Category: God is great

Be brave

As a young woman I was exposed to the flavour of my age, through education and popular culture. While the values espoused in my home were very different, I could not avoid these great cultural influences. Much of this was communicated through education, particularly in my University English Literature classes. The view pushed was to see the past through the lens of feminism. The Bible could not be avoided in these classes as it is a perennial and important source throughout Literature. But it was represented as patriarchal and repressive. Our duty, as modern students, was to shake the shackles off and evolve!

Even when I was young I saw this as a lack of knowledge. The people voicing these opinions likely had little knowledge of the text they were abusing. They were making assumptions without full understanding.

Look at Moses, one of the great patriarchs. Proof of the dominance of men in the Judeo-Christian viewpoint. This man sent by God to free the people of Israel from bondage. And yet he doesn’t exist without brave women. Midwives who refuse to kill the male babies born to Israelite women. A brave mother who risks her life and that of her family, by hiding her male infant. Even Pharaoh’s daughter, who recognized the baby she found as a Hebrew baby and who decided to keep it against her father’s orders.

All of these individual acts set up and enable one of the greatest triumphs in the Old Testament. None of these women could have imagined what their small contribution would allow.

So today, when we are called upon to do things, great or small, remember we have no idea what God has planned. Male or female he can use us for His good.

God wins

“The best laid plans of mice and men can still go wrong.” A translation of the famous quote from the poet Bobby Burns. He needed a translator as he didn’t speak English, he was Scottish (I’m joking – wink wink).

I had a visit with a friend yesterday, and she expressed concern about everything going on in our world. If you are paying attention and listening to voices outside of the official televised opinions, it is not hard to feel this way. It seems like we are in the middle of Tolkien’s final battle scene. The forces of evil are being marshaled against the good. The battle is beginning and those on the side of right haven’t pulled their team together. It’s terrifying really.

But then we have the story of Esther. The simply written, beautiful story of Esther. A woman who found herself in a position of great influence, “for such a time as this.” Esther’s bravery and intelligence are of course at the heart of this story. But as you read this book it isn’t really about Esther. She is an instrument. The real conflict is between Mordecai and Haman.

Haman has all the official power. He has all the clout. A large gallows is erected at his command. His plan is ready and all he has to do is bring the pieces together. Haman is confident in his ability to see his plan through. He plans the demise of Mordecai and all his relatives. But he is unaware of all the connections behind the scenes. He doesn’t realize Esther’s connection to Mordecai.

No human has access to all knowledge. No one person can see all the inputs that can affect a situation. We have an illusion of control, but in reality it can slip through our fingers without warning. Haman ends up being hanged by his own gallows.

The Jewish people still celebrate this great turn of events. A constant reminder through the generations that those who go against God and his people will come to ruin.

Remember when it feels like we are up against it, there is One who does see all and know all. There is One who cares that good wins. God wins!

Esther 9: 28 These days should be remembered and observed in every generation
by every family, and in every province and in every city. And these days of Purim
should never fail to be celebrated by the Jews—nor should the memory of
these days die out among their descendants.

All good things

I love the Sonata Pathetique, it is likely my favourite piece of music (hard to be definite as there are so many options).

It begins stormy and unpredictable. Sometimes moody, sometimes playful, sometime aggressive. I used to play it. I wasn’t blessed with hands large enough to play it well enough. I like to blame the small size of my hands, not my lack of practice. Most times you can’t get away with it, but with Beethoven you can. His hands must have been huge. I used to say that the greatest satisfaction in life was to play brilliant music badly. I was joking! The biggest satisfaction in life is to listen to wonderful music played brilliantly (not by me – ahem!).

And then the second movement comes. Out of the storm like a shaft of light. There is something in its wistful strains that evokes a sense of longing. Its happy, hopeful and just out of reach. In this second movement Beethoven brings me to a stop. No matter what I am doing I pause mentally and absorb the notes. It is breathtakingly beautiful.

God gave us this! All good things come from God. The work of this man’s hands only point to ultimate beauty, the beauty of God.

When we listen to great pieces of music, we connect with the ‘Father of the heavenly lights.’ That feeling you feel way down inside, that is the spirit of the divine.

