Hearing the Word Anew!

Over the past several months I have been doing a word by word break down of Genesis one, taking it back to the original Hebrew, looking at each word in the pictographs that proceeded the alphabet we currently use, seeing what is foreshadowed in this inaugural passage of our sacred text, and trying to understand what these words would have sounded like to those who heard it for the first time. To say the least, it has been an eye opening experience to study these verses that were presented to me in flannel graphs and the colorful picture books of Sunday school.

Something happens to our understanding of the Bible when you grow up with it being doled out in pretty little bite size pieces. When the stories all stand alone without any historical moorings to hold them in place or to give you perspective. We lose sight of the fact that these events happened to real people in a real world with a very real socio-economic-political-religious context that would have colored every word and phrase in a way that is all but lost on the modern reader.

To put it another way, Genesis was not dropped on a people whose minds and hearts were a blank slate. They were not automatons simply waiting for their programing to be downloaded. Just like us, they heard the news of creation with buttload of baggage and preconceived notions that had to be confronted, rooted out, and brought into alignment with this new revelation. (And yes, buttload is a proper and precise theological term – well, in my world anyways.)

So we ask the obvious questions:  Who wrote Genesis? When was it written? And to whom was it written?  

The first one is easy enough. The answer is Moses. Jesus even said so in Luke 24:44, and then Paul gives us a little more insight in Acts 7. This also answers the second and third questions. It was written after the Exodus and to the Children of Israel after they had been freed from slavery.

It is easy to brush by all that with a nod of acceptance, but we have got to stop flying through our Bible and acting as if reading the words is enough to understand what we are being shown. Think about this with me.

Moses who Paul says was “educated in all the wisdom of the Pharaohs” takes this bunch of refugees out into the desert. Refugees who had lived their whole lives in fear, who had all hope for the future snuffed out under a slave master’s whip, whose sole purpose was to toil for a people who viewed them as so sub-human that with a simple decree their children were ripped out of their arms and slaughtered. Can you imagine degradation they had endured? The sheer worthlessness that had been ingrained so deeply into their heads that they would one day beg to return to this condition because the comfort of the known held much more appeal than the rigors of the desert before them?

As we read the accounts in our comfy arm chairs, in rooms heated and cooled to our preference, and munching on our Cheetos, it is easy to proclaim that we would have never spurned God’s promises the way they did. We would never turn our backs on him after having experienced the awesome terror of the plagues or the grand wonder of the parting of the sea. How smug we can be! And yet how many of us can’t even bother with being polite to the checkout girl. Tell me again how easy it would be for a Christian today to make this walk of faith.

And yet, here they are. In a desert, carrying the only possessions they have, and wondering what is going to happen to them and their children when the food runs out. If this was not terrifying enough, there is another thought process running in the backgrounds of their minds – they may have just brought the entire world to an end.

The land they had just left was a land of cycles. Cycles of the sun personified by Ra who made his daily circuit through the sky, eaten each night by Set, and delivered from Set’s belly each morning, governing the ebb and flow of all life. Cycles of the Nile with its seasonal flooding that washed in the fertile silt and watered the crops that most of the known world depended upon for food at one point or another in history. Cycles of life, a 3000 year process of life, death, and reincarnation that only the most worthy could hope to escape. Cycles guarded and upheld by Pharaoh, the man they had just watched drown in the collapsing walls of the sea. The god-man entrusted with putting down political coups and slave uprisings so that the cycles could continue unbroken and unhindered lest the mighty Nun, the god of chaos, rise up from his watery prison and consume the world once more.

Did they not just witness the chaotic waters destroy the one charged with holding back Nun’s power? Did they not just rise up in defiance against the one the only culture they knew proclaimed to be their guardian and savior? What had they done? Was it a mistake? Could they be forgiven? Freedom? What did freedom mean to dead men?

