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Chapter-a-Day

“It’s a Miracle!” (or Not)

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"It's a Miracle!" (or Not) [CaD Ps 76] – Wayfarer

His tent is in Salem,
    his dwelling place in Zion.
There he broke the flashing arrows,
    the shields and the swords, the weapons of war.
Psalm 76:2-3 (NIV)

M’luv, Wendy, is a living human radar when it comes to parking lots. As we pull into any parking lot, her parking spot radar goes into overdrive as she spies all of the open spots available. She will begin giving me all of my options:

“There’s a spot in the next row back there. I see one a little closer but down another row. I think there might be one behind that giant truck…”

Often, while she’s still regaling me with all of my options, I’ll simply pull into the first spot I see. This is when Wendy says…

“Or, not.”

In yesterday’s post/podcast, I mentioned that the song of thanksgiving amidst a time of national uncertainty is believed to be connected to a specific historic event. In 701, the Assyrian King Sennacherib laid siege to the walled city of Jerusalem. The events are recorded in both 1 Kings 18-19 and 2 Chronicles 18. In what the people of Jerusalem considered a miraculous event, they woke up one morning to find that the entire Assyrian army lay dead and Jerusalem was miraculously spared from destruction.

Many scholars believe that today’s chapter, Psalm 76, is a victory song from the same event. And it does seem to fit. Listen to these lyrics and imagine the citizen’s gazing over the city wall to see the Assyrian army lying dead:

The valiant lie plundered,
    they sleep their last sleep;
not one of the warriors
    can lift his hands.
At your rebuke, God of Jacob,
    both horse and chariot lie still.

By the way, an account of the campaign against Jerusalem from the Assyrian perspective also exists. It admits that the siege of Jerusalem was unsuccessful, but leaves out any details and instead claims a moral victory for the successful subjugation of the other towns in the region. (It sort of reminds me of fans on sports talk shows who try to cushion the blow of a bitter defeat to a rival team by diminishing the loss).

I find it hard to separate the ancient Hebrew song from the seemingly miraculous event believed to have inspired it. As a follower of Jesus, I believe that miracles can and do happen. At the same time, the Great Story makes clear that the miraculous does not always happen. God may have spared the people of Jerusalem from the Assyrian army, but just a hundred years later the Babylonian army would lay waste to the city with horrific destruction. Why one and not the other? Welcome to the mystery.

Similarly, along my life journey, I have experienced miraculous events. I’ve also experienced events which, despite the desperate pleas and prayers of many, ended with lament rather than thanksgiving. There was no miraculous deliverance. Wisdom tells me that the latter does not negate the former, and the former does not assure the latter. Peter was miraculously delivered from prison in Acts 12, but there was no deliverance for him from Roman prison and his subsequent execution. In fact, Jesus told Peter to expect an uncomfortable end to his earthly journey.

This leaves me, as a follower of Jesus, holding the point of tension. It’s the same as Daniel’s friends living in Babylonian captivity and threatened to be thrown alive into a crematorium (see Daniel 3). They made it clear to the Babylonian King that they believed God could miraculously deliver them from the flames, but even God did not it would neither change their faith nor their actions. God broke through with a miracle in that case, but I could cite many examples that didn’t end so well.

Among the examples of those that did not end with miraculous deliverance is a German pastor and theologian named Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was executed in a Nazi concentration camp. In one of his most famous quotes, Bonhoeffer said, “When Christ calls a person, He bids them ‘Come, and die.'” In the quiet this morning, I’m reminded that one of the things I’ve learned to which I must die as a follower of Jesus, is any demands I’d like to make on what my story within the Great Story looks like, or how it ends.

Sometimes the miracle is part of the narrative of the Great Story (Peter escaping the Jerusalem prison), and sometimes the suffering is part of the narrative of the Great Story (Peter being executed in Rome).

It’s like being Wendy in a parking lot.

“God, you can work a miracle here. You can deliver me over there.”

“Or, not.”

Chapter-a-Day

Envy: The Pretty Sin

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Envy: The Pretty Sin (CaD Ps 73) – Wayfarer

When I tried to understand all this,
    it troubled me deeply
till I entered the sanctuary of God;
    then I understood their final destiny.
Psalm 73:16-17 (NIV)

Wendy and I were having a conversation early in our relationship and she used a metaphor that I’d never heard before. She spoke to me of “ugly” sins and “pretty” sins. It gave language to something I’ve always inherently understood but never really knew how to simply express.

Ugly sins are those types of moral failures that, when brought to light, are typically accompanied by public shame and humiliation. Ugly sins generate scarlet letter status within a community. We not may make modern day Hesters stitch the letter on their clothing anymore, but it doesn’t mean others haven’t stitched it there with their hearts and minds. Ugly sins generate gossip, slander, and hushed whispers behind the sinner’s back long after the secretly committed sin was made public and created sensational community headlines.

