Little Chats With God

Archive for September, 2008

‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned: they did not help the poor and needy.’ Ezekiel 16:49Ezekiel 16:49
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49 Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and prosperous ease was in her and in her daughters; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

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You know, Lord, I always thought that the sin of Sodom was moral depravity. Certainly there was plenty of that going on, as Your Word makes abundantly clear. But it really blew me out when I read this verse. Here You are saying that there was something else that You hated about Sodom, something even worse than the moral depravity, something You considered so bad that You describe it, rather than the other, as ‘the’ sin of Sodom.

What’s worse, Lord, what You call the sin of Sodom seems to me to be a pretty good description of much of our society – and even much of the church – today. In fact, as I look around at the conservative churches and the conservative political parties – the ones who make the most noise about the decaying morals in our society – it seems that they are the very ones who are most overfed and unconcerned, and least moved by the needs of the weakest members of society.

Why has there come such a dichotomy, Lord? Surely it is possible to have both high moral standards and a concern for the needs of the poor? Why have Your people abdicated ‘welfare’ to the left-wingers and radicals?

As I read through Your Word, it certainly seems that You had a special concern for the needy. You made provision for them to be able to gather food by gleaning after the harvest, and You made it clear that they were not to be ripped off by exorbitant interest charges. And here in this verse You suggest that You see a lack of concern for the poor as being worse than the worst form of moral depravity.

So how do you see the Church today, Lord? Are we, in Your eyes, even worse than Sodom? Do we need to repent and re-evaluate our priorities? More to the point, Lord, do I?

“When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, ‘The Lord is with you, mighty warrior’.” Judges 6:12Judges 6:12
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12 The angel of Yahweh appeared to him, and said to him, Yahweh is with you, you mighty man of valor.

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Every time I read this verse, Lord, I have a picture of Gideon jumping up, spinning around in fear to see which of his enemies has discovered him in the wine press, then turning back to the angel in stark disbelief and saying, “Who? Me? You’re kidding!”

Certainly by all our human criteria, Gideon far better fitted the description “mighty worrier” than “mighty warrior.” All that You had done for Your people in the past had become to him nothing more than a bunch of nice stories. He had never tasted Your power for himself, and he had gotten to the point where he was not at all sure that You even cared for Your people, let alone for him personally. He saw himself as nothing, and acted accordingly. No doubt all his countrymen – to say nothing of his enemies – saw him exactly the same way as he did.

What amazes me, though, Lord, is that You saw something entirely different. You looked at this snivelling, pathetic creature, hiding in a wine press to thresh his wheat so that his enemies wouldn’t take it from him, not even entertaining the idea of fighting back against them, and You saw a warrior. I’m with Gideon, Lord: You gotta be kidding!

Of course, history proved that Gideon and I were wrong, and You were right (surprise, surprise!). Gideon did indeed go on to be all that You said he was, and to deliver his people from the oppression of their enemies.

But it makes me think about myself, Lord. There have been so many times when I have said things like, “I can’t do this” or “I can’t go on any further.” With all my being I have wanted You to either ease the situation or, for preference, lift me right out of it, but You haven’t done so. Could it be that, just as You saw a mighty warrior in Gideon the mighty worrier, You see something in me that is bigger, stronger and braver than anything I can see?

Lord, help me to see myself as You see me, and to live according to Your vision of me rather than my own.

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” 2 Corinthians 4:72 Corinthians 4:7
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7 But we have this treasure in clay vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves.

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A clay pot! Sounds like a pretty good description of me, Lord. I have a couple at home, mementoes of a time of ministry in Papua New Guinea. They are a bit rough, not quite symmetrical. Uncoloured and unglazed, their only decoration is patterns carved into the wet clay before they were placed in an open cooking fire for firing. They are not fancy in any way. Yeah, sure sounds like me.

I remember reading a newsletter from a fellow minister about his recent trip to Africa. Five star all the way! VIP lounges, grand receptions, and huge meetings. Lord, is this really the same Africa I know? The Africa of dust and flies, of pot-holes big enough to swallow cars and piles of garbage higher than a man? The Africa of struggle and poverty and AIDS? I’m sure my brother is sincere, and according to his newsletter You moved powerfully through his ministry, but when I read it I see not a clay pot but a very expensive bone-china vase.