Certainly they had experienced the fierce power of this God that Moses had claimed to follow, but hadn’t this God failed them before?  What of all the years they had languished as slaves, crying out for a savior and none was given? Hadn’t they watched their own parents, grandparents, and even their children die as this God ignored their cries? What was to say that this time would be different? And Moses, where was he? It seemed like so long ago that he had left them here in this barren waste and disappeared into the clouds that surrounded Sinai. Perhaps he had brought them here to die.

So many questions, so much fear, and so little to cling to as they waited their fates.

Then one day they seem him as he walks down the mountains, still radiant from his time with God. Moses who carries back the tablets of stone, the laws by which they are to live, but he carries back something more – the stories of a time only dimly remembered, the time of their forefathers, and the times of creation.

And the story begins with these life changing words – IN THE BEGINNING!

No more cycles to be defended or guarded. No more endless loops of time imprisoning humanity in never ending toil and hardships. No more wheels crushing them into oblivion. No! There was a beginning!  A point where it all started, a point where God acted, and a God did not conquer the chaos – he redeemed it! Fashioning and shaping it according to his desires, not reliant on a man, even a god-man to defend his cycles of life. He stood above it all.

And with the declaration of beginning came the promise of an end. Hope, purpose, and meaning! For now all of humanity would take part in the culmination of time so that the glory of God might be revealed to all men and women who walked this earth. A God who stood in power and glory above the chaos of this world, not with the need to conquer but with the desire to redeem.

I can only imagine the wonder that filled them as they heard this word we brush past. I can only imagine how the pillars of the world they knew shook and crumbled under the weight of this new revelation as they rose again. This time not as runaway slaves, but as a nation, holy, set apart, with a mission and purpose decreed by the God who defied every truth they had been trained to hold dear.

Can it mean any less for us? Even in our comfy chairs? Is the word any less vital or true for us? How many times have you felt like a rat on wheel, that life had no purpose, no meaning? That the chaos of this world had overwhelmed you, consuming all that you gave security and peace? The world does not have to be as we have been trained to see it. It does not have to be limited by the truths that everyone wants us to hold dear. For we are not slaves to this world, we have been freed so that we to might be a holy nation, set apart, with a mission, and with a purpose. We – you and I, not some person on a pedestal, not some spiritual guru, we have been set apart holy unto him! And he still the God who redeems all of creation to himself, we just need to hear the words anew.

"But They Are All Dead!" - Laments of Deferred Hope

“But they are all dead!” I wailed as yet another friend pointed me to Hebrews 11 in an attempt to encourage me during a season of great frustration of singleness.

“Of course, they are all dead they lived during Bible times.” She said looking rather befuddled.

“No, I mean they all died before anything God promised them happened – even Moses died right before he got to step foot in the Promise Land.” I whined. “You know what that’s like? That’s like sitting in the parking lot while your friends spend the day in Disney World. Way to go, God, what an awesome way to treat your chosen hero. Guess that’s as good as it gets when you are serving God.”

It was at this point my friend decided to abandon any attempts at consoling and backed away slowly. She later confessed that she was pretty certain that it was going to lightening the next time I opened my mouth, and she didn’t have any intentions of being anywhere near the strike zone. (I hear that quite frequently believe it or not.)

Now for those of you who have lived a beautifully blessed life, I am sure that my laments sound a little melodramatic and bordering on blasphemous, but follow me on this one. You really need to understand, maybe not for yourself, but at some point in your life you are going to have a friend who feels this way. And if you have ever felt like this towards God, we have group meetings at my house on the second Tuesday of the fifth week next month.

Nothing hurts more than waiting on a dream. Solomon even said so, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but the fulfillment of a desire is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12). I prefer Stephen King’s paraphrase from the Shawshank Redemption, “Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man (or woman) insane.”

