yours!” he shouted to the ceiling tiles. The man laughed in joyful surrender. Laughed!

He is a man who is walking in peace.

I wish my loved one could stand in the same faith of a woman I know who is in the hospital tonight. She and her husband were recently faced with the most difficult decision of their lives: should he stay home and be by her bedside or return to the mission field? What would you do? As in everything in their lives, they took it to the Lord. With reckless abandon, her husband is en route to their field in a hostile country where countless millions need Jesus. Did they choose ministry over marriage? Heavens no! They chose God over ALL things…

I have no doubt that her hospital room is a sanctuary of heavenly peace tonight. I just betcha that that plane ride her husband is taking, though filled with second-guessing and painful separation, is met with a grace worth the risk.

I wish, oh how I wish, this soul could have listened in on a phone conversation I had with a lady just yesterday. It was her sad misfortune to send her son away to a home for troubled sons for a full year. Next month she and her husband will be able to visit him for the first time in six months. She told me that it has only been recently that she can say his name in her home without breaking down. Now she is carried by a grace that sweeps her to peace-filled places and she smiles knowing God is shaping her son and he is finding out for the first time who he is in Christ. His letters home are a diary of the power of God to transform. Predictably, even in the Body of Christ, some have questioned her move, even gone so far as to be angry and think she has thrown the poor child away. She listened for awhile and even agreed somewhat. Until, that is, the glassy calm seas of peace surrounded her and told her to have faith. He is the One who rules the storm. You haven’t thrown him away, My Child. You have given him to Me.

There is no safer Place.

Speaking of “Place,” David gave the secret of his oft-tormented existence. In the Hebrew Hymn Book, chapter 31 and verse 12, he says of himself that he is a “broken” man. The word he uses is also used of Adam in the book of Genesis when he is told to “tend” the garden. It means to break up the soil for planting. God’s minstrel is saying that the hoes and rakes and plows of life had ripped him to clods and bits and uncovered his earthiness.

What a sad predicament, and one to which we can all relate.

But (oh, don’t you just love the Biblical “buts”?), two verses later he lets us in on a little secret. He says that when he is in such a bind, he “trusts” in God. The word translated “trust” is an active verb and it pictures a place where David runs to when he is broken to bits, scattered hither and yon, like jetsam from a dashed sea vessel. He finds a tide that will carry him to a Harbor of Refuge where he can safely winter out the storm. Or in the field of battle when the bombs are bursting in air, he is stolen away into a citadel of protection. He tells us God is a Person who shows him a Place everytime and in any situation.

The couch where my friend suffers from the horrific skin disease has become David’s threshingfloor where God shows mercy and healing (2 Samuel 24:18). The porch where my sister in Christ waits for her son’s return is her Baal-perazim (1 Chronicles 14:11) where God “breaks through” against the enemy. And that courageous wife in the hospital tonight? She’s really in Ziklag where David “encouraged himself (literally, ‘latched onto’) in the Lord” (1 Samuel 30:6) despite great loss and popular opinion.

Take a page from David’s hymnbook. Run, don’t walk, to the Place God has prepared for you in your calamity. He is there. He is able. He will come through for you.

Sad to say, my friend right now is not ready to take the way of restoration. “I’ve gotten this far without God,” they glibly stated. “I can get myself out of this too.” That’s just their pain talking. I know them well and I know that in time they too will run to Jesus. And when they do, I can predict the outcome: He will gather them up, love on them, put them aright and set them free.

I know. I have a story too.

07
Dec

Desperate For God?

By pasturescott 4 Comments
Categories: Brokenness, Discipleship, Suffering, Surrender and Trials

“As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks, so pantheth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God…”
Psalm 42:1,2 (KJV)

“I will not let You go unless You bless me!”
Jacob, Genesis 32:26

“I pray You, show me Your glory!”
Moses, Exodus 33:18

It has rightly been assessed that the life of a true follower of Christ is a journey of subtraction. Thedeer.jpg mission statement of John the Baptizer was, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30) Paul declared that he was “always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus” (2 Corinthians 4:10) and were it not a real story, the narrative of Yaweh’s whittling down of Gideon’s army would almost seem humorous.

And what can we make of that which transpired in the Valley of Elah during Israel’s first monarchy? Saul, head and shoulders above all the fighting men of Judah was too giant of a man to face Goliath. So we take the stepladder down man by man through Eliab, Abinadab and Shammah. Nope, nope and nope. Joab? Nah. Abner? Guess again. What about brave Jonathan? Close, but no cigar. Israel’s greatest enemy was felled not by a Samsonian brute but a diminutive shepherd boy not yet out of his teens.

