Exodus Lessons

I’m reading through the Bible in a year, following the Read the Bible for Life plan. I just started last month…but with everything I’m juggling I’ve gotten behind. So when insomnia kicked in again last night/this morning, I pulled it out and read a couple day’s portions! Here is how Paraclete used it to minister to my heart…..

“I will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he will pursue [the Israelites]. Then I will receive glory by means of Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am Yahweh.” Exodus 14:4, God speaking.

For Moses, God pretty clearly laid out His game plan. The first Passover had just occurred, the Israelites had just been brought out of Egypt through God’s mighty deliverance and by His awesome miracles overwhelming the Egyptians. But God wasn’t through yet. He wanted to show His mighty power towards the Egyptians one more time, that He may receive the glory.

Interesting that God indicates this final Exodus miracle was for the sake of the Egyptians rather than the Israelites! Possibly because the Israelites should have already known that by this point? But as we shall see….they still had more lessons to learn!

So in order to prove His own glory yet again, God told the Israelites where to go and where to camp, so that Pharaoh would think they were confused and boxed in…easy prey (14:2-3). God purposely orchestrated a stressful experience for His people—having an army of angry masters in chariots chase down a people with old & young who had barely tasted freedom yet—to prove a point.

If any human being did that, it would be considered selfishness and megalomania to the extreme. It certainly doesn’t look/feel like something a loving God would do. But in the holistic complexity of Yahweh, He—of course—had a greater plan He was working out.

“As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up and saw the Egyptians coming after them. Then the Israelites were terrified and cried out to the LORD for help.” 14:10

Definitely a very natural human response to the situation they were placed in!!! I would have been terrified too, definitely. Yet at the same time, their fear shows how young they were in the journey of trusting God. Obviously, they had not yet been made perfect in love (1 John 4:18). Neither have I. Because when stressful/painful/frustrating circumstances come up, such as having a hard time falling asleep last night, the temptation to question God is right there on the doorstep of my heart.

BUT, the Israelites chose to cry out to the Lord for help in the midst of their fear. So that was a positive point! Moses admonished them,

“Don’t be afraid. Stand firm and see the LORD’s salvation He will provide for you today; for the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you, you must be quiet.” 14:13-14

I can’t help but wonder if Moses had communicated to the Israelites what God had told him in 14:4… We’re not told for sure. But the next verse in the story is interesting…God kind of rebukes Moses (or possibly that’s intended for Israel) for crying out to Him—I guess because He had already told him this situation would be for His glory??

So you know the rest of that chapter of the story – as God promised, He instigated another great, miraculous deliverance. And in chapter 15, Moses and the Israelites had the right response: singing a hymn of praise to God! Note verse 13:

“You will lead the people You have redeemed with Your faithful love; You will guide them to Your holy dwelling with Your strength.”

Spot on, perfect, 100% true – the people had just been shown evidence of that 11 times! (Ten plagues in Egypt + Red Sea)

But before that chapter even finishes, after three days without water, the grumbling and uncertainty crop right back up…this time at Marah (15:22-26). Then it happens again, in the following chapter—just a few weeks after leaving Egypt—and the issue this time is food. So much so that the Israelites wish “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt…” (16:3).

And so begins the pattern which would repeat itself again…and again…and again over the next thousand years of Israelite history in which Missio Dei pursued His people, but they could never maintain a heart attitude of trust and obedience for very long.

When I was young and naïve, it was easy for me to mentally criticize those silly people who could never learn to keep on practicing what God was teaching them.

Now I’m a little older, and not quite as naïve. I’ve passed through more life experiences, and I have definitely witnessed that the questioning, rebellious, wandering heart of the Israelites is the same heart that resides in me, apart from Christ’s redemptive work.

That has been and continues to be a very humbling process for me…especially these past two years.

Honestly, among a plethora of other things, I don’t like the fact that I’ve been constantly struggling with insomnia to varying degrees for the past 10+ weeks. That in those weeks, I’ve never once slept straight through the night to be awakened by my alarm…unless I took a dose of the strong prescription medicine that made me sleep between February and July.**

BUT GOD.