Pretty sins, in contrast, are shortcomings we largely ignore because we all do it and so there is an unspoken social and spiritual covenant we have with one another to turn a blind eye. No need to notice the speck of it we might perceive in the eye of another so that no one will point out the log of it in my own. Pretty sins are typically overlooked, dismissed if noticed on occasion, and sometimes we even find ways to make them virtuous.

Envy is one such pretty sin, and it’s at the heart of the song lyrics of today’s chapter, Psalm 73.

With Psalm 73, we start Book III of the Psalms. What’s cool is that the editors who compiled the Psalms put three symmetrical groupings together: six songs, five songs, six songs, with the middle song as the “center” of Book III. It’s the same way an individual Hebrew song would be structured. So they made Book III one giant psalm with individual songs as the “verses” of the structure. Psalms within psalms.

Psalm 73 is an instructional psalm in which Asaph confesses to the sin of envy. He looks at the lives of the wickedly rich and famous living in their Beverly Hills mansions, driving their Maserati, and jetting off to their summer homes on Martha’s Vineyard or their yacht in the Caribbean. Life is so easy for them. They don’t know what it means to struggle. On top of that, they are so arrogant looking down their noses on the rest of us.

I’m reminded of a conversation I had a week or two ago with a friend of mine who is a retired CEO. He lives near an elite golf club that caters to the jet-set and took a part-time job driving club members from their private jets to the luxurious private golf club. He told me how amazing it was to drive these billionaires around and routinely get treated like crap and stiffed for a tip. That’s the kind of people Asaph is singing about. Like Asaph, I confess that I’m envious to know what that kind of life must be like, even as I feel contempt for them.

As Asaph’s song continues, he goes into God’s Temple and it’s as if the Spirit of God gives him an attitude adjustment. He stops looking at the objects of his contemptuous envy with earthly eyes, and he opens the eyes of his heart to view them with an eternal, spiritual perspective.

Jesus taught that we who follow Him should maintain a similar spiritual perspective. On multiple occasions, he told parables warning about spending our lives “gaining the whole world” while we “lose our souls.”

Asaph ends his song of instruction understanding that it’s “good to be near God.” Along my journey I’ve discovered that contemptuous envy of others leads to destructive ends on many different levels. When I stick close to God, as Asaph instructs, it’s easier for me to keep both the eyes of my body and the eyes of my heart focused on things of eternal value. I can see my contemptuous envy for what it is, and can better perceive the spiritual price paid to gain this world and the things of this world.

In the quiet this morning I am looking forward to a simple feast with a few family members tomorrow. I’m looking forward to being home surrounded with love, joy, peace, and gratitude.

Wherever this finds you, I wish you and your loved ones a Happy Thanksgiving. I’m taking the next few days off. See you back on this chapter-a-day journey next week.

Cheers!

Chapter-a-Day, Wayfarer Podcast

Unseen Choices

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Unseen Choices (CaD Ps 71) – Wayfarer

As for me, I will always have hope;
    I will praise you more and more.
Psalm 71:14 (NIV)

I have observed on multiple occasions that 2020 has, thus far, been the most challenging year of my life journey. Over the weekend I found myself hitting the wall with it all. COVID, masks, lockdowns, racism, riots, name-calling, finger-pointing, posturing, politics, put-downs, elections, and egos. I came to the realization that I just don’t want to talk about it anymore, nor do I want to hear anybody talk about it. It seems, however, that it’s the only thing people can talk about right now. I get it. We all need to process.

In the quiet this morning, I began peeling away all of the circumstantial elements of our currently stressful times. I separated circumstance and spirit, elections and eternity, coronavirus, and Kingdom. Under the surface of all the Jesus said and did there was a conflict that broiled but remained unseen, a struggle of the spiritual.

Without conflict you don’t have a good story, and at the heart of the Great Story lies the ultimate conflict: The power of Life and that which sets itself up against it.

That which celebrates death instead of life.
That which perverts justice with power.
That which perverts appetite with lust.
That which perverts humility with pride.
That which perverts truth with deception.
That which seeks to tear down rather than build.
That which seeks to turn faith into fear.
That which seeks to turn hope into despair.
That which seeks to turn unity into division.
That which seeks to turn peace into conflict.
That which seeks to turn order into chaos.

In our chapter-a-day journey, we are coming to the end of “Book II” of the anthology of Hebrew song lyrics known as the Psalms. Thus far, almost every song in the 70 we’ve read was penned by David. We’re coming to the end of David’s journey. Today’s psalm was written near the end of his life.

If you’ve been sharing this chapter-a-day journey with me the past few months, it’s obvious that David’s life was not a cake-walk. David saw his share of death. He experienced injustice as well as the consequences of his own lust. He suffered through the pride, hatred, division, conflict, and despair of his own son who tried to steal his Kingdom away. He has faced constant fear from enemies both without and within who worked to tear him down. Now, as he feels his life slipping away there is growing chaos regarding who will ascend to throne after him.

