Hearing the Lord

A young girl timidly walked into the tiny studio for her second guitar lesson.  Her spry energy made her blonde pigtails bounce with each bounding step, and made me grin.  She pulled her guitar out of its case and sat down expectantly, smiling with the innocent joy of an nine-year-old.  The girl had brought some of her favorite songs and we were going to listen to them to start our lessons and to get a better understanding of what she liked about music and guitar.

I played the first song and pointed out the guitar line.  I asked her if she heard it and, with a confused look, she assured me that she could.  We played the second song, I repeated my previous extrapolations, asked her if she could hear it and, like before, she nodded, this time more confused than confident.  After a few more times of this, it was clear that the young girl was becoming increasingly frustrated.  Her joy had turned to bewilderment as the tears started to well her precious eyes and she looked up at me and, with sincerity, she quivered: "I don't know what you mean.  All I hear is music, I can't hear the guitar.  I don't know what it sounds like!"

In a spiritual sense, we are all like the bright-eyed, pigtailed nine-year-old girl.  We assume that we can hear the voice of God through the noise of this world.  However, when pressed, only when God gives us ears that can hear His voice are we able to hear Him speak.  Consider Jesus' consistent qualifier, "He who has ears, let him hear."

As for music, in order to pick apart the various tones and timbres of the different instruments, the listener must be trained to hear through the polyphony.  For instance, one would never be able to aurally deconstruct the assorted instruments of an orchestra without knowing already what the various instruments sound like.  In truth, one could never pull out the sound of the guitar if he/she had never heard what a guitar sounded like.

Similarly, we can never hear the piercing of God's voice through the cacophony of this world, if we have never known His voice.  In order for us to hear Him, we must know what He sounds like.  If we do not have that knowledge neither will we be able to hear Him nor be able to discern whether it is His voice or a counterfeit.

Consider the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-9).  Saul had been zealous for God, persecuting Christians because he felt that he was called by God to do it (as recounted in Acts 22:3-8).  Yet when Saul heard a thundering voice speak to him by name, he cried out, "Who are You, Lord?"  The point is that, though he thought he had been devoted and called by God, when the Lord actually spoke to Paul he did not recognize who it was.  

Often times we, like Paul, assume that we hear the voice of the Lord but when we are confronted with the truth we, like my frustrated guitar student, are humbled and saddened by our own prideful deficiencies.  Fortunately, we need not be wholly disillusioned that we do not hear His voice.  We have an advocate with the Holy Lord who indwells our hearts with His Holy Spirit so that we would hear the true voice of God.  

It is as if our hearts are radio receivers that, unless they are tuned into the correct frequency (His Son) we will not be able to receive the transmission.  In truth, though, God is the not only station trying to transmit to our hearts, however, He is the only True One!  As Jesus says, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me (John 10:27)."  Let us then seek after Him fully in order that we might tune into His voice with the utmost clarity!

The Joy of God

Mariah was a beautiful young woman when her life was forever and dramatically changed.  She had been homecoming queen in high school, president of her sorority in college, and had been working her dream job for only a matter of weeks when the accident happened.  She was on her way home from work.  A normal drive, a normal day.  Suddenly, a semi-truck, whose driver had went into cardiac arrest while driving, smashed into Mariah's vehicle and pinned her car against the railing.  Her car rolled off the highway and she was crushed under its weight.

Before the wreckage was cleared entirely, Mariah was rushed to the emergency room to undergo extensive surgery to remove the shards of metal and glass from her body, most importantly her spine.  When she awoke, she found out that she had lost the ability to move her legs; she was paralyzed from the waist down.  She would have to go through years of rehabilitation to learn how to live a new life without the use of her legs.  The beautiful and able-bodied young woman was forced to accept that her life would never be the same and that she would need a wheelchair for the remainder of her life.

During her years of therapy and rehab, though, the nurses and doctors whom Mariah had been working with witnessed a young woman who never lost her infectious smile and energetic spirit.  One day, after her session, as Mariah was preparing to leave, one of the doctors asked her a question that caught Mariah off guard, "Mariah, how do you always have so much joy?  You've been through so much and yet you always make everyone feel so happy that you're here."

