Hearing the Music

Contrast

My dear Aunt Ronnie had a great saying, “Life is all about contrast, kid.” She lived to be 97 years old and then, staying consistent to the end, died on my mom’s birthday. On that day I ran to Meijers and got the last box of martini glasses on the shelf so we could raise a toast in her honor because she had always so enjoyed a super dry martini. Contrasts tangled up galore.

We all know the contrasts of life, don’t we? Happiness, sorrow…fear, trust…things being absolutely lovely, chaos…obedience, secret sin. What do we do with those overwhelming longings for happiness, trust, loveliness, and obedience? Why do we want to pursue those things and try to avoid the others? 

Psalm 126 was in our all-church reading schedule this past week. If you didn’t read it in the devotional, take a moment and read it now. It opens with such an amazing picture: fortunes restored as in a dream, laughter, shouts of joy, other nations seeing the blessing, great things, being glad. Yet it indicates that these beautiful events are from times gone by. “Joy seems to lie in the past, tears occupy the present. If only the Lord would act now as completely and dramatically as he did then! So we pray for streams…transforming dried-up watercourses, making the scorched land into a garden! But no, in God’s providence, following on his mighty acts, the metaphor of the harvest takes over. There will be songs of joy but only when the toilsome task of sowing has been done and the crop has matured for harvest. That is where we find ourselves in God’s perfect plan of things.” (New Bible Commentary, ed. Wenham et al, p. 574)

How can we know God’s presence with us in both the laughter and the weeping? Specifically how do we go out day to day not just gritting our teeth as we sow in tears and weep? Because God is over and through everything, we weep towards God in lamenting and repenting! That makes all the hard things not just something to endure and regret, but to actually mean something! It’s restoration. The ESV Study Bible says Psalm 126 “is a community lament that recalls a previous time of God’s mercy on his people and asks for a fresh show of that mercy.” In lament we tell God about the sorrow, fear, and chaos in our lives, and look to him in hope because we remember that he has restored us in the past. In repentance we are real about our sins and lament the damage they do to ourselves and others. And then we receive forgiveness and restoration amen and amen. Repenting is so freeing. Can we really keep up this facade that we aren’t messing up? What a contrast: hope and laughter for tears; forgiveness for failure.

Notice these words in the psalm: we, our, us. We live this life of contrast with each other! I’d like to give a special shout out to the teenagers and young adults among us. Do you know you’re 100% part of the “we” of Christ Church? You are needed to make us whole. Please, enter into the communal laughing, lamenting, and repenting, looking to God with hope. We adults were young once. We remember the struggles of youth and there is nothing new under the sun. Share your tears with your youth leaders, your parents, with safe adults, with each other. Let’s pray for the streams of God’s mercy to enter into all our sorrows, chaos, and sin, together. 

God doesn’t say when those shouts of joy will come out of our hearts, he just promises that he is with us and that the shouts will come. I think this psalm might be showing us a path where both our laughing and our weeping can be contrasting circumstances to know the loving arms and heart of God. The song below, sung by Emma Bukovietski and Kuni Hotta, captures this so well… 

My Goal Is God Himself  
by Francis Brook, music by Mark Giacobbe

My goal is God Himself, not joy, nor peace,
Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God;
’Tis His to lead me there—not mine, but His—
At any cost, dear Lord, by any road.

So faith bounds forward to its goal in God,
And love can trust her Lord to lead her there;
Upheld by Him, my soul is following hard
Till God hath full fulfilled my deepest prayer.

No matter if the way be sometimes dark,
No matter though the cost be oft-times great,
He knoweth how I best shall reach the mark,
The way that leads to Him, it must be straight.

One thing I know, that “no” I cannot say;
One thing I do, I press towards my Lord;
My God my glory here, from day to day,
And in the glory there my great reward.

Photo by Tom Barrett on Unsplash

A Treat for the Road

When our kids were younger, it was often difficult to get them in the car to leave when they were doing something fun. Depending on the day and other factors like hunger, tiredness, their mood, my mood, barometric pressure, I don't know, it could be a frustrating process. One day my sister, who is a second grade teacher, announced in a singsong voice, "Who wants a treat for the road?" Well, that was a game changer. A piece of gum or mini tube of yogurt administered at the door or once buckled into their car seats often aided in a smoother transition.

This week our church devotional included some of the Psalms of Ascents. Songs for the road. I love the image of travellers singing these words to remind each other and themselves of who God is. I think about the journeying we have done this week. Maybe it included a road trip or a day at the beach. Others may have had to step into a tense meeting at work. Maybe your steps are limited or painful and you are not able to go where you would like. 

For me, often a song of ascent is something breathed out in a stairwell at work. 

I lift my eyes up (to what? the mountains, society, my own smarts?)
My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth (oh yeah...)
Psalm 121:2

Let's keep singing and saying these songs to each other as we travel, brothers and sisters. I know that I need reminding that God's word is like honey (Ps 119:103)

How sweet is that?

Photo by laura adai on Unsplash

Believe

I want to take you back, not too long ago, to a couple year window in which several examples of belief took center stage. 

In the spring of 2007, the Golden State Warriors began their playoff run as the lowest seed in the NBA playoffs, and quickly proceeded to dismantle the top-seeded Dallas Mavericks, earning the nickname of the “#WeBelieve Warriors.”

Not too long after the Warriors run, former President Barack Obama began his presidential campaign with the slogan “Change We Can Believe In.”

Then, on the heels of President Obama’s presidential victory, arenas and venues across the country were brimming with throngs of “Beliebers,” all gathered to experience the rush of seeing then teen-wonder Justin Bieber perform live.

In each of these instances, we observe a sense of hopefulness centered around a person, team, or idea. Unfortunately, each of these cases (all of which generated a great deal of excitement in one form or another) were hampered and impacted by significant flaws.

The “WeBelieve Warriors” lost in the next round of the playoffs to the Utah Jazz, winning only one game out of the five played.

The “Change We Can Believe In” slogan may have applied to some areas of President Obama’s time in office, but other areas didn’t see as much change as voters would have liked. 

The “Beliebers” also were let down just a few years later when Justin made questionable decision after questionable decision, as most teens would if put in his situation, and put his career/legacy in question.

But should we really be surprised by any of these results? Probably not. Sin has a tight grip on everything we come into contact with in this world: our politics, our idols, and even our favorite sports teams. There’s only one person throughout history that has been able to successfully evade the clutch of sin, Jesus, our Savior.

The same person that David is praising in Psalm 116 verse 10, “I believed, even when I spoke: “I am greatly afflicted”; and in Psalm 117, "Praise the LORD, all nations! Extol him, all peoples! For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD!"

The LORD is and will continue to be the one and only person deserving of our belief. Even, as David notes, when we are afflicted we still have reason to believe. And, as David points out earlier in Psalm 116:5-7, "Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; our God is merciful. The LORD preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me. Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you."

I pray and trust that these words will encourage you just as much as they have me, to know that we have a God who is so worthy of our belief and so willing to meet us where we are as we grow in that same belief.