David sang the blues a lot, and with good reason. I imagine David shaking his head at me this morning.

“Dude, you’ve had a rough year. I, like, had 2020 for a lifetime.”

It was with that perspective that I went back and read today’s chapter, Psalm 71, a second time.

Though you have made me see troubles,
    many and bitter,
    you will restore my life again;
from the depths of the earth
    you will again bring me up.

I couldn’t help but notice that David’s faith, hope, trust, and praise are not the result of his circumstances. They don’t spring from a cushy life on Easy Street. What became clear to me is that David is choosing them despite his circumstances, the same way he always has…

When he was on the run from Saul.
When he had a price on his head.
When he found himself alone in his enemy’s fortress.
When he was living in a cave in the wilderness.
When his own son raped his own daughter.
When his other son killed his own brother.
When that same son almost took his kingdom.
When he faced scandal from his adultery.
When his conspiracy to commit murder became public.

David’s lyrics, written across his life journey and making up roughly half of the Psalms, stand as testimony that time-and-time again he chose into praise, faith, hope, and trust when he had every reason to give in to the anger, fear, despair, and hopelessness.

In today’s song, the old man nears his journey’s end. He looks back at all he’s been through and everything he’s experienced. And this is the center verse, the lynch-pin of his song:

As for me, I will always have hope;
    I will praise you more and more.

I am reminded this morning that in the early chapters of the Great Story God said to His people, “Life or death. You choose.”

David teaches me that the choice is still there. Every day. Every year. A choice that, in the eternal perspective, is more consequential than my November vote for any politician.

As I enter this week of Thanksgiving, I choose Life. I choose hope.

Always.

As 2020 keeps punching, I choose to double-down on praise.

Chapter-a-Day

Muted By 2020

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Muted by 2020 (CaD Ps 65) – Wayfarer

You crown the year with your bounty,
    and your carts overflow with abundance.
Psalm 65:11 (NIV)

I sincerely wonder if there’s an individual in America who isn’t ready to put 2020 behind us. It continues to be the strangest, most turbulent year the world has experienced during the stretch of my life journey. And, it’s not over, as we all know well. Which made this morning’s chapter, Psalm 65, feel almost incongruent.

The editors of the compilation of Hebrew song lyrics we call the book of Psalms put psalms 65-68 together. They are all psalms of “thanksgiving” and how ironic that this chapter-a-day journey has me wandering my way through them in the weeks leading up to our Thanksgiving holiday in America this year.

I have a confession to make this morning. As I read through the lyrics of Psalm 65, I found that my weariness of current events make my heart cynical. My spirit is grumbling.

I read:

“The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders.”

My heart cried, “yeah, like the production of viruses.”

I read:

You crown the year with your bounty,
    and your carts overflow with abundance.

My heart cried, “just not on the ledger sheet of my business this year.”

I read:

“The hills are clothed with gladness.”

My heart cried, “While I’m clothed with a mask.”

Along this life journey, I’ve learned that it’s critical for me to be conscious of the silent conversation my heart, soul, and mind are having with Life. That private inner dialogue is a leading indicator of the state of my spirit.

It isn’t doing so well this morning, and perhaps I needed Psalm 65 to both reveal my need, and provide me with the antidote.

One of the things I’ve done a little reading up on in the last year or so is that of resonance and frequency. I’ve learned that all matter constantly vibrates and emits sound waves at different frequencies. When two objects have a matching frequency they resonate.

I am hearing impaired because certain parts of my auditory system have died. When sound waves vibrating at particular frequencies reach my ears, they no longer resonate with me. I can’t hear those sound waves. Because the consonants in human speech (the hard sounds like a “t”, “g”, “b”, “s”) often vibrate at the frequencies my ears can’t hear, my brain scrambles to try and connect the combination of vowel sounds it heard (the “a”, “e”, “i”, “o,” and “u” which are frequencies my ears can hear) and figure out all the possibilities of the words you might have just said to me.

Welcome to Wendy’s world. By the way, if you’re wearing a mask it’s very likely I won’t understand 90-95% of your words. But, I will smile and nod and pretend I totally got it. I’m a trained actor.

My point is this. When David writes that the fields, the hills, and the valleys of creation shout and sing for joy, and when Jesus told his critics that the rocks would cry out and sing praise, they were correct. Creation is constantly vibrating, shouting out their frequencies in songs we simply don’t hear with our human ears. All of God’s creation continually sings its praise. And here’s the thing…

The coronavirus doesn’t stop the song.
Masks don’t stop the song.
Political rhetoric won’t stop the song.
Social media can’t stop the song.
My personal circumstances have no effect on the song.

Creation has no choice but to sing the creators praise. Only I have that freedom of will.