As I wrote about in the conclusion of my l-o-n-g blog post last weekend, my story isn’t really about me. It’s about HIM. And yes, it can be very hard to maintain that perspective…especially if I’m not choosing to be 100% dependent and leaning on my heavenly Father.

But I hope that I am taking baby steps in that process of learning and growing…especially as God continues to lavish me with HIS grace and HIS unconditional love. I am so blessed. Blessed to be loved by and to serve a God who works for His glory 100% of the time, but who also works out ALL THINGS for the good of me and each of His people 100% of the time. And when my mind focuses on the wonder of His beautiful Truth, I give thanks—that He is the Only Perfect One, awesomely good at doing both. I certainly could never do that. So obviously I need to stop trying to play God!

I’m still very much on this journey. Please join me in continuing to pray for me in the ups and downs of this beautifully challenging transitional season. Most of all, that I would be content to give HIM all the praise & glory!!

**During my health roller coaster over the past nine months since insomnia forcefully pushed its way into my life, I’ve been amazed again and again and again at how God has created us as such complex beings…physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. There are so many different approaches to dealing with health issues, and I’m kind of muddling my way through it. I have trusted mentors in my life advising very different things. And no, I haven’t prayed about it nearly as much as I should have….because, like the Israelites, I’m afraid.

I’m not going to spell it all out here. And honestly, I’m looking for prayers a whole lot more than advice. Suffice it to say, I am amazed at the courage of the woman in Luke 8:43-48 for holding onto hope for 12 years of suffering without a solution.

In my case, I have probably spent more money on health these past months than my parents ever spent on other medical issues for me during the rest of my life (not counting orthodontia as a medical issue). Medical doctors have run a wide variety of tests and haven’t come up with a biological reason for my insomnia. I’ve seen two psychiatrists and a counselor and am now part of an accountability group, trying to find answers from the mental/emotional/spiritual side, as depression & insomnia manifested their ugliness together for me. I’ve gone the prescription medication route. I’m trying the natural/homeopathic route. So far, there has been no easy solution.

When I came out to Portland, I procrastinated finding someone here to help manage my medication, because I had a long supply & was doing well. God used a rough week as a catalyst to get me back on track trying to find a road to healing. I’m thankful to have an appointment with a Christian psychiatric nurse who is qualified to manage my medication and who also, by God’s perfect plan, has experience with treating insomnia & hormonal imbalances. Unfortunately, the soonest I could get in to see her is Nov. 15^th. And so I wait, learning to practice trusting God in the meantime. It’s been a hard road, but HE IS FAITHFUL—ALWAYS.

Thank you to everyone who I know cares & prays for me!!! I literally couldn’t have made it through this year without God using you in my life as His tools to encourage & uphold me in my weakness. I share my journey with you for HIS glory (2 Cor. 4, especially vs. 6-8).

To Remember or to Forget?

What do we do with the past… with the sorrows and with the joys, with the blessings and with the pains, with the brokenness and with the redemption?

This idea has been rolling around in my head all week. And it matters: How I handle the past shapes how I experience the present and how I view the future.

Is the past something to be held onto and cherished, or something to be swept away and forgotten?

As in so many other areas of life, I believe the Biblical answer is a balance between the two extremes.

All one has to do is read the book of Deuteronomy to see the importance of remembrance! A quick online concordance search for “remember Egypt” brought up 10 verses in that one book. Again and again, Moses tells the people to remember…even though the oldest people he spoke to then had been only youths during the Exodus (Numbers 32:11).

But what exactly does Moses tell them to remember? And this is important.

Five times, the command is to remember that the people had been slaves (5:15, 15:15, 16:12, 24:18, 24:22). That would not have been a fun memory to hold onto…it was a memory full of suffering, oppression and possibly shame as well. Something that the religious leaders in Jesus’ day had possibly repressed or forgotten or probably were simply ignoring (John 8:33).

That wasn’t the only thing Moses commanded the people to remember though! Also five times, the admonition is to remember God’s salvation (5:15, 7:18, 15:15, 16:3, 24:18). Because the enslavement of a nation was not the end of the story. God remembered His covenant with His people, and performed mighty works, miraculously redeeming His children out of that bondage – and what was well worth remembering and celebrating!!