James 1: 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the
Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

Daniel Barenboim plays Beethoven Sonata No. 8 Op. 13 (Pathetique) – YouTube

God is good

We have lived under the shadow of the theories written by Jean Jacque Rousseau, his ‘Tabula Rasa’ (Blank Slate). Rousseau believed that people were born ‘good’ and that they were conditioned to be evil. This view stood in opposition to the prevailing view at the time of Original Sin.

I have no interest in debating which of these theories is correct. I will not deny that circumstances do impact our development. But it’s also correct that every human is born with the forces of good and evil within their own souls. Maybe it’s too simple to adhere to one view or the other.

But I will take issue with the fruit that springs from Rousseau’s ideas. The concept that people are basically good. My generation was brought up on this. Trust the goodness in others. People are good at heart. In our society, yes this has been true. And in an general way we can say this. But…

There is behind this an idea that we are essentially good. That the goodness is found in our humanity. This idea hits us hardest when bad things happen to us. “Why is this happening to me? I am a good person.” Or we try to help those who are suffering, “Such a deserving case, they are such good people.”

This idea sits at the root of our struggle with not trying to earn our way to heaven. We know God’s gift is big. We understand Jesus died for us while we were still sinners. But, we’re pretty good too. God is going to reach out for us, cause we are the sort of good people he wants to save.

In addition, it can lead people to not see the need for God. We find justification in our own goodness and don’t look any further.

God is either lucky to have us, or we have no need for Him.

Sorry, this is wrong.

We are not enough. We are not good.

I don’t deserve grace. You don’t deserve grace. No one deserves grace.

But we’ve been given it any how. Not because we are good.

We have been given grace because God is good.

Matthew 19: 17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied.
“There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”

Why beauty?

For me, one of the biggest arguments against the materialist world view, is beauty. If everything on earth has a materialist purpose then why is there so much beauty?

Yes, they claim beautiful coloured flowers attract the insects and in doing so propagate themselves. Or a male birds beautiful plumage will ensure he is the one to mate. But much of the surrounding beauty is gratuitous. The flower could attract the insects by its bright colour, so why the lovely smell? Why the beautiful shape? The bird may attract a mate by his physical beauty, but why does the female have such a beautiful song in return? Or why are the eggs so perfect in shape and colour?

Why are you left with a sense of yearning and awe at the top of a mountain, as you view the great vista below?

If music has some materialistic role, why Mozart or Beethoven? Is that not overkill?

Or, is the beauty in art, music and nature a glimpse, a promise of what is to come?

There are times in this great and awe-inspiring world around us where we can see the shadow of heaven. A slice, a moment, a fleeting glance at something we don’t understand and yet yearn to achieve. An insight that gives us a glimpse of something that is more our real home than we know. If we could reach it, we would comprehend everything.

Beauty is a foretaste of heaven. God’s hand has placed reminders of his greatness. Our pursuit of the beautiful is an instinct that draws us closer to him.

Brother James’ Air (“The Lord’s My Shepherd”) – Words from Psalm 23 – YouTube

Question

“Why is the sky blue?” It’s the stereotypical question that children ask adults. The child asks this question in a naively curious way. They are trying to find a frame work in which they can understand the world.

Have you ever noticed that the way adults answer the question is more of a ‘how’ than a ‘why?’ “Why is the sky blue?” The adult will usually give some sciency answer about reflection and the atmosphere, blah blah. But that is actually a mechanical answer, that is more how than why. That is presuming the adult wasn’t a coward like me. My favourite answer was, “I don’t know, ask your father.”

Why is the sky blue? That is how God made it. Why is that not a better answer? It may not be as complicated, but without the motivation to create and shape the world there would not be a sky. I have no idea why God chose blue. One day I will be able to ask him or maybe it won’t be relevant anymore. Who knows?

Perhaps a renewed wonder and desire to seek answers from God would be a way to refresh my spirit. I can approach the ‘why’ questions I have in my own life in a more naive and curious way too.