In a few weeks, Vander Well manor will welcome family for Thanksgiving dinner. The majority of family members present have already survived their bouts with COVID. We will feast, we will love, and we will give thanks. A few weeks later, I will hug my grandson for the first time in a year. God willing, our daughters and sons will be home together from the distant locations they call home. It will be the first time everyone will have been in our home together since Garrett joined our family and became our son. My heart will vibrate with joy. My mouth will offer praise and thanks.

I have written before about the Chain Reaction of Praise. In the quiet this morning I realized something important. I, as a follower of Jesus, am told to “give thanks in all circumstances.” I think I’ve allowed 2020 to mute my thanks and muffle my praise like one big, thick spiritual surgical mask.

I hear you fields. I’m listening rocks. You don’t have a choice.

I do.

Hey God? Praise you. I’m so thankful you can hear me through my mask.

Chapter-a-Day

The Nightwatch

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The Nightwatch (CaD Ps 63) – Wayfarer

On my bed I remember you;
    I think of you through the watches of the night.
Psalm 63:6 (NIV)

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that I’ve always been a morning person. I also struggle with bouts of insomnia. For me, insomnia is waking up sometime after 1:00 a.m., usually around 3:00 a.m. My mind, even in the twilight between sleep and consciousness, starts to spin and ruminate on tasks that need to be accomplished and items that weigh heavy on my soul. Some mornings I gut it out and lay there quiet until I fall back asleep. Some mornings I get up and move to the couch downstairs where I put a movie or documentary on the television that I know so well I don’t need to pay attention, and I can sometimes get back to sleep. Yet other mornings, I go to my office to start my time of quiet with God early.

Those mornings that I opt to meet with God early, I tend to start by “praying the hours.” It’s an ancient tradition of praying prescribed prayers at various times of the day and night, knowing that you are joining with thousands, even millions, of other followers of Jesus in praying at the same time. I have a set of these “Hours” or “Offices” called The Night Offices by Phyllis Tickle. They are prayers specifically prescribed for the hours between 10:30 p.m. and 7:30 a.m:

The Office of Midnight (prayed between 10:30 p.m. – 1:30 a.m.)
The Office of the Night Watch (prayed between (1:30-4:30 a.m.)
The Office of the Dawn (prayed between (4:30-7:30 a.m.)

It’s usually during the Office of the Night Watch that I find myself, like David, thinking of God “in the watches of the night.”

I’ve always loved that metaphor. It comes from ancient times when walled cities were susceptible to surprise attacks from enemies in the dark of the night. “Watchmen” would be posted on the walls through the night to keep on the lookout for enemies approaching, or any other threat seeking to breach the wall or gates when they were least protected in and hidden in the dark of the night.

The final prayer of the Office of the Night Watch goes like this:

Now guide me waking, O Lord, and guard me sleeping; that awake I may watch with Christ, and asleep, I may rest in peace. Amen.

The word picture is a reminder to me that, spiritually speaking, Jesus always pulls the Nightwatch. I have this mental vision of Jesus standing on the walls in the dark. The Nightwatch is a lonely duty. In ancient times, there were often two assigned to keep each other awake as added protection. Two, alone together on the walls in the stillness of the night. All is quiet. The world is asleep. Nothing to do for hours but watch, and talk, as we wait for the dawn.

I pray the hours. I join Jesus on His Nightwatch. I keep Him company. We talk. He asks how things are going. The Nightwatch is always somehow like a confessional. Somehow, in the darkness and quiet the things that lie heavy on my heart gain clarity and rise to the surface of my consciousness more easily. There are no interruptions in the Nightwatch. Our conversation can be focused on those troubling thoughts, and then the conversation can wander into dreams and desires and hopeful visions.

Some mornings, Jesus sends me back to join Wendy in bed, assuring me He’s got the Watch and telling me to get a few more winks. Other mornings, we greet the new day together with The Office of the Dawn which always quotes from the lyrics of Psalm 130:

My soul waits for the LORD,
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

The lyrics of today’s chapter, Psalm 63, begin with the proclamation that David is always seeking earnestly for God. It’s a longing of soul. It’s a longing and a thirsting to feel God’s presence, to experience God’s peace and power. In the quiet this morning, I find myself reminded of the spiritual simplicity of Jesus’ teaching: Seek and you’ll find.

Of course, that means I have the will and option to seek and to find whatever I desire. Jesus once spoke to the religious people in His audience asking,

“When you went out to hear John the Baptist, what were you seeking? John came fasting and they called him crazy. I came feasting and they called me a lush, a friend of the riffraff. Opinion polls don’t count for much, do they? The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”

In the quiet this morning I stand with Jesus on the ramparts of my life. We sip coffee together as we look out on the horizon at a pink Iowa sky illuminating the patchwork of harvested fields at sunrise. We’re quiet, thinking about the day ahead.