Another two times, the command is to remember past sin—both the people’s general rebelliousness (9:7) and Miriam’s specific consequence (24:9). These memories would also not be pleasant to hang on to, but they remained important as a warning against future disobedience…a warning few generations in Israel’s history successfully heeded. This brings to mind the common saying along the lines of ‘those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.’

Fast forward to the time of the early Church. On Passover, a festival specifically for the purpose of remembering the past, Jesus gave a similar command to His disciples when instituting the Lord’s Supper: “Do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19).

But there is also a place for forgetting, or at least choosing not to remember. God makes that promise to His people, in Jeremiah 31:34 (and referred to in Hebrews 8:12): “For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

Paul also uses himself as an example of intentionally forgetting, in a verse a close friend reminded me of this past weekend: “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13-14).

So that is the tension we are called to live in—forgetting past things which distract us from our heavenly goal, but always remembering how God has moved and worked in our lives.

In this season of my life, I’m trying to learn/practice maintaining that balance. Grieving and repenting of past hardships/sins…not stuffing the feelings of sadness or guilt down into a festering wound. But even more intentionally letting go of the past that I cannot go back and change, remembering all the good things God has worked and is working in my life—remembering His manifold blessings.

This is a journey and a tension I believe many, if not all, people are experiencing to some degree. So let us pray for one another, for God’s continued healing and restoration. For His joy and love to be what flows through us to others!

A Camping Story in two parts

I am here in Portland, OR, staying with a lovely lady who is housing me as I go through the Servant Teams program. She is part of a writing group, and this evening she invited me to join her and the two other ladies in attendance. They have prompts, and then take 10-12 minutes to write about the prompt. I had fun doing it, and thought I'd share with you the little stories I came up with.

Two of the prompts ended up kind of being one story for me...so here goes :)

The crisp autumn wind swayed the boughs of the pine trees above us, whispering through the arms of needles. I and my cub scouts had trekked deep into the forest for a camping expedition. All day we had explored the area, hunting berries, fishing, and hoping to be lucky enough to find a bee hive full of honey. But the last had not come through.

So here we were, five of us, gathered around our campfire which pushed the boundaries of darkness out of our little clearing. And the cub scouts were asking for a story! Our earlier failure brought a youthful escapade back to mind.

"When I was a young cub scout," I began, "I was always one to get into trouble. But I also had the best senses in my pack. I could hear the buzz of a bee's wings and follow it back to the hive better than any other cub scout! Then one day, I found the most massive hive ever. It was about 20 feet up, in the decaying stump of a lightening-scarred tree. I could hear the whine of thousands of bees inside, and I so craved the sweet treat they hid that my mouth salivated!

"I reached up as high as I could, but I had a problem. A very embarrassing problem--I was afraid of heights. I was too afraid to climb that tree and retrieve the amber nectar. But I also didn't want to leave the tree, possibly never to find such a treasure trove again! Finally, my hungry craving won out over my fear. I grabbed that tree, gripping it tight with my nails. I climbed it and scooped up a big helping of honey. And it was the most delicious thing I ever tasted!

"And that is the story of how I finally became a climbing bear!"

~~~~~~~~~~
So the prompt for that one was to pick one of my hostess' bear statues and put myself into the shoes of the bear, writing a story from its point of view. Here's the statue I picked:

For the second prompt, we had to somehow incorporate one of the two following ideas: "He woke to birdsong" OR "'Sh! Hear that?' 'I didn't hear anything.'" I was going to try to include both, but ran out of time too soon.... As I said, this ended up being a continuation of the previous story! :)

~~~~~~~~~
Later, after I tucked my cub scouts into bed, I sat for a long time staring at the dying embers of the fire or gazing up at the starry sky. Eventually, my eyes began to feel heavy, as the cubs' had, and I lumbered a short distance to my bed of pine boughs.

The next morning, we awoke to the sounds of birdsong--the sweet whistle of cardinals, the drumming of woodpeckers, the harsh yank of Blue Jays. The best part of being a bear and going camping is that there is no tent to break down, no sleeping bags and luggage to pack away. You just wake up and, when you're ready, mosey on down the trail--if you're even following a trail.

