Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Hope 13

 tiqva - hope, grounds for hope; longing expectation.

Literally, a chord (to twist and stretch) 

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is in him.  He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress:  I will not be shaken.  On God rests my salvation and my glory.  My mighty rock, my refuge is my God.  Psalm 62:5-8

I will not be shaken.  The ultimate purpose of hope is to keep me attached to God for security.  In the world, we attach to other things for our security:  money, position, education, know-how.  We often believe and put our trust in anything but God.

Yet, those earthly benefits will fail us.  We will fail them.  Their influence wanes.  We falter.  They never had the power to save us in the first place.  Our significance and identity (glory-weightiness, worthiness, splendor and honor) cannot rest on such flimsy, changeable definitions.  

In God alone can come salvation.  In God alone is the stability by which I can see myself rightly, in his eyes, by his definition.  I must attach to what God says, only!

O Lord, become my all!  Help me to rely on you alone.  Take me to your throne and let me rest in you.  Amen!

 

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Title Covers





It Begins

What has been will be again; 
what has been done will be done again; 
there is nothing new under the sun.  Ecc. 1:19

I quoted that verse to my seminary professor/advisor when he was encouraging me to pursue publishing.  His reply to my quote of Ecclesiastes:  "That is true, but you say it so well."  So, I developed this blog so as to filter some ideas in all the curriculum, essays, papers I have written.  

I humbly submit to you my first effort.  I have published two small, devotional books through Amazon that incude some of the topics that have been posted here.  Now, I have to engage in the next unknown project of marketing.  Pray they will be meaningful for someone.  

Feedback welcome.



Thursday, January 18, 2024

Hope 12

hope - yahal - wait, expect, tarry:  patience 

Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill to your dwelling.  Then I will go to the altar of God, my exceeding joy.  And I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil with me?  Hope in God, for I will praise him, my salvation and my God!  Ps 43:3-5

It seems the entire purpose of our walk with God, of our faith development is to get closer to God.  Interestingly, I have been taught that the priority is good behavior, as if it alone is right-ness.  Right living only comes from a heart right with God.  Here the psalmist looks to God's light (concretely so as to light the day or metaphorically to include "lightness" or happiness) and his truth (which emanates from God and is about God) as his source for hope because it leads to God himself.  The purpose of the that truth is to light the path to the dwelling place of God.  Think of it as showing the way to a relationship with God.

We tend to look for our answers, our salvation in many far places from God.  Sometimes, we look for our answers in the things of God - his Word, his Church - which can be helpful, but they are not God.  It is where we should place the source of our answers that is the real pursuit. Our answers, our desires, our need for a safe place is actually in a sacred relationship with the Father.  Seek him first...and all these will be added..

Father, open my eyes to the truth you shine a light on.  No other revelation but what comes from you, please.  Amen!


Saturday, January 13, 2024

Entering the Darkness

 To you, the night shines bright as day.  Darkness and light are the same to you.  Psalm 139:12

Most of us know the familiar territory where darkness prevails and we usually work to avoid it at all costs, from the extremes of addiction to keeping a good (false) attitude of the place we are in.  We are just avoiding the darkness.  We fear it.  It is not fun.  Yet, what if, in it, we could find God? What if, in it, we could find the greatest truth of all?  God is not afraid of it.  It doesn’t surround him like it does us.

Oh, God! Of course, you can see through either.  Both can dispense your truth and your presence.  What if the darkness might hold just as much truth as the light?

Places of darkness are different for each of us.  Maybe it’s the darkness of a hurt we have buried or the darkness that befalls us when we quiet ourselves from shiny, noisy or blustery practices and we have to sink into the center of who we are.  Maybe it’s the darkness of an unresolved relationship or truth about ourselves.  The list goes on, but God’s truth about each can often only be revealed in the chasm. 

And since He is there, seeing it as clearly as if by daylight, if we allow ourselves to enter with him, he can shine the light on the truth we need.  We can stay in the darkness knowing he is there, whether resolution comes or not, knowing that he is there to comfort or guide, satisfy or use it for our good. 