“Tom?” Jesus asks, his gaze still fixed on the horizon.

I glance his way as he lifts the cup of coffee to His mouth. He drinks slowly. A smile comes to his lips.

“When you came up to join me this morning. What were you seeking?”

Some days He asks me a question, and I know He’s not expecting a quick answer. This is one He means for me to ponder.

If I don’t like what I’m finding in my life, then what is it I am seeking?

Chapter-a-Day

Postcard Promises

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Postcard Promises (CaD Ps 61) – Wayfarer

From the ends of the earth I call to you,
    I call as my heart grows faint;
Psalm 61:2a (NIV)

Wendy and I have been working on finishing the decor in our guest rooms. We’re agonizingly slow about it, but the process has been to allow a theme to emerge for each room over time. For the room right next to my home office the theme has been written words. As the unofficial family historian, I have a bunch of letters and ephemera that have come down to me through the years. We’ve been trying to find creative ways to use them.

There’s a postcard that I framed and hung up in the guest room. It’s dated July 23, 1954 and addressed to my Great-grandmother. It’s unsigned, but reads:

Couldn’t make it last nite. But I will see you tomorrow.
Don’t worry everything will be okay.

I have no idea who wrote the postcard. I have no idea what the circumstances were. Yet there was something in the cryptic message that resonated in my soul, along with the nostalgia of a time when you could mail a postcard in a small town in the morning and know that it would be delivered that afternoon. That was texting in 1954.

What was causing the anxiety? Why was the sender delayed? What was it in receiving this written assurance that motivated my Great-grandmother to tuck this postcard in a shoebox or a family Bible like an heirloom?

That postcard came to mind as I read today’s chapter, Psalm 61. It’s a short little ditty written when the songwriter, perhaps King David, was not in a good place. Like the postcard in our guest room, the circumstances are unknown, but the lyric starts out by establishing that the author is “at the ends of the earth” calling out to God in this musical prayer as his “heart grows faint.” In ancient mythology of the Near East, the world was understood to be flat, and at the “ends of the earth” you’d discover the threshold to the underworld, the netherworld, or what the Hebrews called Sheol. Metaphorically speaking, the songwriter feels as far away from God as humanly possible.

The song goes on to express the author’s longing which was to dwell in God’s tent taking refuge in the shadow of His wings. For the Hebrews, God’s presence was considered to be in the traveling tent temple that was constructed in the days of Moses, specifically the Ark of the Covenant, winged Cherubim adorning the box that contained the Ten Commandments God gave to Moses. In other words, this song is about feeling alone, isolated, and distant and longing to feel safe in God’s presence and protection. The song ends with the author’s hopeful vision of being back in that presence when everything would be okay.

In the quiet this morning I find myself thinking about the many moments on this life journey when my prayers have felt like a cry from the ends of the earth. It’s part of the experience. One of the great things about this chapter-a-day journey and spending my life reading and studying the Great Story is that Jesus words are forever stored on my mental and spiritual hard drive. Even when I feel a chasm between me and God, Jesus’ words remind me that it’s a mirage.

“I am with you always.”
“Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you.”
“The Father and I will come to you and will make our home with you.”

No matter where this post finds you today, even at the ends of the earth, consider it a postcard.

“Don’t worry. Everything will be okay.”

Chapter-a-Day

The “Bitter Defeat Blues”

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The "Bitter Defeat Blues" (CaD Ps 60) – Wayfarer

Give us aid against the enemy,
    for human help is worthless.
Psalm 60:11 (NIV)

Anyone who knows me and Wendy or who has followed this blog for any length of time knows that we love baseball. In particular, we’re Cubs fans, but the truth is that we really enjoy the game. In fact, when we’re at the lake during the summer I love going out on the deck, turning on the audio of the game, and then filling out my scorecard while I have a pint and a stogie. I’m such a geek.

What is ironic is that I was terrible at baseball as a kid. I was always relegated to the outfield, which we all know is purgatory in pee-wee little league, or else I was on the bench. I once considered writing a Cubs blog entitled Sliver Butt with the tag line “from benchwarmer to bleacher bum.” Another irony is that it was while I rode the bench while I played for the Pirates in Beaverdale Little League that I sat next to one of the coach’s wives who had the scorebook and she was keeping score. I was mesmerized by all the marks, symbols, and secret code she used to keep track of the game. I only got one hit that I can remember in two years of little league, but hey, I learned how to keep score!

The other major memory I have from my two-year career in Little League was the devastating loss my pee-wee team suffered. I played for the pee-wee Cardinals, which was a bad omen in and of itself, but we were terrible. There was this one game when we were playing one of the best teams and we were ahead by a ton of runs going into the final inning. I remember being so excited that we were finally going to win a game against a really good team, and then they rallied in the bottom of the final inning and beat us. I remember breaking down in tears in the backseat of our Volkswagen on the way home. I was convinced God hated me.