Today we were, because we had big plans: exploring a cave that my grandpa bear had discovered nearby! The cubs, always full of energy, scampered and pranced through the trees. By the time we reached the cave site, it was mid-morning. Thankfully we had stopped by a river earlier to catch a fishy breakfast. Well, I had caught some. The cubs had just wanted to splash about, until I scolded them for scaring all the fish!

But now we were preparing to descend into the dark depths of the cave. Grandpa bear had told me how he hid here for a couple days when some man creatures came hunting for him--and I was eager to see the place that had saved him and made my existence possible!

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There's my two brief story snippets! :) Thanks for reading!

The Treasure in Earthen Vessels

Two weeks ago, I was asked by a friend at church if I would like to write something and share it at an upcoming worship night. The theme for the evening was communion in suffering.

I put some things together that God has been teaching me lately, and sent it off to the organizer. It was of a more reflectional, cognitive nature: About how my frequent response to suffering (“I don’t deserve this!”) reveals my heart idolatry. How Jesus is the only human who never deserved to suffer anything, and yet He suffered everything for the glory before Him and for us. How suffering can lead us to worship and to reveal God’s glory in our weakness.

The organizer came back to me asking if I could have some sort of illustration to follow through the piece from beginning to end….something a bit more on the creative side.

So I gave it some thought….and the next day I was reminded of something a friend had told me about the week before: Kintsugi. A Japanese art form in which broken pottery is repaired with golden seams. Some late-night research/online orders, a shopping trip, a couple practice runs, and a few days later, the worship night arrived and I attempted to demonstrate what I had learned. Attempted being the key word—unsurprisingly it didn’t work out quite as well as I had hoped!

But the flaws in my presentation don’t change the object lesson….so here it is!

For those of you who were at the worship night last year, you might remember Adria’s video about the process of making pottery items. Scripture compares us to clay in the hands of God, the Potter.

When I was a child, I loved making numerous small pots out of mud. I would wait for them to dry and then play with them. But if left outside in a rainstorm, my collection would turn right back into mud.

God uses the furnace of refinement in our lives to make us stronger. But oftentimes that’s not the end of the story.

These are bowls that have gone through some kind of refining process. They are strong and useful. They have their own style and beauty.

But in most of our lives, at some point suffering will come along. There are innumerable examples of suffering in our lives. This may be a health crisis or a long illness. It may be betrayal by a friend. It could be the death of a loved one.

{After saying each of those things, I gave a small black bowl a smash with the hammer. As I had suspected ahead of time, my nerves meant that I really took it out on the poor little thing!} 

Sometimes, that suffering breaks our hearts, seemingly destroying any possibility of future usefulness in our lives. But when we feel broken beyond repair, God never discards us. He sees us. He holds us.

In traditional Kintsugi, the pottery had been broken by accident. {In fact, from my reading, people who purposely broke pottery in order to use it in Kintsugi were criticized!!} But we know that with our God, there are no accidents. And He has a promise for us, in Romans 8:28:

“We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

Even the things that seem to be the end of the world are for our good. And so God sets about to redeem the brokenness in our lives.

God promised Israel, “So I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten…My great army which I sent among you” (Joel 2:25).

God said, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine” (Isaiah 43:1).

Now this process doesn’t happen immediately!! It takes great patience. I had to hold the piece in place and WAIT for the glue to set. And even when I set one section aside, it’s not because I’m rejecting it! It’s because it needs more time to strengthen that bond before I add the next piece.

The bowl from Friday, in the reconstruction process.

Just because God repairs us doesn’t mean that we go back to exactly how we were before! Wounds leave scars. But as God puts us back together, His redemption shows through in our lives. God uses the suffering that came to reveal the excellence of HIS glory in our weakness. 

2 Corinthians 4 talks about the idea of how we should not lose heart in times of hardship, because God is at work! This is summed up in verses 6 and 7:

“For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.”

God is the power. HE is the treasure that we carry in earthen vessels. And through the suffering which He allows into our lives, HIS glory can shine forth brightly.

My first two practice attempts are in the back – the small one in front is #3 and it definitely turned out the best so far!

So that is what I shared!