The only thing worse than hope is hope that is rooted in a God given desire. Whether it is the dream of marriage, a thriving ministry, publishing that next book, or having a home to call your own, all of it hurts when it seems like it is happening for everyone but you. And it isn’t just the not having that kills you, it is the way you begin to feel like everyone else is looking at you, that subtle shift in how they treat you, and the unspoken accusation of why aren’t you good enough to receive God’s blessings.

So you work the steps. You go over your life with a fine tooth comb and you begin looking for some sin that would explain why God is withholding his love. You pray, you fast, you confess even the most minor infractions, and you cry in frustrated pain and in anger. You volunteer more at church, you start tithing 11% instead of 10, and you begin wondering if you should sponsor a child in Africa to show just how good you really are. And every morning you wake up expecting a miracle, you decree God’s provision and blessing over your life while you brush teeth, and all you have to show for it are toothpaste splatters on the mirror.

That is when the bitterness creeps in. It starts out as disillusionment and frustration, but you know deep down in your heart that anger is starting to take over. Oh, you fight it down, push it away, and do your best to deny that you are capable of such an unholy emotion, but you are beginning to feel like ticking time bomb. Soon all your prayers are boiled down to one word, “Why?”

“Why, God, why me?”

Now this is the part where I am supposed to offer you some holy answer and sacred words of wisdom. They will magically appear on your screen after you close your eyes, chant the Lord’s Prayer, and commit to sending me ten bucks.

Didn’t work? Yeah, I will have to work on that. Really, what did you expect?

The truth is I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows why some prayers get answered and others don’t. I can’t understand why God has allowed so many charlatans to achieve levels of great success and experience such blessing and leaves the rest of us out in the cold. I don’t know why he healed your friend who uses drugs and let my dad die, or why didn’t give my ex a holy zap and save our marriage when I prayed for that while warded off his blows. None it makes sense to me, and if I told you I did I would be lying.

But here is what I do know: God is sovereign, and that means he gets to call all the shots, even the ones I don’t understand. God loves me and he loves you, even when we don’t deserve it. Love will do what is best for us, even when it means disappointment and hurt. Hurt and disappointment does not mean our story is over. It just might mean that we have to be willing to let him write a new one, one we never imagined being the story of our lives.

No one in Hebrews 11 saw the fulfillment of the promise that God gave to them. They all died long before it happened, but they had enough faith to believe that in pursuing the promise they were exactly where God called them to be. They pressed onward even when it all seemed pointless, believing that God was faithful, and even though they didn’t see it happen their kids, their grandkids, and everyone who came after did.

You see, they changed the world by chasing the dreams God had given them and doing so transcended their finite existence. They ceased to be individuals and became a part of the fabric of history. Each of them is remembered not for what they received, but for what they gave – to you, to me, and to everyone who dares to receive the promise of salvation to this day.

And isn’t that what we were called to? To give it all away, including our lives, so that the world might witness his glory and not our own? Sometimes the only thing we have to lay on that altar is our hopes the ones he gave to us. Maybe he will provide a ram caught in the thorns of life, or maybe he will resurrect in a new and unexpected way. I don’t know, but I do know that he is the God of redemption and that includes disappointed hopes and dreams.

Fishing For Hope

My hubs with a bluecat we caught jug fishing.

It is always the stuff I never thought that I would do that teaches me the most. In fact, if I were to be real honest, I would have to admit that it is the stuff I swore I would never do that teaches me the most, and it seems that my life is one episode of doing the things I swore I would never do after another. I blame my husband and God’s quirky sense of humor.

One of those things I swore I would never do was fishing. I simply did not see the appeal in sitting next to the water all day holding a stick, but that changed soon after my hubs talked me into buying boat. Out of sheer boredom, I picked up one of those sticks and caught my first fish. I was hooked.

Since that day, Ty has been teaching me new and creative ways of fishing, and it has become one of our favorite ways to spend time together. This summer the new way has been jug fishing.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this method of fishing, allow me to explain – it is like an Easter egg hunt for adults. How can that not be fun?