I am not so afraid of quiet now or even the darkness that some would claim to be the absence of God.  I think in the end the only one refusing to be in the darkness is me.  Now I know to enter it and relish the pause it gives, the truth it shows, and the comfort it brings.

Wednesday, January 03, 2024

Hope 11

 hope - yahal - wait, expect, tarry:  patience.

Elohim - Supreme God

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.  When can I go and meet with God?...Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.  By day the Lord directions his love, at night his song is with me - a prayer to the God fo my life...Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.  Psalm 42

With deep desire for God, especially in light of the trauma of being human, the writer recognizes that nothing on earth can comfort, let alone satisfy, but God.  We despair and not in a quiet way.  The clamoring and uproar of our soul can fuel a rage even against itself.

The solution does not come from within, but with the presence, the face-to-face encounter with the God who saves.  Only then comes victory and delivery.

How can we know God like this?  The depth of God, which we must explore, meets us in the depths of our own psyche, our own soul.  His love is revealed there; he is not afraid of our depths.  His song plays in my heart, resulting in restoration and revival of the life he intends with Him.

Maybe we shouldn't medicate the pain.  Maybe we should avoid the distractions and displacements and instead walk with God into our suffering, our difficulty.  He isn't afraid and neither should we be.  Let him meet us there and minister to us there and take the lessons, the glory, onto the healing path we need.

Lord, leave me unafraid!  Amen.

Wednesday, December 27, 2023

Hope 10

 wait - qava - expectantly look for, linger

hope -telehet - hope; by implication, to be patient, trust and tarry


[We are nothing by a breath...a mere shadow...for all the turmoil...all the pursuit of gain....] O Lord, for what do I wait?  My hope is in you.  Psalm 39: 7 (6-11)

Life carries no meaning apart from the Lord.  All the pursuits, all the messaging, all is vainglory, in King James' language, just a shadow of greater things from the Lord.  Nothing satisfies independent from God.  Yet, within life's meaning, can we, with an expectant eye, look for God?  Any meaning for living only happens when we see, when we look for the presence of God within all of life's efforts.  Can we tarry long enough, stop and smell the roses?  Can we be patient as we wait for the revelation of God?

Hope may not be a sudden clarification, but a gradual expansion of our view of the Triune God.  Can we let Him be greater than anything this earth provides?  Can we let Him be closer to us than any expectation we have that comes from our culture?  No matter the noise around us, pursue the presence of God within the activity and  within our own beings.

Lord, help me to open my eyes to your everyday presence, your intent and power to make it so in the world, in others and in me.  Amen.

Monday, October 23, 2023

Hope 9

 The Hope of Christ 

Word - Logos - Something said, made true by its speaking.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God.

All things  were made through him and without him nothing was made.  In him was life and the life was the light of men.  That light shines in the darkness and darkness cannot comprehend it.  John 1:1-5

Jesus' originalness with God and his participation with the Godhead comes with his identity within it and by proximity to it.  He and God are "one and the same." Jesus becomes the very expression of God to humanity.  

Darkness on earth had obscured the Divine's presence (in creation) and led to an ignorance of people to God's intent for all creation.  The darkness was an ignorance of the Divine that had produced misery and God intended to dispel that ignorance and its resultant misery with the life of his Son.

Jesus's life can now reveal God's purposes for all. His appearance  illuminates God's truth and presence, even to the point that his presence obscures the darkness. The purpose for this expression of God (although he would not be the last, as he indicated he would send the Holy Spirit) was to dispel the lack of understanding of the Divine.

There is now no reason for doubt, since Jesus' intent and expression now provides a channel for knowledge and understanding of the truth of God. It is an ongoing effort by the Holy Spirit through his holy people to have that light of Jesus still shine.  His intent is clear:  we are the presentation of revealed truth in these days.

It is our hope that the light given us will continue to go out to a needy world needing the revelation of the Father who loves them.

You are the light of the world.  A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.  Instead, they put it on its stand and it gives light to every in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.  Matthew 5:14-16