You’re probably wondering where on earth I’m going with this.

Today’s chapter, Psalm 60, is a song of lament that David wrote after suffering a bitter defeat. The song was intended for the entire nation to sing the blues.

If you listen to my podcast Time (Part 1) I made the case that I think the entire Great Story, the whole of human history, is like one giant, spiritual life-cycle. On this macro-spiritual level, humanity went through its own version of infancy, terrible twos, childhood, pre-adolescence, and etc. As I read David’s “Bitter Defeat Blues” this morning it read a bit like a kid in pee-wees crying in the back of mom’s Volkswagen, convinced that losing was a sign that God hates me, God has abandoned me, and God is punishing me. In retrospect, I know that’s not true, but I had to work through that. I had to grow. I had to mature in my understanding.

One of the other things David’s “Bitter Defeat Blues” had me thinking about this morning is Wendy and our daughters. Being the only male in the household for many years, I have come to appreciate that there are certain sections of the Great Story that just don’t resonate with women. While most guys can easily read passages about battles, banners, and the blood of enemies and it resonates in our wild-at-heart spirits, I’ve learned that most women simply go, “ew” and then skip over to be captivated by the story of Ruth or Esther. I get it.

Nevertheless, from this waypoint on Life’s journey, I find David’s song today is less about an actual battle than it is about feelings of loss, defeat, and despair. Those can be found in infertility, the disintegration of a relationship, a divorce, the death of a loved one, being unemployed, an appliance breaking down, or the cheesecake you made for a special guest falling. Everyone has “Why me God?” moments and they come in sizes from individual travel pack small to mongo Costco-sized huge.

At the end of David’s song today, even in the midst of defeat, he is already beginning the process of moving on. He is moving past the loss. He’s already proclaiming confidence that this defeat is not the end and God will help him and nation process the pain, press on, fight another day, and put this one in the review mirror.

That’s a lesson for me crying in my pee-wee little league uniform, but it’s still a lesson for me today in my company’s logo-wear. As I journey through life the defeats grow in proportion with me. I still have to process the pain. I still have to find the faith to press on to the higher, deeper, and more mature things God is calling me to seek and to find.

“Buck up, Tommy. Mom’s got lemon cake waiting for you at home.”

Have a great weekend, my friend.

Chapter-a-Day

Getting it Out

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Getting it Out (CaD Ps 58) – Wayfarer

Then people will say,
    “Surely the righteous still are rewarded;
    surely there is a God who judges the earth.”
Psalm 58:11 (NIV)

My buddy, Spike, and I have a friendly on-going conversation about baseball. Spike is a life-long fan of the New York Yankees. He even tried to get me to be a fan in our younger years. He bought me a subscription to a Yankees fan magazine one year. While I will always appreciate and respect his passion, he failed to convert me.

In baseball fandom, the Yankees are that team that everyone loves to hate. It’s the same kind of schadenfreude that America has had for New England Patriots the last ten years. Baseball, however, is a much older sport and the animosity runs much deeper. The Yankees are a team that everyone loves to hate, and when it comes time for the postseason I believe that there are millions of baseball fans who, next to their favorite team, will cheer for “any team but the Yankees.” Spike argues that having a team that is the Darth Vader of the sport is actually good for the sport and that the Yankees serve a legitimate and healthy purpose in this. I’ll leave that argument for meaningless conversation to have over a pint at the pub.

Still, I have noticed that in the passion and emotions that sports stirs up in people, it is common to have that rival, that enemy team, about whom you feel intense negative emotion. And when you lose, again, to that hated rival you curse them and secretly hope the worst for them even though you know it’s silly and rather meaningless behavior for an adult in a world where there are legitimately other things we should really care about. Nevertheless, sometimes like screaming into a pillow, it feels good to exorcise those negative emotions. It reminds me of a friend of Wendy’s and mine who, as a mother of young children, admitted that some days she sneaks out into the garage to scream profanities that she just has to get out.

Today’s chapter, Psalm 58, is part of a genre of ancient lyrics known by scholars as “imprecatory” songs. To “imprecate” means to “call down curses on another person or persons.” It was a common practice among cultures in the Ancient Near East. For modern readers of the Great Story, imprecatory psalms can be tough to stomach. The language, anger, rage, and emotion of the lyrics are raw. In one verse of David’s lyrics, he asks God to make the wicked like a stillborn baby who never sees life.

Two things I noted as I meditated on David’s lyrical curses in the quiet this morning. First, the focus of David’s curses are wicked, rich rulers who rig the system and don’t care anything about the poor, the needy, and the socially outcast. He’s cursing the injustices of this world and those who propagate them. It’s really the same anger we’ve seen in protests and riots this year.