Mariah turned her wheelchair toward the doctor, smiled and then answered, "Do you want to know what I do everyday?  I wake up every morning and cry to God that I don't have the strength to do it another day, and I pray that He would give me the strength I need to do it.  So when you see me smile with a joy that's overflowing, it is all God.  I ask Him to come and fill me because I am empty of any joy without His help."

If only each of us would rely on God with such dependence, remembering that only in Him alone is there any joy.  Scriptural joy is two-fold.  The first is the joy of being in God's presence which is done through Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit which teaches us all things, especially the joy of His commandments and His Word (Psa. 16:11, 19:8; John 14:26, 15:9-11).  It is thus through reliance upon the Lord that we receive His joy.

The second part of the biblical concept of joy is dependent upon suffering.  In fact, Scripture says that it is through suffering that our joy is refined and made sure (Rom. 5:1-5; James 1:2).  This does not mean that we should seek trial and suffering, only that we should remember that it is through suffering that we become more dependent upon the Lord for our joy and strength.

Far from saying that suffering will be any less difficult, rather, we will understand that suffering serves eternal purposes that make us better Christians and, like the story of Mariah, better witnesses of the power of God.  Let us then look to the Lord, through the torn flesh of His Son Christ Jesus, so as to be filled with a perfect and holy, inexpressible joy!

Christian Contentment in a Consumer World

There's an old story that goes something like this:

A mother and her son were walking through the woods one day when a storm fell upon them.  Within minutes the two were being bombarded by blasting wind and pelting rain within a tempest.  Suddenly a funnel cloud began swirling around them.  The mother clung to a tree while her son was clinging to her.  The woman was holding to the tree so tightly that she barely noticed when her son was swept away by the tornado.  She began to cry out to God, saying in a loud voice, "Oh Lord, please bring me back my son!  If You bring Him back I'll never ask for anything and I'll worship you for the rest of my life!  Please Lord! Please."  Immediately her son fell to the ground as the storm subsided.  He was unharmed as the mother ran to him to comfort him.  She kissed her son's face and hugged him tightly.  Abruptly, she withdrew from her son and looked him over before looking back up to the sky and said, "He had a hat, Lord. Could we get that too?"

In a world that bases satisfaction on how much and how many, the biblical model of contentment seems even more relevant to understand and apply today.  Our understandings of contentment are so influenced by the consumer culture we liv in, that is inundated with planned-obsolescence and short-lived shelf life.  For Christians, though, God is the ultimate source of our satisfaction and contentment.  Once we claim this, it will not only change how we deal with consumerism, but also how we will deal with our own state of contentment.

God is the source of our contentment.  Because our contentment is based on an eternal and sovereign Lord, our contentment is always secure.  This flies in the face of the temporal contentment of the World.  Instead, we find our pleasure, our satisfaction, and our contentment in being in relationship with the Holy Lord.  Claiming this contentment requires that we draw closer to the Lord in praise and worship.  Remembering that we rely on a Holy Lord in all thankfulness is the essence of contentment.

While there are many Scripture passages that speak about contentment (Psa. 16:2; Pro. 15:15, 19:23; Job 1:21; Matt. 6:25-34; 1 Tim. 6:6; Heb. 13:5).  But the most important Scripture about contentment is Paul's exhortation in Philippians 4:11-13.  The point Paul makes, and that we should agree with, is that because God is the source of our contentment we should always be content in any circumstance void of abundance or poverty.  Let us then be content and thankful, praising God for His provision and grace!

Ecclesiastes and Vanity

The book of Ecclesiastes begins with these sobering words of Solomon: "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity."  Solomon then goes into a severe indictment over the uselessness of every form of life, from wisdom to folly, from pleasure to prudence, Solomon ends this small book of wisdom before the epilogue in the same way that the book begins, "Vanity of vanities...All is vanity!"

