Little Chats With God

“If a liar and deceiver comes and says, ‘I will prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer,’ he would be just the prophet for this people.”  Micah 2:11Micah 2:11
English: World English Bible - WEB
11 If a man walking in a spirit of falsehood lies: ‘I will prophesy to you of wine and of strong drink;’ He would be the prophet of this people.

Lord, I really do wonder about Your people sometimes! In that book I read recently the author talks about this young guy who decided that going to church was too hard. Instead, he was going to go water skiing. He collected a few mates to go out on the river for the day. I guess they felt that because it was Sunday, they had to do something “religious”, so they read a couple of verses of Your Word, talked about it briefly, said a few prayers. Then they went off to worship their true god, fun. Soon others joined them in their church of fun. The writer makes the point that they shared the Gospel with these new recruits, and many of them accepted Jesus, and he sees this as an ideal example of the new way of “doing church.”

Excuse me, Lord, but am I missing something here? I seem to recall You saying something about people taking up their cross to follow You, not taking up their water skis. Somehow I thought that the commitment You require was a little deeper than a few verses of Scripture and a brief prayer (of course for the needs of the individuals concerned.)

Not that there is anything wrong with water skiing - or any of the other pleasurable activities of this life - but when those things take the place of our commitment to You, I find it hard to draw any other conclusion than that they, rather than You, have become the object of worship.

Of course, this kind of Gospel would be really easy to spread. I mean, how difficult can it be to recruit people who are only interested in having fun? It makes Your words about counting the cost seem like so much codswallop. If that’s what Your Kingdom is all about, Lord, then why didn’t You just throw a big party? Yet as I read the Gospels, it seems to me that pretty much the whole of Your ministry on earth was spent challenging people to deeper faith, deeper commitment, deeper preparedness to pay the price. That, and getting up the religious authorities’ noses in such a way that it would lead eventually to You paying the ultimate price.

Lord, if You had been living on earth at the beginning of the 21st century, I can imagine You going water skiing with Your friends. I just can’t see You doing it as a substitute for the deeper spiritual exercises of life.

This blog is © copyright Lynn Fowler.

There is one God, and one mediator between God and people, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:51 Timothy 2:5
English: World English Bible - WEB
5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” 2 Kings 5: 132 Kings 5: 13
English: World English Bible - WEB
13 His servants came near, and spoke to him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid you do some great thing, wouldn’t you have done it? how much rather then, when he says to you, Wash, and be clean?

Lord, sometimes it amazes me how good we are at missing the simple things. Sometimes, I guess it is precisely because they are so simple. Like Naaman, we want a big production.

I guess the whole show must have been quite an anti-climax for Naaman. He had come all that way, with his great retinue, on the mandate of no-one less than the king. And surely, if this foreign prophet could do such great things, he would have to put on a good show!

Yet when he arrived with all his pomp and ceremony, Elisha didn’t even bother to come out to meet him. He just sent the servant to tell Naaman to dip seven times in the Jordan. What a letdown! Naaman’s pride must have been really wounded. And in the heat of that letdown and wounded pride, he very nearly missed his miracle.

Lord, how often do we miss our miracle because we are looking for something big and flashy, when all You are asking for is simple obedience? How hard is it, really to simply follow instructions?

If You told people to do something difficult, they would do it. Instead, You tell us to do something simple: repent, believe, and receive cleansing and forgiveness. It’s so simple, many people miss it.

Lord, raise up many like Naaman’s advisors who will say, “If you would be willing to do the hard thing, why not do the simple?”

This blog is © copyright Lynn Fowler.

There is one God, and one mediator between God and people, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:51 Timothy 2:5
English: World English Bible - WEB
5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me, and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5John 15:5
English: World English Bible - WEB
5 I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

The idea of bearing much fruit sounds good to me, Lord. It’s no fun working your heart out, only to find that in the end it all turns to dust. That’s what happens with our human efforts. I’ve seen it in others, I’ve experienced it for myself, and I really can do without it.

So, You’re saying that the trick is to remain in You - to “abide” in You, as the old version says. I’m guessing that You mean something rather more than simply continuing to profess the Christian faith - there’s heaps of people that do that, but without the slightest evidence of fruit in their lives.