The second thing is that David is taking his righteous anger, rage, and emotions to God in song. He’s not taking out vengeance himself. He’s not violently taking matters into his own hand. He’s not rooting out the wicked who inspire his rant and executing them which, depending on the time this song was written, he had both the authority and ability to do. Like a young mother screaming F-bombs to her minivan in an empty garage, David is exorcising his emotions to God, who is neither shocked nor surprised by our emotions.

In that way, I think Spike has a good point that it’s good to have a bad guy on whom we exorcise those negative emotions. Along this life journey, I’ve come to acknowledge that I can’t avoid anger. Even Jesus got righteously angry, and Paul told the followers of Jesus in Ephesus not that anger is wrong or bad, but what we do with it. Psalm 58 and the imprecatory psalms were the ancient Hebrews way of getting it out. And, on this post-election morning, it’s not lost on me that there may be many people who need to exorcise some negative emotions in a healthy way.

Spike has often told me “it’s not an official World Series if the Yankees aren’t in it.”

If you’ll excuse me, I think I left something in the garage.

Chapter-a-Day

Highest Authority

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Highest Authority (CaD Ps 57) – Wayfarer

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;
    let your glory be over all the earth.
Psalm 57:5 (NIV)

There are few stories within the Great Story that is as fascinating to me as that of David’s relationship with King Saul. Saul was the first King of Israel and he was the populist choice of the Hebrew people. Saul had all the looks of a great leader, but his heart was dark and troubled.

God told the prophet, Samuel, that he wanted Samuel to anoint His man for the job. It turns out that God’s man for the job was a shepherd boy, the runt of a large litter of sons of a man named Jesse. David made a name for himself as the walk-on rookie who killed the giant Goliath. Saul signs David as part of his team. David becomes best friends with Saul’s son, and he marries Saul’s daughter. Saul is David’s King, his General, his benefactor, and his father-in-law.

David is also anointed by God to ascend to Saul’s throne. Saul knows this, and his dark and troubled soul stir up a dangerous cocktail of emotions. Envy, jealousy, fear, insecurity, shame, and paranoia lead Saul spiraling down into a dark spirit of homicidal rage. David flees for his life. Saul places a bounty on David’s head and follows his destructive urges in seeking continually to kill his son-in-law and rival.

This goes on for years. 1 Samuel 24 tells the story of David and his men hiding deep in a huge cave in the desert of En Gedi. There thousands upon thousands of caves in the desert of En Gedi. Saul and his men are in pursuit of David and his merry band of outcasts. Saul needs to relieve himself, so he enters the cave where David is hidden in shadows.

This is David’s chance to kill the man who wants to kill him.

But, David refuses to do it.

God said that David was a man after His own heart, and in his heart, David respected that Saul was the anointed king of the time. David respected the spiritual weight of that. Samuel may have anointed David to succeed Saul, but David cared more about God’s will, God’s purposes, and God’s timing than he cared about being king. David knew that making the prophecy happen and forcing his ascension to the throne would spiritually corrupt the entire situation (By the way, this is just the opposite of the story of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in which Macbeth and his wife try to force Macbeth’s prophesied ascension to the throne to very tragic ends). If God wanted David to be king, David believed, then God would make that happen in God’s timing according to God’s designs. David chooses not to kill Saul, but David does humbly confront Saul with the fact that he had his chance and he didn’t take it.

When Saul realizes that David says:

“May the Lord reward you well for the way you treated me today. I know that you will surely be king and that the kingdom of Israel will be established in your hands.”

Saul retreats, but the darkness of his soul will soon be stirred up again. Nothing changes in this stalemate for several more years.

Today’s chapter, Psalm 57, is a song David wrote inspired by this very incident. David sings of being hunted and God’s deliverance. In the original Hebrew it is a balanced song of two sets of seven lines and a refrain. The refrain is the theme of the song. It’s the “one thing” that the song is really saying:

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;
    let your glory be over all the earth.

David saw that God was the ultimate authority higher than the heavens. David respected that everything that happened was God telling His Great Story and to mess with that would be faith-less, not faith-full to God.

In the quiet this morning I can’t help but think about it being election day here in the United States. If you read some of the rhetoric on either side of the spectrum there’s not a person in America who doesn’t have the opportunity to feel hated and reviled by the “other” side. No matter the outcome, there will be heady cocktails of emotions being stirred. I find in the story of Saul and David a contrast of attitudes that speaks to the divergent paths of thought and emotion I can take today. In David’s song, I find an example for me to contemplate and to emulate.

I will do my civic duty. I will prayerfully vote my conscience and add it to the hundreds of millions of other votes being cast. I will bless and pray for those who are elected. I will bless and pray for those who are not. I will continue to live out my life, my work, and the humble little role God has for me in this Great Story. My loyalty and my appeal ultimately fall to a higher authority than the President of the United States, and that authority tells me to honor whoever is in that office. Paul wrote to the followers of Jesus in Rome:

Be a good citizen. All governments are under God. Insofar as there is peace and order, it’s God’s order. So live responsibly as a citizen. If you’re irresponsible to the state, then you’re irresponsible with God, and God will hold you responsible. Duly constituted authorities are only a threat if you’re trying to get by with something. Decent citizens should have nothing to fear.

