already & not yet

As I continue my trek through the Psalms, I find myself falling deeper in love with the words of praise and adoration I find there. Beyond the praise Psalms, some of the Psalms of desperation resonate with me as pleas for the intervention of God NOW, cries for justice NOW. Many of the Psalms have no use for a God of tomorrow…their imediacy demands His presence today. Yancey likens reading the Psalms to eavesdropping or “reading over the shoulder” of someone else. He’s right; reading the Psalms is very much like reading someone else’s spiritual journal. I find comfort in the knowledge that the Psalmists experienced the same things I experience in relationship with God: joy, doubt, fear, elation, agony…the Psalms run the full gamut of human emotion and expression. I believe they may well be our greatest treasure in written form.

Psalm 84 is passionate petition for the presence of God. Hear some of the words of this beloved hymn:

How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord Almighty!
My soul yearns, even faints,
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and flesh cry out
for the living God.

O Lord Almighty, blessed is
the man who trusts in you.

If only these words were the daily cry of my heart! My soul yearns for one second of you, O God; one morsel; one fleeting moment in Your Divine Presence. As we sing, Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. I long for the day when faith becomes sight, when the already meets the not yet, when the Kingdom of God is fully consumated and we bask in the presence of Father, Son & Spirit for all eternity. Until that day comes, we must not lose heart. As the Psalmist says, we have set our hearts on pilgrimmage. The NASB & NRSV render this phrase …in whose heart are the highways to Zion. May we tread each day on that upward highway as pilgrims bound for glory until He comes to take us home.

I was reading through Isaiah the other day and I came across a section of the text that was a bit concerning. The text is Isaiah 45, a text which affirms the sovereignty of God. The text reads thusly:

I am the Lord, and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,
so that from the rising of the sun
to the place of its setting
people may know there is none besides me.
I am the Lord and there is no other.
I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the Lord, do all these things.

I have a pretty intelligent readership. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Does God really mean what He says here? In light of the disasters of Katrina, Rita & Wilma, should we rail against God as the creator of these disasters? How do we make sense of this “hard saying”?

Comments, please.

Around 90 years ago, in an effort to arouse interest in the game of baseball, cigarette manufacturers began producing cardboard pictures of some of the more renowned ball players in their cities. These “baseball cards” were packaged in with the cigarettes and sold to the public. However, Honus Wagner, the great Hall of Fame shortstop of the Pittsburgh Pirates, balked at having his image associated with a tobacco product. Wagner immediately demanded manufacturers stop producing his baseball card. As a result, Wagner’s card remains the most rare of all baseball cards and, subsequently, the most valuable. In September 1996, a near mint Wagner card was auctioned for $640.000 – a record for any item of sports memorabillia at auction.

In the card-collecting world, a card has peak value when it is in mint condition – perfectly square corners, a properly centered picture, etc. A card with frayed edges or creases diminishes in value corresponding to its imperfections. Thankfully, our value isn’t gauged in such a manner. Our Heavenly Father determined our value thusly: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” (Romans 5:8). Try as we may, none of us can live “mint condition” lives – lives of perfection. Each of us has had our edges frayed and our luster removed. The Bible says much about the sinful condition of man. And yet, though we are sinful, God restores us. God doesn’t look at our rough edges and scoff; rather, He longs to sooth and comfort us. Through His abounding grace, we are restored to mint condition. No blemishes, no flaws…sinless before Him. Not because of what we’ve done, but all because of what He’s done. You are valuable in His eyes. Allow Him to restore you.

“Salvation belongs to the Lord; Your blessing be upon Your people!” — Psalm 3:8

As the book of Genesis draws to a conclusion, Joseph and his family are lovingly reunited on Egyptian soil. Famine draws the sons of Jacob to Egypt and, with a little strategic planning on Joseph’s part, the entire seventy-member family of Israel migrates south to see the long lost son. For the next seventeen years, Jacob lives with his family in Egypt, residing in the lush, fertile land of Goshen. As Gen. 47:27 notes, “They acquired property there and were fruitful and increased greatly in number.” Following Jacob’s death, the Israelites continue to dwell in Goshen, enjoying the fruits of a foreign land. Four centuries later, God would use Moses to lead Jacob’s children out of the bondage of slavery in Egypt back to the land once promised them.

What is your Goshen? In what areas of your life have you forgotten your identity? Have we lost sight of the fact that this land isn’t the place we should settle? Too often, we find ourselves in Israel’s shoes (or sandals), forsaking the land of promise for the land of plenty. We believe we’re residents of this world, forgetting that we’re citizens of the next. And in so doing, we pitch our tents in Goshen. Greed, lust, pride, anger, secret sin…whatever our Goshen may be, God calls us to exodus. Let us leave behind that which obstructs us from focusing on the true, everlasting promise of God. One of the great comforts in Christ is the promise of eternity. As tempting as the fruit of Goshen may be, they cannot begin to compare with the glory of an unending relationship with God. May we hear the sweet voice of our God, calling us out of the land of plenty and into the land of promise.

I’m learning to fall in love with the Psalms. It seems as if I find myself in nearly every word of this beautiful text: in the praise and adoration that drips from each page (Your love is better than life!); in the honest moments of questioning (How long, O Lord, how long? Why have you forsaken me?); in the cries for justice and righteousness (Awake and rise to my defense! Vindicate me in your righteousness!). These ancient hymns run the full gamut of faith; expressions of humanity directed toward the Divine.

My favorite Psalm is usually the one I read last, but for now, I’m smitten with Psalm 27. David begins by exalting the Lord as both his light and his salvation. “Whom shall I fear?” he announces — if God is for us, who can be against us? David is supremely confident that His Lord and God is greater than any other. And in verse 4, he pens some truly inspired words:

One thing I ask of the Lord,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple.

These words could very well be my personal mission statement. What more should I desire than to be in the presence of God? I already long for that day when my faith becomes sight, when I close my eyes in this world to open them in the house of the Lord, to gaze upon the face of the one I’ve read about, spoke about, thought about, prayed to, cried to…what a moment of pure beauty when we can look upon Him as He truly is. This is worship: to see the Lord and to respond to Him. But such a promise is not limited to the afterlife. David knows full well the richness of life that comes from dwelling in the Lord’s house in the present. Truly there is no more beautiful life than a God-filled one. Lord, may we be continually enriched by your sweet abiding presence. Grant us this grace: that we might dwell in your house all the days of our lives.