Think of the profundity of Solomon's assertion.  The wisest man to ever live (apart from Christ Jesus) has seen everything under the sun, all of man's toil and strife as well as all of man's joys and pleasures, and Solomon's final analysis is that "All is vanity." To be sure, Solomon's verdict is more than somber, it is downright depressing but under more analysis, Solomon is painting a picture of life and wisdom.

A bit of introductory information is in order.  Ecclesiastes is one of the Old Testament Writings, the third part of the Old Testament that is more like a miscellaneous bin of various writings, like Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Esther, that do not fit with the rest of the Old Testament.  In fact, this book completes the trifecta of wisdom books, the other two being Job and Proverbs, that offer differing views on the value of wisdom.  Because of this, Ecclesiastes should be considered in relation to the other wisdom books.  That being said, Ecclesiastes does have some good and useful things to say about wisdom and life.

Although Solomon's tone is less-than encouraging in regards to the uselessness of life, he does indicate that there is value to be had in enjoying one's work (2:24), value in timing and enjoying life (3:1-113),  value in enjoying work and simple pleasures (5:18), value in mourning (6:2-4), value of enjoying work and life (9:7-9), value of wisdom (10:10), and the value of praising the Lord in the days of youth (12:1).  Sense a theme?

Solomon, though thoroughly negative in his understanding of the vanity of life, is clear that man should work hard and toil with joy while rejoicing in the simple pleasures without over indulging.  The point is that wisdom is better than folly and taking joy in simple pleasures is a good gift from the Lord that adds enjoyment to man's toil-laden life.

Although this particular discussion was information-heavy, it should still compel us to take time to day to praise God for the gift of a good cup of coffee, the joy of a nice breeze, or the kiss of a child.  God has blessed us with little gifts and we should praise Him for them!

Children of Inheritance

When we are born, we inherit from our parents.  Be it genetic material or family traditions, every human being is a composite of inherited components that the person will carry with them. Additional to this is the inherited sin nature, that deep part of every human that is prone to sin.  This inheritance is perishable and ultimately leads to death and destruction.

Luckily, believers who, having put the sin nature to death by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, have become qualified by the blood of Christ to become heirs to something else, a new imperishable inheritance.  The New Testament puts forth a theology of inheritance that can be challenging to understand but is necessary to comprehend in order to claim the fullness of riches that we receive in Christ.

In Christ, by belief in Him and His work, we are made children of God ( Rom. 8:16-17; 1 John 3:1).  To be a child of God is dependent on one being born again of the Spirit (John 3).  It is the necessary requirement of inheritance: we must become heirs.  The natural implication of this is that in order for us to be heirs, we must be born of God.  To be born of God is dependent on the grace of God in Christ through faith. Thus, when we give ourselves fully to Christ Jesus in faith, we become heirs with Christ Jesus, adopted into the family of God.

This adoption is two-fold.  At first it is based on present blessings, as in, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, who guides and compels us to continually deny ourselves and gifts us spiritual with every good thing necessary for perseverant and loving faith, i.e. sanctification.  This inheritance is now, received upon the moment of belief and confession in Christ.

The second, and more profound, sense of our adoption refers to our eternal inheritance, the gift of being in God's presence eternally.  As Paul writes in Colossians, the "Father has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light (Col. 1:12).  Or, as Peter writes, we are born again to an inheritance that is "imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for us (1 Pet. 1:3-4)."  Our inheritance is thus something beyond temporal or corporeal trappings.  Our inheritance is perfect and eternal.  Additionally, our qualifications for eternal inheritance is based solely on the work of Christ.

Inheritance is received upon the death of the willing benefactor.  In the case of believers' inheritance, it is Christ who has died and blessed us witha  holy and eternal inheritance.  This being clearly true, there is another who dies in order to receive the inheritance of Christ: ourselves.  We need to die so as to live and be brought into the family of God and heirs with Christ of the inheritance.  Dying to self in order to be made alive to Christ is the requisite that qualifies us to inherit the blessings of God.  Let us the die to ourselves so as to receive the inheritance of Christ!