Show me a reduced man and I will show you a glorious result.

Jacob, the trickster and usurper, met God on a wrestling mat. A man of exhausted resources and no way out cried aloud for Divine intervention and got more than he bargained for. All night long he wrestled with Yaweh saying “I will not let you go!” This is a desperate man. He was at the end of his rope and knew he would not live to see another sunrise if all he had were old tricks and sleight of hand. He wasn’t using legwhips and sleeper holds on the Lord of Creation but was hanging on to Him for dear life lest the Lord leave him to himself. Don’t think Jacob made a good go of things for the scripture says that the Lord simply “touched” him and disabled him for life. The picture is of the Holy One pinning Jacob and grinding him into the dust from whence came man and recreating him into a new, serving, holy and set apart man. When Yaweh focused on the pillar of man’s strength—his thighbone—and it fell free from the socket, the Lord of Hosts demonstrated that the weakness of man is the glory of God. Jacob could only be said to ‘prevail’ or ‘overcome’ after he was weakened and conquered by the Lord Christ.

The hollow of his thigh socket brings to mind another ‘hollow’. Moses, moved by desperation to move in the presence and power of Jehovah, cried aloud, “Show me Thy glory!” and the Lord put Moses inside a hollow in the mountainside and let ALL His goodness and virtue pass by him while shielded in the cleft of the rock. Moses, once the prince of Egypt and tutored in the courts of Pharaoh, was next reduced and numbered among the Hebrew slaves, and now becomes the permanent bondslave of the Almighty. And when he came down from the mountain, the mark of ownership upon Moses was a face glowing with the glory of the Presence who is a Jealous God (Exodus 34:14,30).

See a pattern here?

We will not cry out for God in desperation until we come to the end of ourselves and leave done with all that hinders and seduces us on our journey. The glory will not come to those who want Jesus AND their trinkets, Jesus AND their comforts, Jesus AND their treasure-laden hands. No, it is with empty hands, hanging on to the last thread of the rope, that we will enter into His fullness.

God needed Hannah to be barren before He could fill her womb with the one who would rest near Yaweh at Shiloh and hear His Voice then subsequently anoint the shepherd boy who would slay the Giant, become the model king and bring forth from his line the Messiah. Lest we forget, God bypassed all the well-pedigreed women of Jerusalem save one poor virgin girl from the country to be the holy habitation of the long awaited and Expected One. And to shore up His eternal mission, the Lord made it so that lowly, dirty, blue-collar watchers of the paschal lambs would announce His arrival to earth.

It is for us to remember: God wants us to come thirsty, depleted of self-strength and desperate for the Living Waters before He will fill us. He wants us barren, limping, blinded by Light, stinking of sheep and not perfumed with unguents of Egypt. He wants the odds stacked against us. He wants us to become earthen vessels—common peanut butter jars—so the treasure of Heaven may abide within.

I say again: show me a reduced man or woman and I will show you a glorious result.

24
Sep

World Getting Rocked? Send For ‘The Sopranos’

By pasturescott 7 Comments
Categories: Brokenness and Encouragement

It happened again today. Yet another pastor I had run into wanted to know about the church, how it’s faring, who’s left. You’ve lost a lot of people, haven’t you? he quipped. There was no compassion in his words, just a man who needed to feel better about his own ministry, I suppose. What could I say? Yep, the ranks are skinnying up some more. But God is good, doncha think? How’s your church? Growing? Fantastic, and God bless you more (grumble, grumble)!

Each week Sandy and I find ourselves at a venue where some of those who have left our fellowship also attend. We smile and greet, but the pain of separation is there. Most of them are quite warm and gracious. That’s not the problem. The issue is the insidious voices inside our minds that tell us to keep our heads down. Don’t look anyone in the eye, they say. If you must speak, make it short, sweet and move on. You are a failure. You have let these people down. It’s your fault. They hate you. I confess, if I let myself go there, I can begin to believe these sulfur and brimstone rumors. My throat gets raw and scratchy from vomiting back up the poison the devil wants me to swallow.

When the voices started in on me the other evening, I just tuned into another frequency and listened for the opera of Heaven. I listened for the sopranos.