Of course, he is much more well known than I am. He has position and power. I guess it is natural that someone in his position should expect and receive the red carpet treatment. Yet his newsletter disturbed my spirit. More than that, it grieved my spirit.

Lord, I have sat with pastors in little backwater churches and heard the cry of their hearts that nobody ever takes the trouble to visit them. I have stayed in their homes and seen their struggles. Lord, they don’t want or need bone-china vases. They want and need clay pots that will carry Your glory and Your mercy even unto them.

Lord, no matter how far You take me in this ministry, help me to remain a clay pot.

“Sow for yourselves in righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unploughed ground, for it is time to seek the Lord until He comes and showers righteousness on you.” Hosea 10:12Hosea 10:12
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12 Sow to yourselves in righteousness, Reap according to kindness. Break up your fallow ground; For it is time to seek Yahweh, Until he comes and rains righteousness on you.

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Lord, I remember reading somewhere that the word translated “unploughed” here does not mean ground that has never been ploughed, but that which was once cultivated but has been allowed to lie fallow. What was once fruitful has become hard and overrun with weeds.

It seems to me, Lord, that there are areas in my life that are like that. Things which were once a normal part of my walk with You, but seem to have gone AWOL. Things that I really would like to be part of my Christian experience again.

But it’s so hard to go back, Lord. Time, hurts, disappointments, have conspired together to harden the soil of my heart. Now bad habits grow like weeds, and the fruitfulness for Your Kingdom in those areas has been choked out.

I know I need to revisit those areas, Lord. To break up the ground again. To allow the rain of Your Spirit to soften me again. To rip out the weeds, and allow Your Spirit to again plant the seeds of Your Kingdom. I know it, Lord. It’s doing it that’s the hard bit.

I guess there’s a lot of others in the same place, Lord. We need you to do what the last part of this verse says. We need You to come and shower righteousness upon us. We need You to strengthen and encourage us, so that we can again take up the plough, and again become fruitful for You.

“You are always righteous, O Lord, when I bring a case before You. Yet I would speak with You about Your justice: why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?” Jeremiah 12:1Jeremiah 12:1
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12 ¹ Righteous are you, Yahweh, when I contend with you; yet would I reason the cause with you: why does the way of the wicked prosper? why are all they at ease who deal very treacherously?

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Like Jeremiah, Lord, I would like a word with You about the state of Your world today. Every night on the television news, every morning in the newspapers, I see stories of war, violence and mayhem. It seems like there is not a part of the world where somebody isn’t trying to blow up somebody else. Now this wouldn’t seem so bad if it were just the protagonists fighting each other. At least they could say that they had chosen their own fate. I remember old Mrs Murphy, our music teacher in high school who used to say that instead of having wars, we should round up the king or prime minister of all the combatant countries, put them out in the middle of a paddock, and let them fight it out together, whilst the rest of us stood around the fence line and watched. Sounds like a pretty good idea to me, Lord. Then it would only be those who chose to fight that would get killed or wounded. But it’s not, Lord. It’s all the women and kids, all the ordinary people who only want to go about their business and let everyone else go about theirs.

And what about all the injustices, Lord? What about all the people who are denied their rights by unjust governments, or those that have their life savings ripped off by scumbag crooks? On the other hand, what about the scumbag crooks that prosper in everything they do, living the high life on other people’s hard-earned money?

Your Word tells me that You are a God of Justice. So why don’t you bring about some justice in Your world? Why don’t You stop people behaving like they do?

Hmmm…. but then, I guess You don’t stop me behaving badly when I choose to, either, do You? And You certainly don’t always give me the punishment I deserve for my behavior! Whooooops! I guess I’d better back off here, or I could get myself in a whole heap of trouble, couldn’t I? But does that mean that we just have to put up with the way the world is? To grin and bear it, and do nothing?

Hold on, Your Word tells me something else. It tells me that the problems aren’t really people, but satan and his cohorts. It also tells me that You have given us, Your people, authority over them. Have I missed something? Have I been demanding You to do something, when in fact You have been waiting for me to use the authority that You have already given Me?

Sorry, Lord. Help me to stand for You and be a force for change in my world.