Basically, you take any floating object, usually empty jugs but Ty and I use sections of pool noodles, attach a line, a few hooks, some bait, and drop them in the middle of the lake. Then you go do something else for a few hours, like go to bed overnight. When you return that’s when the fun begins.

Yesterday, we woke bright and early and gathered our gear ready to go out find our noodles. (Okay, Ty woke bright and early and coerced me from bed with promises of monster fish that we had surely caught overnight.) The thing is when you leave floating objects in the middle of large bodies of water, they do not tend to stay put, and when we returned to where we had left them the night before we not a single one was in sight. They had followed the dictates of the wind and waves to some unknown new location, and it was now our task to find them.

We quickly found eight of the twelve we had set out the night before, and to the beginner this sounds like a good thing, but I have learned that it typically isn’t. Oh sure, we found them, but we found them where the environment pushed them. What we really wanted were the ones that were in the strange places, the places that wind wouldn’t take them, and places far from where we had left them. Why? Because only big fish have the stamina to pull those noodles against the forces of nature to where they wanted to go.

No longer was our search limited to the following the wind, we had to start searching the expanse of the bay where we had left them. We began zigzagging across the waters. We found two with tangled lines and knots on the other side of the waters, indicating that a fish had been on the hook and managed to free itself. One was bobbing wildly as it ran from the sound of the boat motor and as I got the fish to the surface, he broke free but not before I saw that was largest one we had hooked to date.

Having searched the far perimeter of the waters, we turned back towards the starting pointing hoping that we had not lost the fourth and final noodle, but it didn’t look promising.

Ty conceded that we had probably lost one, even as we continued to retrace our course, when he suddenly shouted, “I think I see it.” I looked but saw nothing. We were heading deep into a cove far away from where from where we had found any of the other noodles and in the opposite direction from where the wind should have taken it. I was not going to bother getting too excited, in the glare, I figured he was probably just seeing things.

“It just went under the water.” He yelled over the wide open boat motor as he raced to the spot he had seen it. Now, he had my full attention.

I watched the spot he indicated waiting for sign when it popped above the waves and danced on the waves. It was a beautiful sight! Even before I could feel the tug on the line, I knew that this was going to be a great fish. I was not disappointed.

The thing about fishing is there is lot of time to think, and while we were scanning the waters looking for that last noodle, I was doing a lot of it. It seems to me that jug fishing is a pretty good example of what a life faith can look like. Most of us are just pushed around by the environment, no purpose or direction for where we end up, just reacting to the forces of nature we call life. We are easy to find, all clumped up together, empty hooks, nothing to add, and no joy for those who discover us.

Then there are the ones who aren’t where you would expect to find us. The ones who are in strange places, far from where we started, and you might even lose sight of us – think we are lost as we sink beneath the waves for a while. We are the unpredictable, the ones who refuse to simply follow the crowd, and the troublemakers. We can cause you some moments of panic, you might even lament us as lost, and want to give up on ever finding us again because the search has taken too long.

And then I had another thought, in almost every culture fish represent one thing – hope. You see we didn’t wander away from the expected norms because we wanted to upset anyone. We left because something got ahold of us, and it became stronger than the forces of this life. It began to pull us, instead of pushing us, and it began to lead us into places where few dare to go, and it was nothing less than that irresistible force of hope. Hope with enough stamina to fight the wind and waves of life and compel us to take risks, to be okay with sinking beneath the waves for a season, and causes us to dance upon them when we reemerge.

I will not lie. There was a moment of sadness when I thought of all those who have been pushed about by the wind, for how many times are those in search of hope going approach the crowds of believers looking for hope only to find bare hooks? But there is joy too, because I know there are many of you who are out there fighting the winds and waves to be in that place where hope has led you, those of you who are willing to appear lost to the crowds so all so that others can find the hope that you have known.

So to all of you troublemakers, misfits, and rebels of faith, I want you know I see you dancing on the waves and you are a beautiful sight!