What do you do when a person for whom you prayed over to receive healing of cancer, saw the miracle happen, then months later that person tells you on their way out that your church will close its doors in a year? How, pray tell, can you keep your heading when a companion with whom you’ve shared bread and life walks away from the dream you’ve built together, thus ending a valued friendship?

You call in the sopranos. No, not those Sopranos.

When the sons of Asaph watched the noose of hate and turmoil tighten around the neck of their nation’s existence, they wrote a song. The inscription over Psalm 46 reads, “set to Alamoth.” The word in Hebrew is plural for ‘virgin’ or ‘maiden’ and it is generally thought the chorus was written for the high voices in the choir. Not the earthy, grainy croonings of Joe Cocker or the screechy nails-on-chalkboard stylings of Steven Tyler. Pure voices. Melodic voices. There’s nothing like the grace of blending sopranos to “make it all go away”. Picture a child, fearful and crying over the boogeyman he thinks hides in his closet, and his mother who soothingly lullabies him into slumber. Now picture that multiplied by a crystalline choir of heavenly Sarah Brightmans. Oh, yeah, you just got duck bumps, didn’t you?

When life deals a hard hand, learn to listen for the sopranos. And if you listen really hard, you will be able to download their lyrics. And, man, they’re good!

1. LEARN TO SAY “IT’S GOD”!

And what is the message of Psalm 46? Let’s consider two things. First, notice God’s Name is used in four different ways in these few verses. The psalm starts out with ‘Elohim’, a plural proper noun illustrating His power and authority. Also we find ‘Yaweh’, or Jehovah, which is God’s covenant name. It comes from a root ‘haya’ which means ‘to make or cause to happen’. The prefix ‘ya’ (Lord) brings out the harmonic beauty of “The God Who Makes Things Happen.” (thanks, Lloyd John Ogilvie!)

Two other names float from the refrains. ‘Sabaoth’ is a military term meaning He is the commander-in-chief of all the angel armies. He is the Warrior’s Warrior. He fights for us. And wins EVERY battle. Then there is ‘Elyon’ which denotes His absolute supremacy. Elohim. Elyon. Sabaoth. Yaweh. Four names for God in a scant eleven verses. See it? I think the lyricists mean for us to know that whatever happens in life, good or bad, we say, “It’s God.” That doesn’t mean He knocks down tall buildings with jets or molests children or fired you from your job. I’m not saying He caused it, but He’s most certainly in it.

There is certainly something He is working out in me (the operative word being “out”) whenever I suffer humiliation or criticism or brokenness or despair. These things drive me to God. What safer place is there for a troubled soul?

2. LEARN TO LOOK FOR A RIVER

In the three movements found in this Psalm (each punctuated with “Selah” which could mean either a pause or modulation), the glorious voices crescendo in verse four to discover an amazing truth for those who are getting hammered (ummm, no, not drunkenly hammered). A literal rendering could be “Lo! A river!” When we find Him in our trials, we always know there is a River nearby. He is the River of Life. To me, the River speaks of Resurrection. Every time He works something “out” in me, He also does a corresponding work of bringing new life, new glory from the deaths I die (2 Corinthians 3:18; 4:16).

Hallelujah! No wonder there is gladness in the “City of God.” We are the City of God, by the way—the habitation of the Holy One (Revelation 21:9,10). And in the midst of her is a River that washes, nourishes and revives. Take heart, oh beaten down one. God is showing you a river if you will only open your eyes. Remember Hagar? Crying in the desert, watching her child die, waiting for her own demise, and the Lord shows up and creates a well for her to drink from out of the dusty earth. Lo! A river, indeed.

There’s more but let me just wrap it up with a quick baseball anecdote. Alex Rodriguez plays third base for the hated Yankees (’scuse my gratuitous editorializing). His career has been festooned with MVP seasons and All-Star performances, but this year his otherwise illustrious career has hit some bumps on the road to the Hall. The Yankee fans have been on him about his hitting, fielding and throwing. He’s heard it all. “Dat Bum,” he’s been called along with an assortment of other colorful not-to-be-mentioned-here colloquialisms.

Imagine going to the office and having 60,000 people watching your every move and booing you when you make a mistake. If I could encourage A-Rod (which I won’t because, remember, he is still a Yankee), I would tell him to forget the Bronx-ish diatribes lobbed his way but picture a choir of sopranos offering the very best of their golden-tongued arias.

Heaven isn’t booing you, either, saint of God. Just listen. It’s music to your ears.

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