 “But the king replied to Araunah, ‘No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.’ So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them.” 2 Samuel 24:242 Samuel 24:24
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24 The king said to Araunah, No; but I will most assuredly buy it of you at a price. Neither will I offer burnt-offerings to Yahweh my God which cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.

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Lord, I’m a little confused here. I can understand where David was coming from. He was the one who had sinned and brought Your judgement on the nation. If he had just accepted the threshing floor and the oxen and the wood from Araunah, the offering would not have been his but Araunah’s.

Yet when we come into the New Testament, that is exactly what You did for us – You gave Yourself as the offering on our behalf. And You make it very clear that the only way we can come to You is by accepting that offering, and not trying to pay the cost ourselves.

So why the change, Lord? Why was it right for David to pay the price for Your mercy, but not right for us?

But hold on – was that what David really did? Did his sacrifice change Your mind? It seems to me that Your response was to his repentant heart, not to the sacrifice. Without the repentant heart, David could have sacrificed a thousand oxen and Your judgement would not have changed the slightest fraction.

So I guess the sacrifice was more a matter of “putting his money where his mouth was.” When I look at it that way, I realize that the same is true for us. Even though You offer us salvation freely based on the sacrifice of Calvary, and even though we could never in a zillion years be good enough to deserve Your mercy or rich enough to buy it, You still require us, like David, to put our money – in fact, our lives and our whole being – where our mouth is.

Help me, Lord, both to fully embrace Your free gift of salvation, but also to respond with the costly offering of my life.

“If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses?” Jeremiah 12:5Jeremiah 12:5
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5 If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? and though in a land of peace you are secure, yet how will you do in the pride of the Jordan?

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It’s been one of those days, Lord: just one problem after another. A government department giving us the run around, a bill that was considerably more than expected, people who haven’t done what they were supposed to – You know the sort of thing, Lord. It’s frustrating. It’s tiring. It’s draining. And sometimes I just wish they’d all go away and annoy each other, instead of annoying me.

Maybe I’m just getting crotchety as I get older, Lord. I never did suffer fools gladly, but now I’d prefer not to suffer them at all. Why is it that sometimes life feels like swimming through treacle?

Then, Lord, I read about some of Your people who live in countries where they are persecuted for their faith. Ones who have been thrown in jail for many years just for believing in You. Ones who have had their homes and churches burned. Ones who have been tortured and even killed just because they were Christians.

These aren’t the saints of old who lived in the days of the Roman persecution. They are people living today. Some of them are younger than my kids. Some are even as young as my grandkids. They endure incredible pain, suffering and degradation because of their faith in You.

Yet here am I grizzling about government red tape and human inefficiency. My problems are minuscule compared with theirs. It’s just like You said to Jeremiah, Lord – it’s like I’m competing against men on foot, and they are wearing me out, but I should be able to run against horses.

But right now, Lord, forget the horses. For today, just give me the strength to keep in front of the blokes on foot!

“God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”  John 4:24John 4:24
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24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

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Lord, I’m so glad You put a balance in Your Word. As humans, it is so easy for us to go screaming off to one end of the spectrum or the other, when often the two extremes are simply the two sides of the one coin.

I know, Lord, that You are not like the gods that mankind chooses to make for itself. You are far too big to be represented truly by stone or wood, and whilst in the days of the Old Covenant You chose Jerusalem as the place on earth where Your presence would rest, there is no way that any temple, no matter how great or glorious, could ever contain You. You fill the universe. When the Samaritan woman in this Scripture disputed whether the correct place for Your worship was Samaria or Jerusalem, she was completely missing the point of Your greatness.

But we do that so easily, Lord. Unable to come to terms with Your infinity, we try to put You in boxes: to say that You are here or there, that You must be worshipped this way or that. And of course, our place and our way is always the right one!

Help us to remember that You are spirit. The places, the rituals, the formulas of man just don’t cut it – only spirit to spirit does.

Yet You also said that You must be worshipped in truth. We cannot invent a god of our own making, shaped in our image and likeness, and pretend that it is You. We cannot say that any of the gods of this world are just You under another name. There is only one truth, and that is You, the eternal Father, who manifested Himself in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who said “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except by Me.” Help us always to worship You as Who You are, and to reject the claims of false gods which do not live up to the truth.