During the demonstration, though, I failed to even glue two pieces together—because of the overly-smashed condition and my nerves, I didn’t even pick two matching pieces! :O Because of that, during the rest of the evening the epoxy hardened on the two pieces I had tried to match up. Thankfully I realized they weren’t really a match, so they weren’t connected—but they still had dried epoxy where a new seam would have to go. So after getting home I set to work cutting off the epoxy.

It made me think about how sometimes (often times), God has to carve away parts of us that are unhealthy or sinful. It’s never ever a fun process, and usually not a quick one either! And even when I think the job is done, usually some more crud shows back up later and the pruning process must continue, as was the case in cleaning these two pieces from my mistake.

Of course, in both the demonstration and in real life, it’s the human causing trouble! My impatience means that unlike these inanimate pieces of pottery, I squirm and wiggle as God works to put my broken heart back together. As the hands on the illustration side, it is I who am impatient in waiting for the glue to set, sometimes preventing pieces from joining well together. The one in the video was quick & easy and set well, but the next pieces I put together this morning took three attempts, two failures and the cleaning off of the still-wet glue which followed.

It was tempting to say, “this one is too badly broken – it can’t be redeemed.” But God never does that with us, and so I persevered. And eventually, the two large pieces were successfully joined with gold {the literal meaning of “kintsugi”!}

But after they were well set I was looking at which piece to do next. And I realized that the bottom piece no longer wants to fit perfectly where it was before. Either the epoxy spread the two bottom pieces to be wider than originally, or somewhere else the angle is just slightly wrong…. So out came the knife again, this time scraping away at the pottery itself.

Now the fit is better, and so tomorrow or the next day this piece will be glued in and the process will continue. And just as our loving heavenly Father never gives up on redeeming our beauty into ashes, so I won’t give up on this little bowl.

11/26 Update: A couple days ago I finished the bowl! Here are final shots of the repaired bowl I had broken at the worship night.

{Don't} Let Fear Paralyze You

While I was in college, I was a contributor to a blog—started by Moody Publishing for millennials—for about a year. The blog ended up changing its name and web address, and eventually the old domain expired…so the posts I authored now exist only on my computer [yes, I keep *everything*!!]. But occasionally I will be reminded of something I wrote and go back and look at it.

That happened recently with a post that was originally published on Thrive80 in April of 2012. The editor team had asked us to contribute posts about hypothetical ways to ruin your life before the age of 30. Below is what I wrote – with a current postscript at the end! :D It’s a message that spoke to my heart again today, even though I’m now in a different stage of life than I was as a 2^nd semester junior.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There are so many options available of what we can do with our lives.  This is especially true for our generation.  We have grown up in a world where travelling to another country is something that is not all that unusual, where we are told that we can be whatever we want to be.

Boys and girls both have increasingly equal chances to pursue whatever course they desire in their lives.  Our current president has demonstrated that the color of one’s skin can no longer effectively bar one from even the highest office in the land. [Remember this was originally written in 2012!] Freed from the constraints of comparative financial and physical limitations, the vast majority of our generation of Americans is free to chase and reach their dreams.

But there is one thing that can quickly and easily destroy any chance we have of achieving our goals:

FEAR

The fear of not making the right choice.  The fear of things not working out the way I want them to.  The fear that no matter how hard I try, it won’t be good enough.  The fear that God’s plan will be different than mine and ruin what I seek.

Such fear can paralyze us, preventing us from doing anything productive.  It can wrap its chains around our hearts and weigh us down.  Allowing this fear to overtake us is exactly what the enemy would love to see.  When Christians are bound by fear, they will not take the risks or chances that could lead them to victory in their lives or to bring God glory.

Not giving fear a foothold in my life is something I have been learning a lot about both last summer and this month.  As a person who wants people to like me and who wants to always make exactly the right choices, I can tend to hesitate too long in doing something important with my life – fearing rejection, fearing the unknown. 

But God does not call us to fear.  He calls us to hope and trust.  He calls us to live with our all on the line, to pursue Him whole-heartedly no matter what might happen.  It is then that He will gladly pour out His blessings on us and give us the desires of our hearts (Ps. 37:4, 1 Pet. 5:6-7).