Matthew 18: 2-5 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them.
And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children,
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”

Refresh

A long time ago, when I was a young adult, I visited my family in Africa. The day after I arrived we loaded in my cousin’s car and drove to Botswana. It was nearing the end of their dry season. Botswana is mostly Kalahari Desert. Dry and brown with some faded green shrubs. The long yellow grasses growing from the dark red soil.

We drove over a high and long bridge. Where I live a bridge like that would be crossing a substantial river, and that was what I expected to see. As we drove over the bridge, I looked down to see river bed. The sandy river bed, cracked and dry. No water in sight.

I asked my Cousin why the bridge was so high if no water was running under it. He informed me that there isn’t any water now, but when the rain comes it can come all at once. In southern Botswana they only get a little over a foot of rain in a year during their wet season. But some years it comes in a shorter period. The bridge is built for those years, to withstand the force of the overflowing rivers.

The image of the dry desert being flooded by life giving water is a powerful recollection. Although the rain can be destructive in its force, it will leave the land refreshed and renewed in its wake.

Seasons of renewal come. Usually after long periods of drought and turmoil, but they do come.

Job 38: 25-27 Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert,
to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass?

The wonder of creation

I love to sing. Music speaks to me. It’s so natural and so easy and perhaps primal. It feels like the kind of skill that is basic to our humanity. The love of music is at once universal and yet personal.

I watched a video about the music theory behind a powerful key change in a song. I was awestruck by the science and math behind it. The understanding of what is happening both physically and psychologically when powerful music is presented. It was spell binding. The depth and complexity of what is happening belies the simplicity of the actual act. The science behind tone, our hearing process, our feeling centres, how sound waves reverberate and how harmonies are produced is fascinating.

I feel the same way when I hear an explanation of how birds fly. A bird never asks or wonders, a bird just flies. But there is a genius behind the whole process. Yet for a bird it is simple enough, it is constant and never changes. Every day the bird flies and gets the same result. It is an act of such complexity and yet we can explain it through the language of mathematics.

Behind the natural world and our human experience appears to be a network of design. Like a great web of hidden rebar that holds our world together. A web so purposeful and predictable that only the mind of a great Creator could have built it.

When I listen to explanations like the ones I listed above, I feel like the curtain is pulled back a little. I feel as though I’ve scratched a bit of the frost from the window and I can see beyond it, just for a second or two.

The amazing nature of creation is astounding. The deeper we dig the more order and purpose we find.

1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror;
then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully,
even as I am fully known.

The great gardener

Spring is here. Always later in Calgary than almost everywhere else. I spent some time yesterday and today digging in my garden. Doing a bit of clean up and weeding. Working around the new growth, trying to not disrupt the perennials that are trying to peak their way above the ground.

Weeding the garden beds, raking, and thinking about what fertilizer I might need this year. What I can plant and where I should plant it. I love gardening. Time I can take for myself, by myself.

The decisions I make now dictate what will grow in my garden over the summer months. I won’t have grapes at harvest time, because I’m not planting them. I can only harvest what I plant. Weather, conditions and the vagaries of nature will impact the success of my harvest but I decide what to plant.

It’s the same in my life, there are many things I can’t control, illness, economics, the government, the list could go on. I can however, decide who I will walk with through the trials of life. I can decide whose guidance and commandment I will let influence my decisions. I can’t control the weather, but I can choose the gardener.

Isaiah 58: 11 The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a
sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.

Who sustains us?

I saw a meme today. That’s a weird thing to say, isn’t it? In the world before the seismic shift that is our new technological age, I would have never said, “I saw a meme.” If I did say it, you wouldn’t know what I was talking about. But here we are, we find ourselves in a new world. This meme simply said, “Fear says ‘What if,’ Faith says ‘Even if.'”

I love when a complex idea can be encapsulated in a single sentence. This sentence does indeed do this. Bad things will happen to everyone. We can’t judge our place with God by how trouble free our life is. Rather, we need to look for Him in those times of trial and be confident in the relationship we develop during difficulties. The strength we build from our faith helps us with the ups and downs in life.

This is one of my favourite old hymns. I used to sing it in the car to the kids when they were little.

Psalm 121 I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.