It seems to me the branch is in a place of total dependence upon the vine. The vine is its only source of life. If it is cut off from the vine, it dies. I guess we need to be in that kind of dependence upon You: not looking to other things or other people as our source of life, strength, happiness, peace, provision, health or anything else. It all has to come from You, even though You might deliver it through other means to get it to us.

At the same time, I see a constancy here. The branch doesn’t toddle off and do its own thing, then just come back to the vine when it needs another feed of sap. It stays attached to the vine all the time. It receives from the vine in a constant flow.

That’s the hard bit, Lord. Learning to stay constantly attached to You through all life’s ups and downs and runnings around in small circles. It’s all to easy to fall back to seeing prayer as a quick meal snatched between battles - and sometimes the battle gets so long and dragged out that it’s easy to forget to pray at all.

Help me, Lord, to become so attached to You that Your life is able to constantly flow to me, and through me.

This blog is © copyright Lynn Fowler.

There is one God, and one mediator between God and people, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:51 Timothy 2:5
English: World English Bible - WEB
5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

“Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known. In wrath remember mercy.” Habakkuk 3:2Habakkuk 3:2
English: World English Bible - WEB
2 Yahweh, I have heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds, Yahweh. Renew your work in the midst of the years. In the midst of the years make it known. In wrath, you remember mercy.

Lord, I guess Habakkuk was one of those blokes who put their mouth into motion before putting their brain into gear. He started out by telling You how terrible the world was - or at least, the people in it - and how You really should do something about it.

In reply, You told him that You were about to do something: You were going to bring judgment on Your people, in the form of the Babylonians. Suddenly, Habby realized just what that would mean. It’s like he took a deep breath, gulped hard, and went, “Oh, whoops! What have I asked for?”

Suddenly he realized that this was not just a theory. Real people were involved. People he knew. Himself, even. Just two chapters after demanding Your judgment, he pleads for Your mercy.

At least he recognized that there are both sides to Your character. You are a God of mercy, Whose desire is always for the good of Your people, and Who wants to bless us. But You are also a righteous God, and a just God, and when Your righteousness and justice are offended You can be a God of judgment.

Unlike Habakkuk, many of us today recognize only one side of Your character. We are so used to Your mercy and grace extended to us in Christ that we forget Your righteousness, justice and judgment. Perhaps Your words to us today would be, “In mercy remember wrath.”

Help me, Lord, to enjoy Your grace and mercy, but never forget the other side of Your character.

This blog is © copyright Lynn Fowler.

There is one God, and one mediator between God and people, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:51 Timothy 2:5
English: World English Bible - WEB
5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Psalm 119:105Psalm 119:105
English: World English Bible - WEB
NUN ¹⁰⁵ Your word is a lamp to my feet, And a light for my path.

I had to write something about the church the other day, Lord, and I found myself using the old familiar statement of Evangelical faith: “We believe that the Bible is the infallible Word of God, and as such is our only rule of faith and conduct.” It’s true. It’s solid. It’s comfortable, and comforting.

Yet I wonder how many of us who subscribe to that truth actually live by it. Sure, we subscribe to it in the big issues: we really believe that You are the only God, and that we shouldn’t go round killing people or jumping into bed with someone else’s spouse. But when it comes to issues like not getting angry with someone, or not getting anxious about the provision for our lives, or keeping our thoughts focused on the things that are good and pure, then it seems to me that we often fall a long way short of following its rule.

The problem is, Lord, most of the time Your Word doesn’t give us the big picture. So often we’re looking for answers to “life, the universe and all” - we want our lives tidily mapped out for us for the next ten years, at least. But all You want to talk to us about is today. Sometimes not even that - just this minute, right now. You leave the rest in darkness. You tell us to trust You for this minute, but You don’t tell us where our foot is going to land with the next step.

I remember walking at night through a village in Vanuatu. It was pitch black, and all we had were these feeble little torches. They barely gave us enough light to see where the bloke in front was putting his feet. Yet that was enough: as long as he had walked there before, we knew we could safely follow.

I guess it’s the same with You, Jesus. You’ve walked by Your Word. As long as I have enough light to see where You have put Your foot ahead of me, I can safely follow. Lord, help me not just to know it, but to do it.

This blog is © copyright Lynn Fowler.

There is one God, and one mediator between God and people, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:51 Timothy 2:5
English: World English Bible - WEB
5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,