Last summer, God kept bringing me back to the verse in 1 John which tells us that perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment (4:18).  There is no reason for us to fear the future, because God loves us.  When we do fear, it is a signal that we are not yet fully willing to trust God with all that we are.  And yet, because He loves us so much, He consistently and patiently points us back to Him.  “Trust Me, My child,” He whispers, “I love you more than you can even love yourself.”

Earlier this month, I was in a place of inner turmoil and doubt.  There was something I sensed God was calling me to, but everything within me was frightened of what would happen if I did it.  On Good Friday, I was able to spend a large chunk of time outside, away from the distractions of everyday life.  In that time, God used the feelings I was struggling with to bring me back to this idea of fear.  He did this through a part of Scripture I had memorized years ago.

In James 4:13-16, the author is criticizing people who go to the opposite extreme of the problem I am talking about here.  Those folks assume that they do know exactly what will happen.  They make plans and are overly confident that they will achieve their goals.  James reminds his readers that the fact is that we don’t know what will happen.  Our life is a vapor.  “Instead,” he concludes, “you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.’”

He is calling these people to live their lives in a manner which is surrendered to God’s plan for their lives.  He is calling them to trust.  But an important point here is that James does not say we should walk around in fear.  [Neither does he] say “Sit still in your house until you know exactly what it is God has planned for you to do because otherwise you will be a failure.”  No!  Rather, he is simply cautioning that while we can make our plans, we should not presumptuously assume that things will come out just as we expect.

James then turns and equally chastises the people who are too bound by fear.  “Therefore,” he writes, “to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin” (4:17).  God does allow us a level of free will!  I’m not going to try to debate this large theological issue, but suffice it to say I do not believe in a deterministic view of God’s sovereignty.  I believe He leaves room for human choice and plans.

James’ last verse here is telling us to do what we know we should.  Follow through on applying for that job, even if you’re not sure how it will work out.  Try to make friends with that person you see sitting alone, despite the fact they may choose to ignore you.  Love freely, as you have been loved – even when that can open you up to hurt and disappointment.

Thinking through this passage in James brought me back to something that has been a recurring theme of my college career: that life issues rarely fit into neat categories.  Instead, as Aristotle’s theory of the golden mean describes, the ideal course of action typically lies in finding a balance between two extreme responses.  As I tweeted shortly after my time of reflection, “I am called to trust - not to either fear that God may change my plans, nor to presume that He will not.”

And so, my friends, there is one word that can prevent you from letting fear ruin your life and paralyze you.  It may be a simple word, but the concept is deep – one which God has been slowly developing in my life for months:

TRUST

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Interestingly, God has continued to use that passage from James in my life, without me consciously remembering this post I wrote. In October of 2015, I was praying about whether God would have me commit to coming back to Uganda after my initial 14-month stint as staff was over. Again, I was out in nature spending time communing with Him. And as I prayed, He gave me those same verses in James.

And so they’ve stayed in the back of my mind – as I said that yes, I would return to Uganda. As I renewed my work permit in early 2016 for two years. As I think about the future now. Those are the verses that my mind goes back to. I can make my plans, but God may change them at any time. And yes, that’s scary—IF I forget how faithful and trustworthy God is. IF I ignore the fact that He knows things I can’t even imagine. IF I don’t remember that His purposes are perfect.

The word that is the call to my heart is still the same now as it was five years ago:

TRUST.

Two Sabbath Healings

At our church here in Kasana, our pastors are preaching through the book of John. This past Sunday we were looking at the story of the man healed by the pool of Bethesda, from the first part of chapter 5.

The preacher reminded us that we must watch out for false religion, which makes us feel comfortable but actually fails to give glory & praise to God when He works in our lives.

Later in the afternoon, I spent some time journaling & reflecting, and the Holy Spirit helped me draw a contrast/see a lesson by comparing this man in John 5 and the blind man in John 9.

On Sunday morning, the Holy Spirit stopped me in the middle of a funk mood when the preacher was reading the passage, before he had ever spoken a word of his sermon. It was verses 6 & 7 that caught me: Jesus asks this man who had been an invalid for 38 years, “Do you want to be made well?” And his answer? “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”

Sitting there in church, I could suddenly see that too often I’m like that man. I want some person or some physical situation to provide the setting for healing. I want it to seem momentous.