Do you want to be on good terms with the government? Be a responsible citizen and you’ll get on just fine, the government working to your advantage. But if you’re breaking the rules right and left, watch out. The police aren’t there just to be admired in their uniforms. God also has an interest in keeping order, and he uses them to do it. That’s why you must live responsibly—not just to avoid punishment but also because it’s the right way to live.

That’s also why you pay taxes—so that an orderly way of life can be maintained. Fulfill your obligations as a citizen. Pay your taxes, pay your bills, respect your leaders.
Romans 13:1-7

Chapter-a-Day

Fear Response

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Fear Response (CaD Ps 56) – Wayfarer

When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
Psalm 56:3 (NIV)

This past weekend I enjoyed watching the full moon rising through our window on All Hallow’s Eve. It’s a rare occurrence. It was fun to have trick-or-treaters dressed up and ringing the doorbell on Saturday evening, though the numbers were certainly down in this year of COVID. On Saturday morning Wendy and I enjoyed FaceTime with our grandson, Milo, in his costume. We loved watching him do his rendition of a monster while mom and dad sang The Monster Mash.

For some, of course, Halloween is a time of celebrating fear. And, to be honest, I have never been into scary movies and stories when the intent is to create a false sense of fear in me. No, thank you. I’m happy to avoid fear when at all possible. I have enough experiences in life that create the real emotion of fear!

Today’s chapter, Psalm 56, is the second song David penned out of one very real and fearful moment in his life (the first song was Psalm 34). David found himself alone in the middle of his enemy’s walled city and gated city, surrounded by the enemy’s army. He went there to try to convince them to make an alliance with him as a mercenary, but then he suddenly realized that the enemy wanted to capture him and turn him over to King Saul and collect the bounty Saul had placed on his head. He was out-numbered, out-gunned, and seemingly out of options. He had every reason to be really, truly afraid.

Confession: Compared to David’s dire circumstances, any fearful moment in my life seems relatively silly. Sometimes comparison is good for a healthy dose of perspective, isn’t it?

Along life’s journey, I’ve found fear to be a debilitating emotion and acting out of fear to be spiritually counter-productive. I’ve observed that I can’t really walk in faith and fear at the same time. They cancel each other out. I’m either allowing one to control my thoughts, words, and actions, or the other.

What struck me in the lyrics of David’s song this morning is that he speaks of trusting God as a willful, conscious, intentional act:

When I am afraid I put my trust in you.

What does that look like? For me, it requires a conscious verbal commitment in which I acknowledge my fear and then tell God that I am choosing to trust Him. That might initially be a period of time in which I have a heart-to-heart conversation with God detailing my fears, anxieties, and worries. I might also spend some time meditating on past situations in which I felt afraid and God was faithful in getting me through. At some point I specifically verbalize it: “God, I’m choosing to put my trust in you.” I’ll also focus on a verse or verses of scripture like David’s prayer in Psalm 56:3 and memorize it.

Then as I’m going through my day and recognize the fear welling up inside me, I quietly restate that verse like a popcorn prayer.

I’ll think it. “When I am afraid I put my trust in you.“

I’ll whisper it to myself as I’m sitting at my desk. “When I am afraid I put my trust in you.“

If I’m alone I’ll even say it out loud: “When I am afraid I put my trust in you.“

I might repeat it incessantly as a mantra:

“When I am afraid I put my trust in you.“
“When I am afraid I put my trust in you.“
“When I am afraid I put my trust in you.“

In the quiet this morning I find my thoughts swirling around the most contentious American presidential election in my lifetime. I have loved ones camped on both sides of the aisle. I long ago observed that politicians use fear of the other side as the core of their campaign playbook because they have long known that fear is the easiest tool to motivate humans to act. With that in mind, I enter this work week with the realization that my country is divided down the middle and the one thing we most have in common is fear of each others’ candidates.

Fear is spiritually counter-productive. I can’t walk in faith and fear at the same time. If I really believe what I say I believe, then, whatever happens, it will be part of this Great Story that is playing out across history.

And so I enter into this week acknowledging my fears and consciously choosing to trust the Author of Life. So, if you see me the next few days and I seem to be mumbling to myself, now you know what I’m mumbling

“When I am afraid I put my trust in you.“
“When I am afraid I put my trust in you.“
“When I am afraid I put my trust in you.“

You’re welcome to join me.

“When I am afraid I put my trust in you.“
“When I am afraid I put my trust in you.“
“When I am afraid I put my trust in you.“