What this man didn’t know was that The Healer was asking him this question. Jesus simply said the words, “Rise, take up your bed and walk” – and immediately this man did! After THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS. [I haven’t even been alive that long yet!!!]

But, Jesus had done a big no-no! It was the Sabbath day when He did this! And so when the Jews found this man carrying his bed, they scolded him soundly. But the man didn’t know who had healed him. Then Jesus found him in the temple, and said “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.” (vs. 14)

And what did the man do? Worship the one who had made him well? No, he went back to the leaders and told them it was Jesus who had healed him, and that made serious trouble for Jesus (vs. 16) – this is the first mention of the leaders wanting to kill Jesus!!!

Contrast that to the man in chapter 9.

In this case, the disciples start the conversation by asking Jesus “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus’ reply brought tears to my eyes & a catch in my voice yesterday afternoon: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him” (vs. 3).

Then Jesus made mud, “anointed” the blind man’s eyes, and sent him to the pool of Siloam to wash.

“So [the man] went and washed, and came back seeing.” As simple as that.

But again, it was the Sabbath day. And evidently spitting on the ground is work?? Because again, this man and Jesus got in trouble with the religious leaders of the Jews. This time there was almost a whole trial – they called the man’s parents and everything to make sure he had really been born blind. The parents hedged because of a threat from the Jews (vs. 19-23).

The formerly blind man shot straight though: “One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see.” And so they excommunicated him. But Jesus came and found him (vs. 35-58):

            “Do you believe in the Son of God?” He asked him.

            “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?”

            “You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you.”

            “Lord, I believe!” And he worshipped Him.

Do you see the difference? A totally different response & attitude on the part of these two men!!

But really, which one had more reason to be bitter about the years of less-than-full life, or which had reason to boast for his role in the healing?

Jesus seems to imply that the man in John 5 was sick because of some sin he had committed (vs. 14). But the John 9 man is specifically cleared from any connection between the blindness and a sin.

The John 5 man did nothing to be made well – absolutely nothing – Jesus spoke the word, and he was healed. Whereas the man in John 9 is the one who washed the mud off. If he had wanted to, he could have argued that Jesus had made things worse by smearing spit & road dirt on his eyes. His eyes didn’t open immediately, only once the man himself had washed the mud off could he see.

But look at their responses.

The man who may have been sick because of his own doing but who did nothing to heal himself is the one who shows no indication of saving belief, who instead went and ratted to the religious leaders.

But the one who was innocent of sin connected to his blindness, and who worked (in a small way) to bring about his own healing? He is the one who stood up to the religious leaders and defended Jesus’ righteousness (vs. 17, 30-33), and who worshipped & believed Jesus when he saw Him again.

Our preacher on Sunday pointed out that the John 5 man’s faith & trust were in the angel, a moving of the water, and in his own ability to get into that water first.

The man in John 9 also had faith – but it was the simple faith of hearing & obeying the instructions he was given. He somehow knew it was Jesus (vs. 11), though we don’t know how much he knew about Him. Maybe he had heard about Jesus & already believed His claim to be the Son of God. We aren’t told that, but from his fruit we can see that his faith had the right focus.

I don’t want to be like the man in John 5. I want to be more like the one of John 9.

But all too often, it’s too easy to be stuck in misplaced trust, or in the ensnarement of false religion.

May the Lord continue to heal & purify my heart!!!!

Fear or Trust

This afternoon, I stopped by a friend’s house for a few minutes. On her radio, I overheard something about “3 Republicans and 3 Democrats” and a vacancy. Probably because my subconscious had heard more than that, I immediately wondered if one of the U.S. Supreme Court justices had passed away. But the radio went on to other things, and I wasn’t sure. When I opened Facebook shortly after coming back to my house, I found that yes, Justice Scalia had died.

The first thing I saw indicating the news was this blog post shared by a friend. It makes a most excellent point. It is so easy for all of us (all over the world!) to put so much of our hope and even faith in government leaders. It's so easy for us to fear when it looks like things may not go the way we wish they would.

I feel it in myself as I consider the American presidential elections. I see it in my sisters and brothers here as they prepare for Thursday's Ugandan general elections. The tension of not knowing how things will turn out; the knowledge that the results of the elections will impact our nations and our lives for the next few years.

Because we're not God, we cannot see the future. And when our eyes are fixed on earthly things, the ‘unknown’ can so easily overwhelm us. But God calls us to fix our eyes on JESUS - the Lord who is on His throne, whose enemies will be made His foot stool (our sermon this morning was from Heb. 1:4-14, about that very thing).

This morning in church, talking about the upcoming elections, one of our Ugandan elders took us to Isaiah 33:22. It reads, "For the Lord is our Judge, The Lord is our Lawgiver, The Lord is our King; He will save us." This covers all the areas of government - the courts, the legislative, and the executive. In all these areas, God is the Ultimate. And He is the one who saves us, not any political leaders. There is no part of anything that is outside of God's hands.

And yes, God calls us to pray for our leaders, that they will be godly. Yes, I believe we should practice the privilege and right we have to vote (I just sent my mail-in ballot for the Texas primary elections back with a team!). But all of that should flow out of a heart that is at peace, knowing that God is in control; not out of a heart of fear.

And even if Uganda were to explode into riots following the results of Thursday's election; even if the ‘worst candidate’ were to be elected president of the United States – that's part of God's plan. He allowed it. And He will use it for His glory and purposes, which include our good. That's what He promises. We do not need to fear.

Fear has been on my mind a lot, especially the last couple months. Below is part of my most recent email newsletter to my prayer supporters, which discussed the same topic.

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I don’t know about you, but it is SO very easy for me to fall into the many traps of fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of disapproval. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of the stranger (a man) who met me in the nearby village and then came to New Hope looking for me; who got my number somehow and called me, wanting to meet up.

Over the past two years, I have also witnessed what a snare fear can be to my Ugandan brothers and sisters. Sometimes, it seems as though fear is their primary motivator. Fear of the ‘big man.’ Fearing to leave a knife outside, because an attacker may come and use it to hurt you. Fear of snakes, insects, lizards, owls.

In the past few weeks, we here at Kasana have had an object lesson in fear. A health alert came through, after a couple of our kids and staff tested positive for a disease. Based on initial information, some leaders announced that extreme caution was needed (no shaking hands or hugging) and that every person on site needed to be screened and vaccinated against this disease.

As a result, people were naturally apprehensive and worried. One of the people who had tested positive did not feel physically ill at all, but was “heartsick” because of fearing the disease.

On a personal level, I fell victim too: I was fearful and worried. On one hand, my vaccination was possibly no longer effective (too old). On the other hand, when I had gone in for a physical while in Dallas the doctor had been concerned about the results of one of the routine blood tests. She had called me back in, mentioning that she was going to also test for the same disease that was now apparently circulating our campus. I had given the resample the day before I flew out, and not received the results yet.

But most of us had over-reacted. As more experts’ opinions were sought, the situation no longer appeared so dire. The ways of contacting the disease were much fewer than we had first been led to believe. Another communication to staff was made, scaling back the level of concern and encouraging people to live their lives normally.

The fear had already taken root, however. Especially for those who had tested positive, now bearing that weight of concern even though they felt fine.

Why is it that we so easily open up our hearts and minds to the seeds of fear? Why is it that we so quickly forget or disregard the faithfulness and trust-worthiness of our God? Why do we fear?

As I mentioned at the beginning of this section – it’s not just about things like a disease. There are so very many other areas of our lives in which we often allow fear to shape and control our thoughts and actions.

We – no, I waste so much of my time and energy worrying about things that are held squarely in the hands of our GOOD Father God. Even if I were horribly sick with this disease – that wouldn’t change His goodness one bit. It also wouldn’t change the fact that He is in control and allows all things for His purposes!!!

This month has reminded me over and over, once again, that I need to be consciously submitting my whole life to God – trusting HIM and His plan. It has also shown me again how much I must be on guard against the fear that so easily ensnares me. I pray that it does the same for my brothers and sisters!

Oh, and I tested negative when I was screened here. The repeated blood work in Dallas also came back perfectly normal. So in this case, there was no reason for me to be so afraid.

Remember, Esther, that “perfect love casts out fear…” (1 John 4:18-19). Remember Who holds all things. Trust Him!